August Mantra: Be Not Afraid of Greatness
On not letting self doubt get in the way of reaching for achievement
Quick Notes:
I am running a brand new online, half day narrative non fiction workshop on the body in the landscape. Finding Your Self in the Landscape will run on Saturday 27th September 2025 1-3pm UK time.
Full details and booking link here: Eventbrite
Summer at Notes from the Margin
My memoir, The Ghost Lake
My poetry collection, Blackbird Singing at Dusk
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
— TWELFTH NIGHT, ACT 2 SCENE 5, LINES 139-41; MALVOLIO
In the month that I begin my Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship, it feels right to use a quote from the man himself.
The truth is, I am a chronic self doubter. There is no fixing it. It is part of the strangeness of my brain. The only way of living with it is noticing it, embracing it, and doing the thing anyway.
A few weeks ago I spoke to a mentee about what was blocking their work, why they couldn’t get further on with their writing. They’d had a series of rejections, one after the other, and were doubling the validity of their work. This is something I recognise in myself. I go through periods of feeling like I might have fluked my entire career, that every time someone has validated my work it is because they either felt sorry for me or had made a mistake. Sometimes I imagine that the mistake they made is my fault, because I have given the impression that I am intelligent and competent and talented when I am very clearly not. It is like I have an entire other person inside me that is always telling me how shit I am, and I am never quite sure if they are telling the truth.
Validity has two sides - if you base the validity of your work on an exterior perspective you are wholly validated when your work is chosen. But what if you are not chosen? Because someone has to not be chosen in order for someone else to be chosen. Does that mean that all those other applications or submissions are not valid, have no value? Does that mean your work has no value, is not valid. This is crazy talk. However, it’s really easy to say to people you must not listen to the negative voice, and very hard to do the not listening, because if you are embedded with self doubt from other, non literary areas - your home life, your life experiences etc - you will always sit on the fence over whether you actually deserve the things you achieve or not.
I never quite feel confident in telling writers that they are definitely going to make it, they are definitely going to get the book deal or win the big competition or be awarded the beautiful big grant that would make everything easier. Because some people won’t. Some writers won’t.
But what I do know is that there is a simple logic to applying and submitting regardless. That the more you put yourself out there the greater your chances, and the very simple, solid fact: every person with a book deal, or a competition win, or a fellowship or other writerly achievement - they didn’t stop. They didn’t give up.
I find that I need to work alongside the doubting voice, not suppressing it, not squashing it down, but just accepting that it’s probably, on balance of probability, not correct. In fact that part of me is also valid, that voice didn’t come from nowhere, it came from experience, it is a voice that is trying to protect me from humiliation and embarrassment. That ice is trying to be my friend. That voice is trying to be your friend. But life is not static, we are all growing and if you are submitting your work, aiming for growth and development and achievement is part of that, you’ve moved far enough away from that protective voice to have it not be as relevant anymore. I tell myself I have shed the skin of the life that that voice belonged to, but that voice is a part of the body doing the shedding, it can’t be shed itself. It can only be acknowledged. Voice, I acknowledge you. I thank you for trying to protect me, but I’m not going to stop because of you. I don’t lose anything from keeping going. Tenacity is my strong point. It is more important to be tenacious than it is to have a thick skin.
So far in my Folger Fellowship I have been deep diving the archives and attending seminars and meetings where I inevitably feel like a sore thumb. Most of my colleagues are American, a lot of them are academics. but Oh, the joy of hearing all the projects, the mental stimulation of being around people who are striving to explore so many different perspectives. It is the most creatively nourishing thing I have been involved with. the more I interact, the quieter the self doubt voice is, which tells me that this is a good fit. The confidence in the project is coming not from the validation of the achievement, but from the quality of the work; my work, other fellows work. It’s quite an astounding thing.
And so this is what I am carrying with me into August, and beyond. I will not fear an opportunity that may lead to greatness. I will not let the negative self talk put the fear in me. I will not let the fear not deserving greatness, stop me from reaching for greatness.
Be not afraid of greatness.
I hope you can carry it to.
Until next time
x
