[young_unixer]

Funny. I'm on a personal journey to reduce self-doubt.

Maybe there's a time and place for self-doubt, and some people certainly lack it severely, but my extreme levels of self-doubt have always stopped me from trying things and now I realize how much it has cost me.

Maybe instead of "self doubt vs no self doubt" the questions should be:

- Is my project in the 95th percentile, or higher, compared to all projects in this given context?

- Is my project in the 70th percentile or higher, compared to all successful projects in this given context?

- Am I in the 95th percentile or higher, compared to all people in this given context?

For me, it's much easier to answer "Yes" to these questions (and the answer is usually "Yes") than to answer "Yes" to an ambiguous "Is the project going to succeed?" or "Am I going to succeed?"

Some may find this contradictory: If you think that you're above the 95th percentile, then how do you have self-doubt at the same time?

Self-doubt is not always logical. For me, self-doubt is more psychological than rational. I think I'll do a better job than most people, but I still think I'm going to fail, even when I see less capable people succeed.