Whether it’s writing an email, producing a slide deck, sending a text, coding or writing a blog post… there’s always that niggling feeling… does it make sense… did I make a mistake…?
No matter what it is that I do… I always second-guess myself. When I’m writing I’m always thinking 2 or 3 words ahead… it makes sense as I’m writing it down… but when I read it back it’s littered with mistakes. Missed words… double words… half a sentence followed by a completely different half a sentence…
It’s almost like my brain is 2 steps ahead of everything else…
The problem is I know this is the case… so I end up re-reading what I’ve written… then re-reading it again. Once I’ve sent that email or text, I end up going back to it… did it make sense… is the tone right… are they going to understand the key points I’m trying to get across…
Even worse, I spot I made a mistake… do I recall the message… do I edit that text. If I edit it… they’ll see that I made a mistake… does that matter…?
All these random thoughts flying through my mind… the increased stress levels… and all that for what… a “sounds good”… or a thumbs up emoji…