I Listened to Sheryl Sandberg and I Still Lost All My Confidence — elle.com

It was in July that I lost it. I can actually pinpoint my confidence-shattering breaking point: I handed in an essay I was quite pleased with and then I waited to hear back from my editor. It was crickets, and then critiques…at first normal amounts, and then the kind that made me think, was it that bad? Am I a shitty writer and my editor is finally figuring it out?” Taking edits is part of my job. I know this. But for whatever reason, revising that essay over and over again was the last straw, and recently, the self-doubt has become acute. During pitch meetings, I’m seated around a table of women who I’m sure are smarter than I am. ‘When will they discover I’m not supposed to be here?’ I often ask myself, ‘Do they already know?’ At age 27, I’m having a crisis of confidence.

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