At the risk of sounding big headed...

Is it me, or does everybody doubt themselves?

For around the first 12 years of my life, life itself was a doddle. At age 4 I knew how to spell 'swimming', by year 4 I was reading books to the year 6's and in year 6 I got the highest marks in my SATS.

It eventually got to the point where I started to wonder when I was going to hit the brick wall, and find myself struggling. Year 7 I was pretty much the same; I could do it all. But it was soon after starting secondary school that I realised something, and it's a motto I still hold on to today despite my friends still laughing in my face every time I recite it:

"It's all about self satisfaction, not scraping through the pass mark. You only get out what you put in."

And I spent a lot of my time at secondary school being named a 'keen bean' or a 'swat' because my work was always done on time, to my best ability. I still can't see what was wrong with wanting to do well? My parents used to tell me to ask them who'd be laughing when they were sweeping the streets in ten years and I was in a high-end job. But I never had the guts. I just took the crap and soldiered on.

By the time it got to GCSE's I realised this wasn't something I could blag my way through, like the rest of my  academic career so far. So I had to work. Work hard. I also had to realise that getting 100% wasn't always viable and this was the toughest thing to accept.

A Levels and University have turned out pretty much the same. I have to work to get what I want. But I often doubt myself. Especially today, I had to ask myself if this was something I really wanted to do, because it isn't easy. Sitting in the radio studio, where I go once a week to record my show, I found myself feeling uncomfortable. I was on my second link, yet I'd tried to record it about 14 times. And the words weren't coming out of my mouth like they needed to. My head wasn't clear and my voice was everywhere. Each sentence sounded as if it had been scripted by a 4 year old. It was a horrible feeling but I had to push past it and finish recording my show. It's probably the worst yet. But I'll only get better in time.

Was that just another brick wall I pushed down?

Maybe this is me in the next level of the game... Life.