Overcoming Hurdles

Holding off self-doubt is exhausting and can leave you feel full of inertia. Allowing negativity and poisonous judgement seep into your consiouness triggers deep-seated fears.

We all have an inner voice sitting on our shoulder, distracting our attention away from what is good and happy and joyful. It’s so easy to listen, even though we know the whispers are personal fears voicing our insecurity, and it’s so hard to tune those harmful messages down.

I don’t think I’ve met a single person that doesn’t talk themselves down at some point or other. Most of the time, we’re able to tut and shake our head, dismissing our self-doubt as adrenaline fuelled excitement at the start of an important shoot.

Take the photographs below. I was all of a judder, beyond excited to work with Lulu (an internationally published model hired by the wonderful Studio 2 in Ryde for our model days). Arriving too early, I first had the lonely drive home mournful that I’d got the wrong day. 24 hours later, I was so focused and driven during the shoot, I left saying ‘goodbye’ to Lulu only to discover I’d miss-timed the session and finished a full fifteen minutes early. And I’m still looking for the lost lens cap and suspect it might be in the bottom of the model’s suitcase somehow.

During all my mistakes, I simply smiled and laughed at my silliness. Working with Lulu was so important to me that I mentally shrugged off my insecurities and reframed my thinking. Just because self-doubt seeks to erode my confidence doesn’t mean I have to listen. Trusting my instincts, sticking to my shoot plan and drawing inspiration from Lulu’s intelligence, creativity and sensibility I adored my time in the studio.

Self-doubt is a permanent part of my personality, but it doesn’t always have to BE my life. I choose to act on my dreams and goals, in fact I was determined to be the most experimental ever in the most important shoot of the autumn.

You are much more than your insecurities and you deserve to treat yourself with kindness. Get in touch if this resonates with you, I’d love to work with you.

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 Amanda Herbert | Isle of Wight
Email: [email protected]