It was a bright summer morning, and I was feeling quite confident as I walked into my office.
I had been working on a strenuous problem for weeks and after countless long and tedious hours of research and analysis, I thought I had had the solution. I felt like Hercule Poirot who had finally cracked the case of the murder on the orient express.
I sat down at my desk, the unwashed stained coffee mug glared at me from the corner of the table. It demanded to be cleaned; the 2 day old colombian coffee had cooled and had left a dried up stain which had dripped onto the rough acacia wood.
I fired up my computer, and began to write up my proposal.
I was so excited that I could barely type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. I had found the missing piece of the puzzle, and I was convinced that my solution was foolproof.
But as I worked, doubts began to creep in.
What if I had overlooked something? What if my solution was too simplistic, or worse, flawed? What if all those Saturday nights that I didn't go out with my friends, all those family dinners I had missed and all the times I preferred to work instead of playing with my little brother, what if it had been all for nothing.
I paused for a moment and took a deep breath. I reminded myself of all the hard work and research that had led me to this point. I was confident in my abilities and the quality of my work.
I continued typing, but the doubts lingered. I kept second-guessing myself, checking and rechecking my calculations. I was so focused on my work that I didn't even notice when my colleague, Sarah, walked into the room.
"Hey, what's up?" she asked, taking a seat beside me.
"I thought I had the solution," I replied, a hint of frustration in my voice.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "I just keep doubting myself. It's like the more I work on it, the more unsure I become."
Sarah listened patiently, then leaned in and said, "Sometimes, we have to trust ourselves. We have to believe that we have the skills and the knowledge to find the right answers. We just have to believe in ourselves because if we don’t we never will."
Her words resonated with me, and I felt a renewed sense of confidence. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and then reopened them. When I looked at my computer screen again, my solution seemed to make perfect sense. It felt like my heart was finally beating again, it sounded like a train leaving its station. I had been trapped in a deep pitch black tunnel but Sarah's words were my guiding light.
I made a few final tweaks, saved my proposal, and hit the button “Send”.
As I leaned back in my chair and exhaled in relief, I realized that Sarah was right.
Sometimes, all we need is a little reminder that we're capable of finding the answers we seek.