You Don’t Need Confidence to Start

Hi there,

The night I sent the first issue of this newsletter, I did something ridiculous.

I hit “send,” closed my laptop, and walked around my apartment in total silence. Just me, pacing like someone had just confessed a secret and didn’t know what to do next.

Because that’s exactly how it felt.

After five years of thinking about writing publicly, of planning, second-guessing, and waiting to feel “ready”, I’d finally done the thing. And I didn’t feel proud. I didn’t feel brave.

I felt exposed.

What I thought would happen

Somewhere in my head, I believed that once I published the first issue, I’d be transformed. I imagined confidence showing up.

But nothing arrived.

Just silence. And the same old lingering doubts and questions:

• Was that good enough?

• Will anyone care?

• Should I have waited a little longer?

This is what no one tells you: confidence doesn’t meet you at the beginning.

What I’ve learned after 52 issues

Confidence is not a prerequisite to start living your life or acting on your dreams.

Confidence is in the shadow that follows you, but only once you start moving.

For a long time, I believed I had to feel confident in order to begin. That I needed to believe in my voice before I used it. That self-trust had to precede risk.

But over the past year, writing this newsletter every week, through doubt, distraction, impostor syndrome, and feedback silence, I’ve learned that belief isn’t something you wait for.

Belief is something you build along the way.

If you’re waiting, I get it

Maybe you’ve been circling something too: an idea, a shift, a leap, a decision that would ask more of you than you feel ready to give.

And maybe you’ve told yourself you just need more clarity. More time. More research or planning. Or proof that this will work.

But here’s the truth I wish I had accepted sooner: You will not feel ready. Not in the way you want.

Clarity isn’t the starting line. It’s the side effect of forward motion.

Final Thought

We talk a lot about beginnings. And we obsess over endings. But what about the middle?

The middle is where most people quit. Not because they’re doing something wrong, but because they think they’re supposed to feel more sure by now.

That’s what almost stopped me, over and over again. But I kept sending.

Not because I felt fearless. But because I learned to stop expecting the doubts and fear to disappear.

That’s when something shifted.

It wasn’t louder confidence. It was quieter resistance. It was a sturdiness I didn’t have before. A self-respect that came not from what I published, but from the act of refusing to give in to doubt.

And it made every moment worthwhile when you wrote back and said, “This one got me.” That’s when it became real.

Thank you for every comment, every reply, every poll, every quiet moment you opened an issue and felt less alone.

You’re the reason this leap didn’t happen just once, it happened 52 times.

See you in issue 53,

Shakila

P.S. Here’s the results of last week’s poll.