Skills, Bills and What Have You

I have a tendency to doubt myself.

I don't know if it's the ADHD or the depression/anxiety but sometimes I underestimate my skills and abilities. Because of this, I tend to self-reject myself from a lot of things, but every so often I think to myself "fuck it, what's the worst that could happen" and the result is surprisingly positive.

This month, I'm working on a charity stream for Black History Month. The folks over at Apocunlimited put it together to raise money for Black Girls Rock (you can donate too if you go to this link right here). It's been going great, not only am I going to be GMing a game on 2/28, but while things were getting set up I volunteered to be a producer for some of the other games (Goose Chase | Corner Shop).

It's been fun, but I have to stop and admit to myself that these fun things that I have been able to do, has been because I actually said "yes, I'll do the thing."

I initially wasn't going to sign up for anything at all. Again, underestimating myself made me think that I wouldn't be able to do any of it, but JP actually convinced me to sign up as a GM. I've GM'd for Reclaimers a few times before, but that's easier because it's with friends so it feels more like a fun home game and less like a performance. Plus, since it's on Nerdgasm Noire's twitch channel, if I mess up I don't have to worry, because I'm the boss anyway. However GMing for people I'm not close with, and performing for strangers for someone else's show is a little different, and the perfectionist in me thinks that any and every fuck up will be the end of the world.

But I know how to GM. And I know how to stream, I've streamed to Twitch a bunch of times for fun while playing video games with friends. And anything I didn't know, the folks running the charity stream made sure I could learn. And hell, even the things that I didn't really know if I should ask at first I was able to figure out with my own research, and the shows I produced came out great. And the one hiccup I did have was easily fixed.

So maybe I need to recalibrate. I don't think I'll ever be able to accurately gauge whether or not I'm good at a thing, but I think that I need to get back to being comfortable being uncomfortable and trusting the fact that I have knowledge of some things and can learn others. And if I fail, then I learned something else. And isn't that the point?