STREET DOGS

Extracts from Jennifer Lee’s commencement speech at New Hampshire University (2014):

People talk about the dangers of rose-coloured glasses, but let me tell you, the lenses of self-doubt are far worse. They are nasty … Thick and filthy. They’re covered in swamp scum and mould

— there’s like a family of snails living on them. And they’re nearly impossible to see past.

In film school, the first thing you study is character. And you learn that insecure characters, characters that don’t think much of themselves, are not very interesting, they aren’t inspirational or hopeful and no one wants to watch them.

And if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that self-doubt is one of the most destructive forces. It makes you defensive instead of open, reactive instead of active. Selfdoubt is consuming and cruel, and my hope is that today we can all collectively agree to ban it.

Think to the moments in your life when you forgot to doubt yourself. When you were so inspired that you were just living and creating and working.

When you are free from selfdoubt, you fail better; because you don’t have your defences up, you can accept the criticism. You don’t become so preoccupied with that failure that you forget how to learn from it, that you forget how to grow. When you believe in yourself, you succeed better. Hours spent questioning, doubting, fearing, can be given over to working, exploring, living.

You will still fail a lot. In fact, people will say to your face, “that is not good enough”. But just don’t make it about yourself. If you can learn to not take it personally, you will be able to listen to the constructive criticism and find it inspiring. And it might motivate you and show you that you are capable of far more than you ever imagined.