One of my favorite scenes from Frieren is from episode 6, when Stark confronts his fear of slaying a dragon and does so with ease. The show stages an emotional roller coaster that leads into such a rewarding climax that I actively choose to rewatch that scene in both subbed and dubbed versions time and time again whenever I need to juice some self motivation.
Stark is the protege of Eisen, one of the 4 heros of the legendary hero party. That alone places quite a tall expectation on his shoulders. With that being said, after Frieren goes to seek Stark out and recruit him for her next journey, she and Fern find that Stark is just a coward held captive in a village being held hostage by a dragon. In typical "weak but actually strong" cliche, Fern finds that even though his first impression was as lackluster as could be, his true strength was that of someone who was cutting an entire mountain in half by himself solely for the sake of training. There wasn't any intent to hide true strength, but rather Stark really did perceive himself as weak, drawing from his traumas of a father who saw nothing but weakness in him and survivors guilt from when he ran away from his village being attacked by demons. This internal feeling of weakness mixed with guilt spawned at a young age and festered for many years until he got to where he was today. In a flashback, Eisen admits to Frieren that the two parted in anger during training after he instinctively hit Stark, not as a reaction to a shortcoming in training but out of impulsive fear and reaction to Stark's innate power. This theme of others recognizing talent that he himself can't see continues to build throughout the episodes leading up to the climax, whether it be the villagers who feel indebted to him for defending the village from the dragon, or Fern witnessing his true physical strength, or the dragon itself actively choosing not to attack as recognition of how powerful Stark is.
After a lot of back and forth, Stark agrees to fight the dragon under the pretense that he would likely die or be seriously injured after his attempt, requiring assistance from Frieren to actually finish the dragon off. Stark isn't the suicidal type here, but this stalemate of being held up in the village and seeing the villagers who view him so highly under constant stress of the dragon outside compelled him to give in to Frieren's request to defeat the dragon so she can get the grimoire it's guarding. A notable cut-in right before the fight begins talks about how Stark's hand shakes in the same way his master shook when confronting a powerful foe, with Eisen citing that while he was fearful of his opponent, he accepts his fear for what it is and views it as a device for progress. The fight begins and ends in under two minutes, with the dragon dead far before Stark realizes or accepts it.
This scene speaks volumes to my own experiences, which is ironic because throughout my life I've been plagued by both ego problems and issues of self doubt. Focusing on the self doubt side for a moment, I've found that every challenge I've been confronted with is one where, for the moments leading up to the challenge, I feel nothing but absolute dread for myself. I constantly funnel into the different possibilities of how a fraud like myself ended up in a position of challenge like this and similar to how "you drive in the direction you're looking," I end up eating dirt 90% of the time as a result. This negative feedback loop of "I can't do it because I shouldn't be here" leading into "I shouldn't be here because I couldn't do it" is one I've been running away from for most of my life since my middle school years. Each time I think I've successfully grown out of it, a challenge arises that sends me straight back to where I started. It scares me. I'm filled with nothing but fear about what the future holds because as time goes on and the challenges that arise become harder, the safety net shrinks and my ability to step up to the plate really gets tested.
Today I'm internalizing some of the worst stresses of my life. Although the safety net is fairly large in this challenge, this is one of the many times where I've internalized a do or die mentality. The silver lining is that I'm surrounding by many of my wonderful friends and family who try and echo and testify to my strengths. To choose not to believe them would be a disservice to them, so I continue to move forward for their sake and for my own. Failure here scares me, more so than ever before, but even though I've failed many a times there are equally as many times where I just happened to succeed, and that's the only reason I am where I am today. I'll even put in writing that there is a good chance I'll fail and feel awful for several weeks on end, but I choose to trust in everyone behind me, I choose to trust in the fear that got me here, and I choose to trust in the time and energy I'm devoting because I can't afford to have it go to waste.