I face self-doubt…often.
Sometimes it happens so many times in a day I lose count.
It’s an unavoidable experience in life. Ultimately, you’re relying on yourself to remain disciplined, adapt to situations, and figure out how to stick to behaviors that produce desired results.
It might sound simple in theory, but it’s not easy in practice.
Each person has an area in life where they tend to doubt themselves.
Are you confused about your job…or maybe a relationship that you feel trapped in…or how to “be yourself” when you are around others?
We’ve all been there.
On one hand self-doubt is really challenging. As you’re probably aware, going down that rabbit hole can lead to a feeling as if there is now way out of it.
Self-doubt can trigger the amygdala in the brain. The amygdala is partly responsible for emotional memories and when self-doubt hits old feelings of insecurity, fragility, fear and a loss of control can flood your system.
Without a clear way to move through it quickly, you can get stuck in it for hours, days, weeks, months, or even years.
But I learned an important lesson about self-doubt a while ago…with the right techniques it’s possible to break through self-doubt within minutes.
Whenever I allowed self-doubt to rule the show in my life, I had to wait way too long to get what I wanted.
I literally had years in my life where I knew there was more that I could do, but was afraid that I would never accomplish it.
So, here’s how I now overcome self-doubt in a matter of minutes:
- Self-doubt is normal. Self-doubt is going to happen. It’s what you do with it that matters most. Most people get stuck in the shame of self-doubt, because they think most people don’t experience it. The next time you are doubting yourself remember everyone experiences it, and there are ways to move through it quickly.
- Ask yourself the question, “what’s truly most important to me right now?” Doubt will sabotage you fulfilling your potential, but only if you let it. However, when doubt creeps in it can actually help you reach your potential if you turn it against itself. Use doubt as a reminder to ask yourself, “what is truly the most important thing to me?” Asking this question will help you remember who you are.
- Take action. Once you’ve done steps one and two take action. If it’s during the work day, simply go back to work. If you are at home with your children, return to parenting with presence. Pick the next task that will most likely give you the results you want.
- Don’t create a fantasy that you will always be confident. Many people swing into an inflated sense of self and a deflated sense of self, because of the fantasy that they will one day always be confident. This creates a fragmented experience of the world. Acknowledge you will feel confident and you will feel doubt. But you need to know what to do when doubt arrives. Not pushing doubt away, but rather using it against itself puts you in charge.
- Choose what areas in life you want to master and develop a plan. I’ve found that the more I create strategies on how to tackle areas of my life that are difficult, the higher likelihood I’m going to get what I want.