3 Ways to Change Self Doubt

You need to hear this first.

EVERYONE HAS SELF DOUBT.

Every single person on the planet; no matter their income, ethnicity, or religion.

I know realizing that is helping me with my goals. I found this out recently while sitting at a retreat full of amazing women I look up to for their confidence and business success. We all shared a common worry about our upcoming big goals. It was a version of this,”I’m not good enough.”

The difference with women that achieve their goals in life is how they deal with that self doubt, so they can do the thing anyway.

By our age, we have many reasons for the self doubt and sometimes it can take more work if it’s deep seated. If there was trauma involved, I highly encourage you to reach out to professionals to help you. But for many, it’s a naturally occurrence of our brains trying to protect us from the unknown.

Self doubt is going to happen. If you are pushing yourself to grow, it’s going to consistently happen with each new goal or experience you decide to try. I know that sounds yucky, but as you recognize it you will be able to work through it quicker. When you feel it happening, use these three ideas.

Look for the positives.

If you’ve become used to thinking negatively about a new experience or an exciting new opportunity, turn this around and start to think positively. Next time you’re told at work that you’re being sent to a new location to speak with a difficult client, embrace it and appreciate that you’re being trusted by your employers!

Not everything will go exactly as you plan when you try something new. Take a look at what good stuff is coming about as you adapt your plan. Is it maybe morphing into a completely new goal and you are fighting it because you feel you have to stay on track with the first goal only?

There’s always a positive side if you look close enough, and sometimes you don’t even need to look that much closer.

Listen to my podcast episode Daily Gratitude Creates Bold Life Changes

Stop judging yourself

Easier said than done am I right?

We can all have the tendency to judge ourselves a little bit too harshly, whether this is over our appearance, our talents, our skills, our experience or our performance. An easy way to figure out if you are judging yourself too harshly is to think back to the last compliment you received. What did you say when you were given that complement?

If you are like many women you said, thank you and then went into a reason (or twelve) why you weren’t perfect. This is your moment to realize how you judge yourself. This moment right there. Once you learn to take compliments and truly take them gratefully in, you will start recognizing the self judgments and move past the judging quicker.

In order to diminish your self doubt, you need to stop judging yourself and think about the positive things that there are about you. If you can’t think of any, ask your friends and family as they will definitely be able to each give you one positive thing to focus on. You can then start to write a list, as well as concentrating on some of the way you can build your self-esteem and self-awareness.

Understand why you have negative beliefs

This can be a whole new ball of wax for some because it’s different for each person. Understanding why you have negative beliefs can help you disprove them and start thinking more positively. If you realize that the reason you have so much self doubt is because of a bad experience you had when you were a child, you can start to shake this off and realize that you wouldn’t believe these things were it not for your bad experience.

Consider why that negative belief exists. Who told you that belief? Would you believe anything they say now? Do you even have that person in your life anymore? And a big one, why are you giving them the power to control your thoughts still?

I’m definitely not telling you this last step will be easy. Hell, none of the steps are easy. If they were easy they wouldn’t be an issue for us. But once you start making changes in the way you think about yourself you will see the steps as being more simple. While you will never eliminate self doubt, you will recognize it, embrace the fact it means you are human, and put steps in action to move on past it.

Live Boldly,