Overcoming Self Doubt Part 1

One of the hardest things that some people ever do is transform themselves from a person full of self-doubt to a self-assured person that believes in themselves. But, the truth is that no matter where they are in life right now, no matter how many mistakes they’ve made, opportunities they’ve passed up, or what’s happened to them in life, they can overcome their self-doubt and start believing in themselves.

Transcript

One of the hardest things that some people ever do is transform themselves from a person full of self-doubt to a self-assured person that believes in themselves.

But the truth is that no matter where you are in life right now,

No matter how many mistakes you've made,

Opportunities you've passed up,

Or what's happened in your life,

You can overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself again.

This is true even if you've had a poor upbringing and even if you've never believed in yourself before.

It's within your power and it will change your life completely.

So what is self-doubt?

The dictionary defines self-doubt as the lack of confidence in one's self and one's abilities.

This is a very good definition,

But it doesn't fully demonstrate the problems caused by self-doubt and not believing in yourself.

Think about these questions and write them down if you like.

What are the dangers of self-doubt?

How does self-doubt affect your life?

Where does self-doubt come from?

And most importantly,

How do you overcome it?

Everyone has different issues,

Reasons for their self-doubt,

And problems in their life.

You're a unique person and there is no one size fits all answer.

So there are many dangers inherent in the hanging on to self-doubt that you should be aware of.

If you suffer from self-doubt,

It's important to understand the type of damage you're doing to yourself if you continue to hang on to it.

It has affected your past.

It's currently affecting your present and can devastate your future if you don't deal with it.

And here's why.

Self-doubt damages motivation.

When you don't think you can do much and don't trust yourself to do something right,

Fear can get in the way of doing anything.

This can turn into a severe lack of motivation to do more than you have to just get by.

It can affect your entire life because you may have fewer satisfying relationships,

A job you hate,

And just not enjoy life much.

Self-doubt also causes procrastination.

If you don't think you know how to do things right,

Then you may end up thinking you're a perfectionist,

Which is just a way to procrastinate and never finish anything or finish it at the last minute.

This is how you set yourself up for failure.

No one is perfect and perfection is not necessary to thrive in this life.

Self-doubt leads to regrets.

When you miss opportunities,

You will experience regret.

Regret when left unresolved can lead to chronic stress and anxiety.

This will then build upon itself to create even more self-doubt,

Which will create more regret and so on.

It's a never-ending cycle.

Self-doubt causes defeatism.

If you allow self-doubt to continue,

You can start to become utmost morbid in most of your beliefs that you cannot experience anything good or happy.

So it's essential that you accept yourself and get rid of the self-doubt because really you're just accepting failure if you continue.

Self-doubt also stunts self-improvement.

When you have no faith in yourself,

It's hard to even think about self-improvement.

You think you have too much to improve because you can't do anything.

And maybe you even think you're a victim of your circumstances to a point that you can't achieve anything even if you try.

Self-doubt stifles inspiration.

When you don't believe in yourself,

It's hard to get inspired to do anything new or to create anything new.

Ending the self-doubt will bring out the creativity you already have.

And trust me,

It's something that you want to regain back.

So how do you identify where your self-doubt lies?

This part can be really hard for a lot of people,

Whether it's pinpointing the exact reasons why or coming to terms and accepting them.

Knowing how you develop self-doubt can sometimes help lead to recovering from that condition.

You can build self-esteem by getting to the bottom of how it happened.

Some people did have self-esteem at one point and then lost it.

Some never had it in the first place.

No matter how you determine what causes your self-doubt,

You'll be able to overcome it.

It doesn't matter if it's something that developed over time or something you learned in childhood.

You can work towards building your belief in yourself so that you can eventually overcome self-doubt.

So let's start with the limiting beliefs learned in childhood.

Unfortunately,

Many people learn to put off their dreams and limit their ideas due to well-meaning parents,

Or sometimes they're not so well-meaning,

But that's a different story.

Parents who are also stuck in their own self-doubting lives and cannot ever envision anything different.

This happens a lot in communities where people are often born in low-income areas and end up lacking experiences and education to see beyond their own lives to the possibilities that are outside of their own world.

It's not usually the fact that parents want to keep their kids from dreaming.

They're just trying to be realistic.

And when their child tells them about their big dream to travel the world and become a writer,

They react in fear and make statements that may statistically be true,

But it also limits their child.

For example,

They might discourage their child from becoming a writer by telling them that no one makes money writing,

Or they might discourage their child from becoming anything that is above what they're used to due to the fear of cost or the fear that their child might really can't do it even if they try.

But this is only due to their own lack of success and understanding of life.

But this can rub off on kids.

That's why statistically most people do not break out of the class they were born into.

The exciting thing to remember though,

Is that some people do and the reason they do is they were able to see and envision the possibilities and then take action to see it through.

So past relationships or past experiences from bad relationships.

If you used to have a good self image and didn't suffer from much self doubt,

But then suddenly over time started to develop self doubt.

It's possible that you allowed your past experiences and bad relationships to get into your head and create the self doubting experience.

It can be a parent relationship,

A friendship,

A love interest,

A spouse,

Or even a child who is dragging you down and creating self doubt in your life.

These relationships are sometimes defined as toxic relationships.

Unfortunately a toxic relationship can involve any type of relationship,

Both relatives and non relatives.

If you've been in relationships where a person criticizes and cuts down your ideas and tell you that it's impossible,

Or tells you about all the things that can go wrong,

Or is even abusive to you about your ideas,

You may have learned your self doubt from past relationships.

If you are still in any of those relationships,

It may be time to end it.

If you cannot explain to the person that you are,

What you are going to do,

You're going to do regardless of their opinion due to the fear of abuse.

So next we have bad work experiences and environments.

At some point in your life,

And we've all been there,

If you've had a job of any kind that turned into a bad experience,

Especially if it started with your first job,

This can stunt you for a lifetime if you let it.

Sadly,

Many people,

Especially those who take service oriented jobs or lower paying jobs,

End up with bad experiences.

Even some people who have higher paying jobs can allow criticism to affect them so badly that they develop a fear of failure,

Which causes them to not take risk.

This in turn ends up causing them to get bad job reviews.

Then after a bad job review,

The person may react badly to that and end up even more stuck than before.

As you can see,

This path can end up affecting the person badly at the time and in their future if they're unable to understand that sometimes things happen to good people.

They can't accept that they're a good person and a bad thing happened to them,

Or they can't learn from their mistakes and realize that they can do better next time.

This is a dangerous pattern that can grow and become more than it should if we don't watch out.

Next lack of life experiences.

Sometimes a person can suffer from self-doubt simply due to a lack of experience.

If you were overly sheltered in childhood,

Were sick,

Or had issues that caused you to not have a lot of experiences in life,

That can turn into fear,

Anxiety,

And even other problems such as agoraphobia that prevent you from stepping out of your comfort zone.

If you have no successful experiences to look back on,

It can be hard to imagine success.

If you have only experienced failure,

It can be doubly hard to envision success later on.

Whatever the reasons for these experiences,

Overprotective parents,

An illness,

Undiagnosed mental illness,

Being super shy,

Whatever is causing it needs to be addressed so that you can start experiencing small successes and know what life feels like.

If you don't know what that feels like,

It's going to be hard to move forward.

So next up is your zip code.

This can be hard for some people to accept,

But where you were born makes a huge difference in how you view the world in your own place and potential in it.

If you're born on third base,

You can still experience self-doubt if you have controlling parents who only see one way that you can have success,

Such as following the family business when you don't want to.

But most of the time,

It's because you were born either in the place without a lot of opportunities or you were born to parents who,

While loving,

Are poor.

The sad fact is that most people do not escape the situation they were born in today,

But that doesn't mean you can't.

It just means that due to the lack of vision,

Most people only know what's inside their own small portion of the world and don't have their eyes open to the possibilities of what's out there for them.

Just by listening to this,

No matter what your situation is,

You're getting your eyes open to the possibilities in the world to escape your circumstances and make the most of your life in the way that makes you thrive.

That's a great thing and can make a huge difference.

Undiagnosed anxiety.

Anxiety can actually be a symptom of self-doubt,

But it goes in a circle.

Self-doubt can cause anxiety,

And if you can find a way to address the anxiety,

You may be able to lessen the effects of your self-doubt.

Many people who have anxiety can describe it as a bad feeling of a million butterflies in their stomachs whenever they think of doing something that makes them uncomfortable.

Often this feeling is so bad that the person suffers from panic attacks,

Which can be debilitating.

Some people don't get the panic attacks,

But they don't experience beyond the feeling of butterflies that they experience as unpleasant.

There is a theory that adrenaline junkies see the same feeling as positive,

And they seek it out,

Whereas a person with anxiety uses that same feeling to stop doing anything that causes that feeling,

Isn't it?

If you suspect that you have anxiety,

It can be hard to get the help you need by going to a doctor and telling them this,

Because that also makes you anxious.

You fear that they'll think you're silly,

But you can get the help you need by seeking out a doctor that makes you comfortable.

It's important to not allow this to cause you to stay stuck in your current patterns.

The healthiest people seek help.

And even if you don't want to take medications,

There is help for you to overcome anxiety disorders naturally as well.

Finally,

Establish patterns.

Often people experience self-doubt simply due to patterns they've established since childhood,

Or in some place in adulthood that sent them down a bad path of experiencing failure or even something traumatic.

For example,

Everything could have been going fine,

Then something traumatic happened like a car accident,

A death in the family,

Or so forth.

This may start leading you down a path of repeating bad patterns or accepting that your life is just going to be full of failure and you won't go anywhere.

However,

This is something you can overcome by changing your patterns.

The process requires that you are introspective enough to be able to see the truth about yourself,

Your choices,

Your relationships,

And more about your life.

Then you'll need to be able to take decisive action that will help you start to experience success in your life that you can build as you overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself.

Even now,

There are so many reasons that you should believe in yourself.

Once you start realizing that,

This part should be simple.

Let's discuss some reasons you should believe in yourself so that you can combat and rid your life of self-doubt.

The fact is,

This something that must come from within and not from other people.

The idea that if you don't believe in yourself,

No one else will is very true.

That might seem harsh,

But it's a fact that you'll need to deal with in your quest to develop your new belief in yourself.

So let's take a look at the first reason.

The simplest of all,

You deserve it.

You really do deserve to have a happy,

Full,

And successful life that you can enjoy.

You can and should wake up each day ready and psyched to continue each day no matter what it brings.

You deserve to feel good about yourself,

To rid yourself of self-doubt.

You deserve to live a life that invigorates you regardless of your circumstances.

And even if you're experiencing challenges that no one else can relate to,

You can still overcome them and live a fulfilling life.

Your current relationships.

Look at the relationships you have that are successful.

The ones that make you happy,

The ones that are supportive,

The ones where you are supportive and helpful and make you feel needed.

They likely believe in you and you believe in them.

Imagine if you told those people how you feel inside about yourself.

Didn't they support you and try to talk you out of your self-doubt?

Where you are now.

Even if you're struggling now,

You've survived this long,

Right?

That means you're doing something right.

You're alive and you're able to get this and you're able to hear it.

That's a positive that you should focus on right now.

Focus on what you have right in this moment that is good and that is a reason enough to believe in yourself.

Prior success.

If you've been successful at something,

Revel in that.

Did you manage to get up this morning?

That's a success.

Did you do well in school?

That's a success.

Did you get a driver's license?

That's a success.

If you need to get down to the very smallest success,

That's okay.

You don't have to have huge wins to draw on to know what it feels like to be successful at something.

Finally,

You're just as good as others.

Remember that you are just as good as someone else and deserve the life you want to live.

No one deserves it more than you do.

No one is more special and for that fact,

Neither are you.

But even though everyone is basically the same,

We all have different ideas of what constitutes success and that too is just as good as the next person's idea of success.

The truth is if you look from a distance at your problems and put them in relation to the world,

How important are they really?

If you've made some bad choices that have resulted in going through a rough past emotionally,

Financially or spiritually,

That's okay.

That is how you grow in life.

You grow in life through experiences.

It really is how you react to those struggles that make up who you are.

Reviews

Thank you !

Wow, I really enjoyed this. Thank you for this amazing information!

Wow! This really hits home! Thank you!

This was good listening because I’m always self doubting myself so I will be listening to this more thank you 😊