How To Conquer Self Doubt; The Ultimate Guide
Many times when I had failed in an accomplishment of a particular set goal, I find out it is just because I allow doubt in myself. I doubt my ability, I doubt my knowledge, I doubt my instinct, I even doubt any choice I make right after making them; saying am I even sure I didn’t make the wrong choice? Is this really the right choice for me? Not until I realized that that there is no such choice as wrong, the only wrong choice is “not making one at all.”
Sylvia Plath, in The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath once identified the greatest enemy of creativity as self-doubt
In one or more state, you are always cautious and try as much as possible to use your self-ability to just kick start the task, but self-doubt has a way of getting under your skin. For me, I begin to feel this “you’re not good enough” spirit right inside me. The moment this happens for a second, the urge to press further has immediately varnishes, and now the setback begins.
“When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.” ~Honoree de Balzac
Dr. Felix, a Christian counselor, popularly said; “If I could use ten minutes to doubt whether or not to carry out a certain task, I would have used five minutes to get the task looking in its best”. Doubt does no benefit to you, but drains you of your emotions and energy to move on to achieve success.
The best help you will grant yourself is to bring down the hills of doubt in yourself and have this strong “I Can Do It Spirit” in other to achieve your goals better and faster.
Below are my five simple but effective steps to totally overcome self-doubt:
- Trust and Have Faith in Yourself
Your greatest achievements only occur when you take the leap and trust yourself. Trusting yourself is the number one and immediate step you need to take when in the fight against self-doubt. During moments like this, you have to be really sincere with yourself. You realize your self-weakness, make it a self-secret, and be determined and take steps to become strong in such areas.
When doing this, you need to build very strong confidence in yourself following your personal standards and ethical code. Self-trust means that you are confident in yourself with no doubt that you’ll overcome a slip-up or failure.
2. Bounce Away Self Pity
Self-pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. Stop pitying yourself! It is not going to help the situation, it will only help you wallow in a state of apathy, playing the victim.
David McClure Brinkley once spoke of his personal experience; whatever he does, people raise comments; back then they blame him more, even far more than they praise him. Sometimes they even “throw stones” of words at him. Right then he will begin to feel pity for himself; moments like this, he just wants to quit. But on a very successful day, he thought of bouncing away self-pity and working on the blames that people laid, and he realized that the people who blamed him, later became the once who praised him the more. He wrote, “A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others violently throw at him or her.”
Instead of staying helpless and wallowing in self-pity, why not pick yourself up and say, “Listen, I have to be responsible for myself”? With that, you give no room to the activities of self-doubt in you.
3. Love Your Self
“We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies” – Roderick Thorp, Rainbow Drive.
Many people seriously speak of loving others but aren’t more serious with loving themselves. When you love yourself, you take time to study yourself and do your daily self-ritual, then you can be sure to get better result of yourself.
Loving yourself also has to do with keeping self-promises. Also, making a commitment and keeping it builds Self-love. For example; you might have made a commitment of visiting the hospital for a checkup, keep it. You might also have made a commitment of going to bed early this weekend, keep it. Though it looks so simple, but it boosts self-love and chases away self-doubt
4. Take A Break
There are lots of tremendous evidences that taking a break at work makes us more productive. Yea, its true many high achievers practice the art of intentional resting or break-taking.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by what you perceive as not going so well, take some time away from that project and focus on something totally different. Sometimes shifting our focus away from what we are stuck on helps us take a new perspective when we come back to it.
Take a walk, receive or make a call, paint something or rather go to the kitchen and find something to chew before you resume back to the task.
5. Gratitude.
Gratitude is the feeling of being grateful.
Whenever you have this doubt in yourself saying; do you think you are capable of accomplishing this task? A sure fire way of silencing such, is by being grateful to yourself. “Self confidence is best built on a gratitude to self-platform”- Bruce Barton. Take record of times you achieved great success or accomplished a set goal, and periodically review to erase any sort of doubt. Realize you did well, be grateful, and look for better ways to move ahead.
In Conclusion
Self-doubt will creep in from time to time, and it will never just stop bugging you. But remember that you are in control of your life and the things that affect you. Never doubt how blossom the end result of your strive would be. Say NO to Self-doubt and fear. Realize that those doubts are fear, and fear is; “Forgetting Everything’s All Right” – Sherri Levy.
Know your Self-worth and don’t give anyone who makes you feel worthless an extra second of your time. Don’t forget that “A second self-doubt = A day set back”. Keep yourself moving on the track to achieving your goals by not giving chances to doubt in its simplest form.
Best Regards
Daniel.
Author: Daniel Moayanda
Dan. is a young strategist, motivational writer and public speaker. He provides entrepreneurs with success strategies and backs it up with the right motivation needed to explore. He also writes about finding a way out of everything in general!
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I as well doubt myself so often. And I am proud to know that I’m not alone.
What i want to add is that self gratitude helps a long way. Whenever you are grateful to yourself, it will help you get over those doubts.