INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST

EPISODE  25

HOW TO COPE WITH SELF DOUBT

INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST

EPISODE 25

TRANSCRIPT: HOW TO COPE WITH SELF DOUBT

WELCOME TO THIS EPISODE WHICH IS ALL ABOUT HOW TO COPE WITH SELF DOUBT

Welcome to this lesson which is all about self-doubt. I decided to speak about self-doubt first before tackling an episode on fear because I really feel like doubt is the most insidious of emotions.

I mean, you can feel fear and still embrace confidence at the same time which gives you the push to move past that fear.

But if you are riddled with self-doubt the race is almost over before you even start.

You won’t even try because you feel as if there’s no use to it.

You might doubt your worth, doubt your ability, doubt your purpose and doubt your strengths and until we clean up that murky picture no amount of pep talks about being courageous or positive or confident will help you.

So let’s start with defining what self-doubt means. 

The dictionary defines self-doubt as, “the lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.”

This is a great definition, but it doesn’t fully demonstrate the problems caused by self-doubt and not believing in yourself. 

Have you ever stopped to think about what the true ramifications are of you doubting yourself?

 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 to you in life, you can overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself.

This is true even if you had a terrible upbringing and even if you’ve never believed in yourself before. It’s within your power, and it will change your life completely.

I just want you to be beware of the sort of damage you might be doing to yourself if you continue to hang on to self-doubt.

It’s one thing to have had it affect your past and your present and yet another to allow it to devastate your future if you don’t deal with it.

So let’s first chat about the impact of self –doubt

• Firstly Self-Doubt Damages Your 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 to get by.

It can affect your entire life because you may have fewer satisfying relationships, a job you hate, and not enjoy life much.

You simply don’t believe you can do it so you don’t even try.

• 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.

The only way to get over self-doubt is to actually TAKE ACTION.

• Self-Doubt Leads to Regret

I think I don’t need to tell you that when you miss on opportunities, when you hold yourself back that will usually lead to regret.

And 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 it is a cycle that is so hard to break.

You essentially give up and begin to accept your own failure.

• Self-Doubt 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 cannot achieve 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 really have.

As you can see and may have experienced yourself, self-doubt can be dangerous and these are all good reasons on their own to work toward overcoming self-doubt and learning to believe in yourself.

So let’s take a moment to identify where your self-doubt lies. Some triggers include:

• Limiting Beliefs Learned in Childhood
• Past Experiences from Unhealthy Relationships
• Bad Work Environments and Experiences
• Lack of Life Experiences
• Reinforcement from family and friends
• Constant comparison to others
• Undiagnosed anxiety
• Established bad patterns

But no matter where your self-doubt stemmed from that doesn’t mean you can’t get over self-doubt in the future.

Here are just a few reasons to Believe in Yourself

Let’s go over some reasons that 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.

You were born with everything you need to experience success in life.

Your success may look different from someone else’s success and that’s okay.

You should be the one who is happy living your life because it’s your life to live.

Celebrate your successes along the way.

You can adjust your moves as you go along your path in life but you won’t get anywhere unless you start moving.

• You Deserve It

You really do deserve to have a happy, full, and successful life that you 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 and to rid yourself of self-doubt. You are also able to get rid of that self-doubt if you just DECIDE to believe in yourself.

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

Even if you are 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 now 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; wouldn’t they support you and try to talk you out of your self-doubt?

• You still have a bright future ahead of you

I think it’s so important that people understand that your past does not need to define you. It really doesn’t.

Even if you’re struggling now, you’ve survived this long right so that means you have a seed of greatness inside you.

You’re alive and you are able to listen to this episode, where I hope to support you to move forward with more courage and confidence.

Even if you feel like no one else in this world supports you or believes in you, I definitely do from afar.

I don’t have to have met you personally to know that you are to know you are worthy of a great life and capable of achieving more, if more is what you desire out of life.

The future is yours to design, it starts today and it is within your power.

It’s like they say the best way to predict the future is to create it.

And just because the past didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to doesn’t mean your future can’t be better than you imagined.

• 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 successes to draw on to know what it feels like to be successful doing something.

• You’re Just as Good as Others

Remember that you are just as good as someone else and deserve the life that 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 into relation to the world, how important are they really?

If you’ve made some bad choices that have resulted in going through a rough patch emotionally, financially, or spiritually, that’s okay – this is how you grow in life.

You grow in life through experiences. It really is how you react to these struggles that make up who you are.

Let’s look at how to overcome negative thoughts so that you can better deal with self-doubt.

How to Overcome Negative Thoughts

It is possible to train your mind to overcome and turn negative thoughts around.

Let’s look at some strategies to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts, or to at least stop the negative thoughts faster when they start.

• Change the Focus

When you encounter a negative situation, try to immediately turn it into something positive by focusing on what you can learn about the situation.

Even if all you learn is that you don’t want to do that again, that’s a positive thing.

• Most People Don’t Care

The truth is, even if you say the wrong thing or dress what you think is wrong for an event or do something that you feel embarrassed about, most people don’t care that much.

If you can develop the ability to laugh at the situation, that’s even better.

Most people really don’t have time to think about your bad choices, especially if it doesn’t affect them.

• Ask Whether You’re Being Too Serious

Sometimes it’s easy to take something seriously when it shouldn’t be.

Does it really matter if you slipped and fell when you were trying to sit in your seat at work?

Does it really matter that you put on the wrong shoes?

Does it really matter that much if you pronounced a word wrong?

Don’t hyper-focus on one mistake or one bad day.

• Replace Negativity in Your Life

Whether it’s people, places, or things, it’s time to rid your life of negativity when you can.

Sometimes negative people attract negative people.

If you want to be more positive, try to find new friends, new activities, and things that make you happy and feel positive.

• Don’t Make Decisions Bigger Than They Are

 Many people plagued with self-doubt tend to have trouble making decisions.

Even if it’s just what to wear, what to eat, or what to buy, they’re turned into bigger situations than they are.

When you are making any decision, ask yourself whether this is going to matter in a month, six months, or even five years from now.

That way, you’ll be able to determine whether this is a serious situation you need to spend more time on or if you need to just make a choice and either get on with it or not.

• Talk to Someone

Now, make sure the person you’re talking to is positive and doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself.

Sometimes it helps to ask someone if you’re overacting, especially if you can find someone who understands how you’re trying to change your life and get over self-doubt.

This may be a professional, a life coach, or a friend – even someone from a support group or an entire support group.

• Stop Thinking about It

Sometimes negative thoughts can ruin the experience you’re living.

It’s better to try to shelve the negative thoughts during the experience and try to really live in the moment.

Being in the present enables you to truly realize that this thing isn’t negative at all, or not as much as your mind is trying to tell you.

Then when you look back on it, you will likely be able to pick out a lot more positives than negatives.

• Exercise

When it comes down to it, most of us have a lot of extra energy (adrenaline) that needs to be burned off.

Some people realize this and that’s why they get moving.

Whenever you start experiencing negative thoughts, instead of letting yourself do it, get some exercise.

Go to the gym, go for a run, go for a walk, ride your bike, jump rope, go for a swim – anything that you can do that you like doing is a good thing to do instead of thinking negatively.

• Realize When It’s Really Fear

Sometimes negativity will poke its head in your life when you’re doing something a little bit uncomfortable or pushing your comfort zone a bit.

There is a quote by George Addair that is useful here, “Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear.”

If you can remind yourself of this quote when you are experiencing negative thoughts associated with fear, you can overcome it.

It will help a lot with overcoming negative thoughts if you put these suggestions into action.

You may come up with some of your own too.

The point is, you want to turn negative thoughts around so that you can instead experience positivity in your day.

That way, you don’t get stuck in a pattern of self-doubt. 

Strategies for Dealing with Self-Doubt

Now, let’s go over some important ways to deal with self-doubt when it happens.

Be assured that even the most successful person works to overcome self-doubt at times.

Feeling self-doubt is not the problem.

Letting self-doubt control you, make your decisions for you, and rule your life is the problem.

• You’re Not Alone

Everyone experiences self-doubt and whether you have friends, family, or anyone to talk to right now about this, you are not alone in your feelings.

It’s all how you react to it that matters.

You can find others to commiserate with by joining Facebook groups or other types of groups and forums to help feel less alone with your issues.

• Keep a Journal

One way to overcome self-doubts is to keep a journal to help remind yourself of accomplishments that you have experienced.

You can talk about the self-doubt you felt and how you pushed through it.

It doesn’t have to be a false representation of what you’re doing, but do try to focus on the positives of each situation and what you learned from it.

• Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

The worst thing you can do is to make comparisons of your life to someone else’s.

This only breeds more self-doubt and even jealousy.

The truth is, you have no idea what other people have gone through to be where they are, or even if they’re really being honest about their situation.

You only know the truth about your own situation.

• Learn Gratitude

Every single event in life has something to be grateful for.

Even the worst things can be turned around to be a lesson that can help you in the next situation in your life.

People who have overcome the worst things that you can imagine – death, crime, illness – all have one thing in common: that’s their ability to see the positives in it or at least be grateful they knew the person, loved the person, or something good.

• Set Small, Immediate Goals

One way to overcome issues with self-doubt is to experience success.

Start setting small goals that allow you to experience immediate success.

It depends where you are in your journey, but success can be as small as getting up in the morning, to going to the store, to something more challenging like applying for new jobs.

(Note that this said “applying for new jobs”, not getting one.)

• Surround Yourself with Positive People

Take the time to pick out people you already know who makes you feel good about yourself. If you don’t have those people in your life, it’s time to seek them out.

You can find people via meetups online, taking a class, group meetings, a book club and so forth.

The important thing is to start being around positive people more.

• Learn to Respect Obstacles

Everyone has obstacles that prevent them from experiencing full joy and push them back into self-doubt.

Everyone.

The way to deal with these issues is to respect the fact that you may have something to learn or gain from the experience.

Find a way to respect the obstacles that are put in front of you and learn from them.

• Learn from Mistakes

When you make a mistake, instead of beating yourself up, accept it and learn from it.

Sometimes it helps to write down the experience in your journal with a focus on what you learned and how you’ll do it differently if that comes up again.

• Know When to Walk Away

There are times when giving up is not a failure.

There are many times in life where you try something but it’s just not working for you and it’s time to walk away.

That may be a business choice, a relationship choice, or something else entirely.

If it’s causing you too much stress that cannot be overcome, it’s time to leave it and move on.

• It’s Okay to Be Uncomfortable

One thing to realize about life is that it’s okay to be uncomfortable sometimes.

You won’t grow if you don’t experience some discomfort.

That doesn’t mean you have to be into mental, physical, or spiritual torture; it’s just that feeling a little fearful, uncomfortable or unsure is natural.

Put things into perspective so that you know you’re making good choices.

• Assess Your Strengths and Weaknesses

One way to deal with self-doubt is to honestly figure out where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Then, develop your strength and even improve upon your weaknesses when you can.

Sometimes the way you improve a weakness is to let someone else deal with it.

For example, if you’re a bad cook but you want to lose weight, and don’t want to learn to cook, it’s okay to order a meal kit or to get someone else to do it if you have the ability.

There is always a way around a weakness.

The strengths you possess naturally can also be improved upon almost painlessly.

• Get Accountability

When you are trying to overcome self-doubt and start believing in yourself, it can help to have someone around who can offer accountability.

This can be a life coach, a counselor, a friend or a group.

It’s best not to choose a friend without their knowledge, though. If you have a positive friend who is willing to help you, that’s okay.

But if they don’t know what they’re doing, they may lead you astray.

A life coach is a great way to help build your self-image and overcome self-doubt so that you can believe in yourself because they have training and know their role.

NOTE: These strategies for dealing with self-doubt will not work for you if you don’t implement them.

If you really want to experience true joy in life, believe in yourself, and get rid of the debilitating self-doubt you’re experiencing, start implementing now.

Don’t delay or make excuses.

What to Do Right Now

If you really want to overcome self-doubt and start believing in yourself, it will take action on your part.

So, let’s get started.

Pinpoint Where Your Self-Doubt Began

Using what you’ve learned, it’s important to figure out where your self-doubt began.

It may be from childhood, in which case it may take some professional help to overcome it.

It may be something you fell into due to other issues that need to be identified.

If you’re in a toxic relationship, for example, you may have to work on getting out of it before you can move forward.

Honestly Assess Your Strengths and Weaknesses

One way to do this is to get out some paper and a writing utensil, and simply write on one side of the paper your strengths, and on the other side your weaknesses.

Then take a highlighter and highlight the things you want to work on to improve your strengths and the things you would like to do better in terms of your weaknesses.

Eat Right and Exercise

This may seem silly, but eating right and exercising can be one of your first successes and experiences that you can look back to that show that you make good choices.

This small thing can give you the confidence you need to stop having so much self-doubt in your life, building your ability to believe in yourself.

If all you do is add more water, more fruits, and veggies and start walking each day, that’s going to help a lot.

Buy a Journal

Find a good paper journal that you can write in each day before you go to bed and when you first wake up.

It’s good to do this without technology because it’ll be something you can do without causing you to experience extra stress from the blue light in technology that can cause people to experience anxiety and insomnia.

Make Small Goals

Set some small goals so that you can experience success.

Your small goals might consist only of the things on this list.

But you may have identified some things by reading this that stick out to you as small goals that you can immediately see results from that you want to add.

Implement

You can learn all that you want to learn about ridding yourself of self-doubt and building your belief in yourself, but if you don’t act and do something (in other words, implement), you won’t see the success you desire.

Even if it’s the smallest thing, like reading this or taking a course, or finding a group, that’s doing something.

Small things can lead to big results.

Hopefully, you’ve gained a better understanding of self-doubt and learned some information that is going to help you build your self-image, eliminate self-doubt, and move toward believing in yourself again quickly.

Remember that nothing is gained without putting one foot in front of the other.

Doubt makes you think things harder than they need to be.

It’s your voice telling you it can’t be done.

If it is someone else’s voice you need to silence it.

It’s not important what other people believe about you. It’s only important what you believe about yourself. 

Confidence is not THEY WILL LIKE ME; it’s all about I’LL BE FINE IF THEY DON’T.

But also remember that you are capable, you can do it, and you deserve to do it too.

You are worth it.        

Doubt makes you weak and believing in yourself is what makes you strong.

I want you to know that you can love yourself completely even if you feel doubt. I want you to know you are capable of change even if you feel doubt. 

I know you can do it.

I have total faith and trust in you!

Ready to take the next step?

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Frances Vidakovic

Hey, I’m Frances Vidakovic! I help you live a richer, lighter life while pursuing dreamy goals – without sacrificing your soul, sanity or family life.  🫶🏻 Author. Coach. Course Creator. DON’T DIE UNHAPPY! → Wake up. Do what matters. Savour it all 🌷