Self-doubt kills more dreams than talent.
People with high confidence tend to connect better with others, have more opportunities to succeed, make more money, have better self-esteem and are generally more successful in many areas of life.
Whatever you think to be true about yourself is how you build your life. You can’t rise above what you expect of yourself.
Many people convince themselves that what they expect or want to do is not going to work before they take any step.
They suffer internally and sabotage their actions. Seneca was right, “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality,”
Self-doubt is just a low level of confidence. It’s not a sign of being weak or a failure; it’s actually a natural reaction to the outside world.
Human beings have the ability to doubt themselves.
Our minds are constantly evaluating the world around us. We are constantly trying to find patterns, assign meaning and form opinions.
We are naturally inclined to be self-critical, and we tend to compare ourselves to others. This is natural, but it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy if we let it.
Self-doubt is universal and affects everyone.
Even the most successful people in the world have felt self-doubt at some point. However, most of them overcame it and kept going.
Some self-doubt is more debilitating than others.
When you’re plagued by self-doubt, it can bring you down and stop you in your tracks. It can make you question your abilities and your worth.
As we grow and develop as individuals, we begin to doubt ourselves. We doubt our abilities. We doubt our worth. And we doubt our value.
Self-doubt is a natural response to any form of adversity.
When we feel self-doubt, we are more likely to make mistakes and follow negative impulses — because self-doubt makes us question our capabilities.
And questioning our capabilities makes us feel inadequate.
When we feel self-doubt, we are more likely to question our decisions and follow negative impulses.
The digital world is a minefield of self-doubt. There’s so much competition and negativity that we’ve become saturated with it.
From social media to the world of work, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. This comparison can trigger self-doubt and make us feel inferior.
The good news is that you can overcome self-doubt one action at a time.
The first action is self-analysis — improve your self-awareness.
Instead of letting self-doubt get to you, you should take a step back and analyze why you have such doubts in the first place.
Once you’re aware of the issue, you can start working on the solution.
Review the areas in your life where you doubt your action or inaction — with a bit of self-reflection and awareness, you can equip yourself with the tools and steps to overcome your doubts.
Long-term work on the areas you are lacking begins by slowly immersing yourself in your fears.
“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing,” says Theodore Roosevelt.
Set small goals. Rather than tackling your self-doubt with one big change, focus on making small changes.
For example, if you have difficulty speaking up about what you want, you can improve your confidence by practicing or putting yourself in small situations that force you to say what’s on your mind.
Speak up more, one conversation at a time. Ask yourself: what’s the worse that could happen?
If the worst-case scenario is not life-threatening, you will survive it.
Convince yourself of a near positive outcome — if the expected results don’t happen, keep trying.
When you think about it, every great success story has a lot of failure in between. The key is to avoid letting failures derail you and learn from them.
Stop focusing on the triggers — beware of the external factors that cause self-doubt.
For example, too many negative past experiences, criticisms, comparing yourself with others, new challenges and fear of failure can all cause you to second guess yourself.
Identify the triggers and redefine their influence on your life.
Most people allow the triggers to change their perception of the future or their next action.
Even though self-doubt is a common feeling, you don’t have to accept it. Self-doubt and insecurities can hold you back from achieving your goals.
You can start believing in yourself again if you focus more on your next positive action instead of everything wrong with what could happen.
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones,” says Confucius.
Everyone has doubts from time to time. Sometimes we doubt our abilities or ourselves. Other times, we doubt our decisions or our future plans.
But our doubts shouldn’t define us.
Self-doubt may be a natural response to uncertainty and challenges, but it pays to detach yourself from those emotions.
Persistent self-doubt changes the trajectory of your life.
When in doubt, focus on the strong positive outcome that can make life better — thinking about the desired outcome stops you from overthinking the worst-case scenario.
Self-doubt can rob you of your best life if you don’t step in to change your internal judgements. Make time to improve your perception of yourself.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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