6 Simple Tips To Help Stop Doubting Yourself
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
William Shakespeare
There is an opportunity knocking at your door. Your superior is eyeing you to lead a new project. But you have only been with the team since for just a year and there are other more senior colleagues who’ve been with the company alot longer than you.
You feel like you don’t have what it takes yet, you’re not good enough, you worry that your fellow workers would think you’re stepping on their toes, and so on.
But in truth, your performance review showed excellent remarks. Your bosses loved your work ethic. You have enough experience to back you up.
However, you let that tiny little voice inside your head say that you can’t do it. You let that self-doubt win and poof, you passed up the chance to be promoted. You see, self-doubt can be paralysing and it ruins your chances of getting ahead with your life or your dreams.
You worry about something that does not even exist in the first place. It’s like rocking a chair, it gives you something to do but it gets you nowhere, so the saying goes. The good news is that you can battle this self-doubt. You have to learn to trust yourself and build confidence. So how do you do this?
Here are 6 simple tips to help stop doubting yourself:
1. Reflect
Take time for self-reflection. Assess the situations that held you back, that made you doubt yourself, that made you delay things. Awareness of when self-doubt attacks your system is the key to overcoming it.
It helps you recognise when negative thoughts are affecting your decisions, so you can actively re-frame your responses by changing your mindset. Take control of your life by knowing yourself more. Spending time alone and meditating can really help.
2. Keep doing what you’ve always wanted to do
Self-doubt is the sister of lack of confidence. When you don’t feel confident about doing something, the more you need to just crack on and do it. What do you want to do and achieve? If you’re an artist or a writer for example, keep on creating!
Sharpen your skills and seek knowledge that you need to improve. Practice makes you better, if not perfect. And when you see that you are improving, you will start to gain more confidence and do more of it.
3. Celebrate your wins
Self-doubt sometimes occurs because you think you are not accomplishing anything. Yet looking into it further, the more apparent it becomes you do have wins. It`s just that you are not recognising them. Write down your little successes and be proud of yourself.
You will realise that you are truly awesome as you are and you don’t need grand awards, or plaques of recognition to say that you are winning in life. Knowing that you have been accomplishing things no matter how little, can make you feel good about yourself and boost your confidence.
4. Embrace your failures
Much like recognising your wins, you should also embrace your failures. Self-doubt creeps in because you allow fear to take over. Don’t be afraid of accepting new opportunities because you fear you would fail or disappoint the people who are relying on you.
Nobody is perfect and that is absolutely fine. Failures give you experiences that you can use to be successful in your career and life. Accept that everyone makes mistakes, but what is important is the lesson you learn that will help you move forward.
5. Take responsibility
In order to learn how to trust yourself, you need to get used to doing things on your own. Take responsibility for your life by making your own decisions instead of relying on others. The more you practice deciding for yourself, the more you find yourself confident that you are on the right path. Even if you make mistakes, believe that you will only grow wiser and you will learn to trust yourself more.
6. Live in the present
One of the reasons you doubt yourself is because you overthink about a past event that gave you regrets, or you worry about the future. Much like embracing your failures, accepting that things may sometimes not go as planned is also important. Stop dwelling on those moments that are now the past and on things that you can’t control. Instead, live in the moment and think if you get an opportunity to enhance or move forward in your life, you should take it.
Don’t let self-doubt consume you. Trust yourself. Accept who you are, flaws and all and live the life that you truly deserve.
