500 Words a Week - Dealing with Self-Doubt

Self-doubt is something that we need, a healthy level anyway. A healthy sense of self-doubt keeps us in check. It allows us to accurately judge our current skills and capacities, see where our deficiencies lie and helps us work on them. It’s just in most cases, we can let our self-doubt get the better of us. In these situations, we can become over cautious, and stop ourselves taking the very actions that would help us or others.

We can become paralyzed, replaying questions in our mind, asking ourselves if we are good enough or if we will ever be good enough.

So then how do we overcome this at times crippling self-doubt?

You build a stack of evidence that says you are exactly what you say you are (Paraphrase from Alex Hormozi). This can be a slow process, and while each day it might feel like we are getting nowhere. We are slowly adding layers. Each layer not noticeable to us, but when they begin to accumulate, we begin to see the evidence stacking up.

I think this is why we should devote time to reflection, beyond just thinking about the day or week we’ve had. Think about where you were 1, 3, or 5 years ago. What would that person say about the one who is looking in the mirror now?

How else do we help keep our self-doubt in check? I think some of it stems from our tendency for comparison. The below is a quote from Naval on jealousy/ comparison, which I like as it reminds us how fickle jealously can be.

"When I was young, I had a lot of jealousy in me... I learned to get rid of it. It still crops up every now and then. It's such a poisonous emotion because, at the end of the day, you're no better off, you're unhappier, and the person you're jealous of is still successful or good-looking, or whatever they are.

I realised that all these people that I was jealous of, I couldn't just cherry-pick and choose little aspects of their life. I couldn't say I want his body; I want her money; I want his personality.

You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you're not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100% swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous."

I think other times when self-doubt is high, is when we are trying to portray an image. When we are trying to be something or someone we are not. As Steve Magness has said, confidence comes from “being comfortable with who you are and what you’re capable of, even when you fail.” No wonder we doubt ourselves when we are portraying an image. How can we feel comfortable and confident if we are playing a role? Equally, we are going to feel doubt if we are trying to live by other people’s definition of what success looks like.

While self-doubt can be helpful and it’s a complete natural part of life, but sometimes we can feel it spiralling out of our control and becoming lost in it. It’s during times like these can we remember to be a little kinder to ourselves, can we remember how far we have come over the years, can we remember the evidence we’ve built up.