Self-doubt can feel debilitating. It can hold you back from pursuing your dreams and living the life you really want. Self-doubt can also make it hard to complete necessary daily tasks and make simple decisions.
The good news is, it is possible to feel self-doubt or fear and still make steps in the direction of the life you want. Some points to consider:
1. Recognize Negative Self Talk Immediately
When inner doubts start to creep up, we can let the thought patterns spin out of control and fully take over. Once this happens, it can feel incredibly difficult to regain control.
It’s important that you take charge immediately and NOTICE the negative talk as soon as it begins. In your mind, speak to yourself and say something like, “I recognize this thought pattern, it only keeps me stuck.” Should the negative talk start up seconds later, talk to it again and put it in its place. Doing this interrupts your thought patterns – which are basically thought habits – and eventually your inner self-doubter will feel less in control.
Negative thought patterns may not go away, but recognizing a thought as NOT helpful, putting some distance between yourself and that thought “I am noticing that defeating thought again” because your thoughts are NOT who you are.
2. Remember, You Can Always Make Adjustments
Many times, people are so fearful of making mistakes, they take no action toward their goal. But reaching a goal should be thought of as going on a car trip. You have a map and a basic route planned out, but along the journey, you may decide you want to hop off the highway and try a scenic byway instead.
You may decide to backtrack and stop at that cute little souvenir shop. Sure, all of these changes to your initial itinerary may add a little time to your trip, but you’ll still get to your destination. And you’ll get there with more photos and T-shirts and wonderful memories!
Trying to plan every single move you will take to get to your goal can be exhausting and impractical. Just take the first step, then another, and then another… and remember, you can always change your mind and adjust along the way. Should you get lost, you will find your way again. A detour is not permanent.
3. Consider a Failure of a plan A- to be good reason to Develop plan B- part of the process
Follow many successful people, and you will learn they experienced “failure” from time to time. Oprah has a great quote about this failure (and the fear of failure). She said “There is no such thing as failure, Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.”
So if your plan A does not go the way you hoped, that is valuable information. What did not work and why? Now develop plan B or an alternate route.
4. Talk to Someone
Self-doubt can easily become distorted and exaggerated when you keep all of your thoughts to yourself. But, when you speak to someone and let those thoughts out into the light, you have the chance to hear how exaggerated they may be. Also, talking about your doubts with a therapist who is supportive is a great way to gain a fresh perspective.
If you or a loved one is afflicted with self-doubt and is interested in exploring treatment, please contact me today. I would be happy to speak with you about how I may be able to help.
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