Some days it is hard to know what topic to focus on for this blog. I love writing and I love exploring different topics as they pertain to personal development, but there are times when I will admit that I feel redundant. There are times when I feel like my words might be irrelevant or that I might be under-qualified to write about the topics I do. After all, I am still a work in progress. I don’t have all these things figured out completely and I still struggle with many of the issues I write about when it comes to personal development.
Self doubt. I supposed that is what I am struggling with today, and it can be such a powerful feeling. It is one that has overwhelmed and consumed me many times in my life. Self doubt has often made me shrink back in a moment of opportunity rather than push forward.
Self doubt is a sneaky bastard because it makes you believe things about yourself that aren’t true. It makes you believe you aren’t good enough, aren’t talented enough, aren’t pretty enough, aren’t smart enough, aren’t you-fill-in-the-blank enough. Regardless of the area in which you feel inadequate, self doubt can come in and beat you up and taunt you to feel worthless.
But we can’t let our doubts win. I wish I had realized earlier in my life that I have the ability to rise up and fight against those doubts. They do not have to control me—in fact, it is my responsibility to push back against those doubts.
We’ve probably all heard the advice that while a person shouldn’t go looking for a fight, they should not back down from a bully. I don’t know why I didn’t look at my own self doubts through a similar perspective. Self doubt is a bully. Probably the worst bully we will ever face. But we are responsible for how we feel and it is our responsibility to push back against a bully.
It is within our right—and it is our responsibility—to push back against self doubt when it pops up in our lives. This feeling of self doubt is very natural and will absolutely rear its ugly head from time to time, but the more we let the feeling go unchecked, the more it will begin to rule our lives. In the reverse, the more we push back against the feeling and counter it with self confidence, the less control self doubt will have in our lives.
This takes a lot of practice. I know this on a very personal level because I’ve let self doubt keep me from pursuing many opportunities. Self doubt is the very reason I did not start a blog years ago. Self doubt is why I never attempted to submit any of my written work to publishers all through my twenties even though it was a dream of mine to be a published author.
And today, as in so many days past, doubts flooded my mind the moment I opened this Word document to write. But I’ve started to find ways to combat these doubts and shift my thoughts.
- I put someone else in my mind and imagine talking to them the way I talk to myself. This helps me gain some perspective for how negative and inconsiderate I am being to myself. When I let negative thoughts fill my brain about how I am not smart enough or my writing isn’t good enough (or whatever the doubt might be), I think, “Would I say that to my sister?” If she expressed doubt about her abilities, would I agree with her and point out all the additional reasons she isn’t good enough to pursue the goal she has in mind? Or would I counter her negative self talk and point out the ways she is smart and accomplished and capable? If I do that for her, why can’t I do that for myself?
- I reflect on how my past self talk either helped me push forward or shrink back. This helps me these days because I remind myself of how I feel when I’ve managed to push self doubt down (I have rewarding and positive emotions) verses the times I let self doubt overtake my mind (I have unfulfilling and negative emotions).
- I recognize that I am fully responsible for how I feel. Honestly, for years this wasn’t even a solution that was on my radar. I used to think, “This is just who I am,” whether it pertained to my fear of meeting new people or my bouts with depression or my aversion to networking to further my career. While it is true that I might have certain feelings that come up in regard to an event (a new social setting that gives me anxiety) or an action I need to take (improving the design of my blog when I don’t know how to go about doing it), I have the ability to change my feelings, or at least reframe them and keep them from having such power over me.
- I focus on the fact that I can move forward with action regardless of how I am feeling at the moment. Feelings are fleeting, and if they are negative feelings they can paralyze us, but actions propel us forward and forward motion is rewarding.
The struggle to control self doubt will probably always exist for many of us and what I finally realized is that this is normal. Having doubts does not say anything about our abilities. It will say something about our ability to be happy and fulfilled in life if we always let our doubts win though.
