If fear is the mind kill, then self doubt is…

 

There is a choice you have to make in everything you do. So, keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.

Think of the last time you were struggling in the spiral of self dout- at these times we want something so very badly, but we fear we are just not enough, not good enough to get “it”. This is its own special type of hell. One small failure makes us question ourselves, our abilities, and sometimes the very core of who we are. This questioning takes us down a dark path to a place that wants us to believe we are not good at anything, not smart enought, not pretty enough, just not enough. This is when many of us quit trying.

Frank Herbert wrote ” If fear is the mind killer, then self doubt is the fear enabler”.

If you have ever walked down this spiralling dark path of self doubt, you know what Frank Herbert means. We look around and it appears that everyone around us is getting better and better, achieving. While we are stuck, moving further and further away from what we really want, building dread and anxiety. This is its own special kind of torture, we keep just for ourselves.

So what can we do? Just decide that we are intelligent, capable, beautiful, successful? If that worked would we be in this position? This is something we just can’t talk ourselves out of.

Studies have shown conclusively  that we’re pretty bad at talking our way out of a rut (but we can get better with help).  So what actually does work? How do you get yourself to believe you’re capable of more and then actually boost your performance?

There are three important things you can do, and none of them are particularly intuitive, especially when you’re having a pity party for one.

1. Take action rather than trying to convince yourself to change.

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than it is to think your way into a new way of acting. One of the key principles of psychologists who help people struggling with depression is to get them to downplay everything they’re thinking and convince them to start doingthings, even if those things don’t feel right at first. [1]

That goes against the way you typically prefer to learn and change. There’s safety in careful thought but, when your mind is already caught in the self-doubt trap, it’s not exactly working in peak condition.

Rather than try to convince yourself you can do better, just give it a shot. Even if you initially fail, action is motivating and encourages you to try again which—of course—increases your odds of success and gets your thoughts headed the right direction, too.

2. Focus on past successes.

There’s a whole arm of psychology dedicated to the study of the self. One major discovery in the field is how closely connected your perception of you is with the way you remember yourself in the past. Do you focus on the negative—the failures you’ve experienced? Or the positive—the successes you’ve engineered?

Your answer has a big impact on what actions you’ll take next and how well they’ll turn out for you. [2]

I often wake up on Monday mornings and find it difficult to write. I’ll have a good idea, but not a clear path for how to write it. It’s demotivating. When this happens, though, I have a nearly foolproof way to fix it. I look at another recent article I wrote that I’m happy with. It reminds me I’m capable of producing quality even when I’m struggling. I know it’s true because the evidence is right in front of me. And that’s  just what I need to get the job done now.

3. Build momentum by celebrating small wins.

How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time. It’s a lame, overused figure of speech. Why? Because the answer is both true and timeless.

When you’re stuck in the pit of self-doubt, all your attention becomes consumed by it. Even if it’s not true and not a big deal, you make it true and turn it into a big deal in your head. You create the elephant. And just like it took a series of small but important actions to sink to that level, it takes small but important actions to climb out.

Small wins are motivating because you can see real progress being made, and the momentum built by those tiny changes add up quickly.

Let’s Recap

Self-doubt is a bitch to overcome, but it can be done by pretty much anyone who knows the steps to take.

1. You have to believe you can perform better to actually perform better. Duh, but it’s incredibly easy to forget when you’re in a rut.
2. To believe you can perform better, you have to draw your motivation from the right well.
3. The “right well” mostly means focusing on actions that get results and motivate more actions.

 

What it really comes down to is placing yourself in the right circumstances, even when you don’t feel like it. Getting out from under the funk of self-doubt depends on finding a small action to take that you can succeed at and will build on the next one. When you do that, you become unstoppable and success is more a matter when and not if.

 

Footnotes:

1.Why You Can’t Just Think Your Way Out Of Depression
2. Possible Selves: Theory, Research and Applications