There are many ways to use this expression. For me personally, I’d use it to refer to all of those times I allowed self-doubt to make my decisions for me instead of staying true to my abilities. When my actions came from a place of cowardice rather than choosing to step up to my potential. This topic is very personal for me, as I have had many occasions in the past year where I have allowed self-doubt to rule me over and the results weren’t pretty. I’m not completely over it yet, no, I still have days when I want to just run back under my covers or sit in front of a movie and let the world pass me by. But in this article, I’d be sharing how I fight this part of me and what kind of successes I have had so far.

There is a lot of groundwork that needs to be done to help you fight self-doubt and honestly I think it’s the one thing I stress the most in all of my articles – self-awareness. You can’t fight self-doubt if you don’t know what you are supposed to be fighting for in the first place. So make that clear and have it on lock-down. What are you capable of on your worst, average and your best day? Keep in mind not to keep yourself under false illusions by either over selling or short changing yourself and your capabilities. Both can be really dangerous. Have this data and keep it at your fingertips.

 

This is mostly about goal setting. You know what you are capable of on your best, worst and average day, now use that as a projection for what you can achieve in a day/week/month. There’s no need for self-doubt if you have nothing to do or achiever anyway. It sounds really simple – but something to keep in mind to ensure you grow is this, you want to outperform your best day. You want to do better than your best. That’s how you grow and that’s how you make sure you always have a new benchmark to start from.

 

Now here is the tricky part. “Go out and DO” sounds really easy. But back to the topic at hand, this really is where the self-doubt kick in. and I promise it can be a bitch. You suddenly doubt everything you have told yourself about your capabilities. And you are plagued with questions – what I fail, what if it doesn’t work out, what if I fall down the stairs, what if I fart out loud, what if blow snot from my nose, it sounds silly but these are some of the questions that bothers me, And for the first few seconds I blank out…literally. But then I decide to do what I intended in the first place – I start. And it really helps that I know what I’m trying to do. Once that part is figured out, it’s easier to tackle my self-doubt step by step. That way I don’t have to face it all at once, I can fight with at each step. And the best part is, the farther I’ve come, the easier it is to silence my doubts.

 

In essence, here is my point – the easiest way to work with this is to simply start; even with doubt in your mind and with questions in your head, do it anyway. You know what you can do, you know how far you have come and you need to repeat to yourself how badly you want this. And always ask yourself – what’s the worst that could happen? And how do you deal with it? You don’t have to have an answer – but knowing your worst case scenario also comes in handy.

 

Now in full disclosure, this might not work all the time, which is why this last part has a lot to do with you. In all honesty, the real antidote to self-doubt is really answering the question – just how badly do you want this? Sharks are born swimming my dear, the only way to fight your doubts is to hit the ground running. It’s the start of a new week, how would you show up for yourself this week?

 

If you have read up to this point and you have questions, leave a comment or send me an email at info@beyoubymujidah.com. Don’t forget to share.