How To Move Past Self-Doubt And Do That Thing Anyway

Are you lacking confidence in yourself? It's a struggle many of us deal with. Here are three powerful tips to shift your mindset and overcome self-doubt!

I believe that we all have that little inner voice that tells us what we want to be doing with our lives and who we want to be. Unfortunately, we push this inner voice aside because we start to think things like, “How am I going to make money from this?”, “What will people think of me?” and “What if I fail?”

Are you lacking confidence in yourself? It's a struggle many of us deal with. Here are three powerful tips to shift your mindset and overcome self-doubt!

We constantly hold ourselves back from doing the things we believe would bring true meaning and purpose into our lives because there’s this constant fear that we’re not good enough. Whether it’s around our skills, abilities, personality, or the way we do things on a daily basis, self-doubt is always nagging us in the back of our minds.

As someone who has struggled with self-doubt over the years, I wanted to share some ways that I’ve dealt with it and not let it rule my life. This is an honest, heart-to-heart talk because I truly want you to be able to push through self-doubt and live your life with purpose and fulfillment.

What’s the Deal With Self-Doubt?

Are you lacking confidence in yourself? It's a struggle many of us deal with. Here are three powerful tips to shift your mindset and overcome self-doubt!

Why do we experience self-doubt?

Self-doubt shows up when we want to make a change in our lives. Maybe it’s a better job, a different living situation, a healthier lifestyle, or a new relationship. There’s always this feeling that there must be more to life than how you’re living right now.

Yet for some reason, you doubt that you deserve to have the life that you’re dreaming of. You doubt that you’ll have the motivation, dedication, emotional stability, or perseverance to actually make it happen. You think of everything that could possibly go wrong instead of what could go right.

Why do we hold ourselves back?

Everybody has a story. Your past has shaped you to be who you are today. But you also have stories that you make up in your mind.

These stories come from things that have happened in the past. They come from things other people have criticized you for. They also come from assumptions about yourself and the future. You start to believe that these things are true no matter what.

“The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine the quality of the selves we imagine we are.” – Rami M. Shapiro

For example, maybe you gave a presentation one time and it went horribly. You forgot everything that you were trying to say, and you felt totally embarrassed. Maybe somebody else told you you were terrible at giving presentations. Because of this one instance, you feel like for the rest of your life you’re never going to be good at giving presentations.

The same might be true if you’ve had moments where you thought you were not beautiful, not smart enough, or not loving enough. You start to believe these things are going to be true for the rest of your life. We constantly repeat these thoughts in our heads and tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, but it’s all a story.

Related Post: 5 Tips For Dealing With Your Inner Critic

How to handle self-doubt

The thing is, you have the ability to rewrite your story. You get to decide who you want to be and what you do with your life. It comes down to three things: trusting yourself, adjusting your mindset, and taking small steps that scare you.


01 / Trust In Yourself

The first step to dealing with self-doubt is to get better at this whole trust thing. Not trusting other people, but trusting yourself. You have to trust your intuition, your journey, your feelings, and the whole process that you’re going through right now.

Trust that you’ll end up where you need to be, even if you don’t know how it’s going to happen.

Of course you’re going to make mistakes in your life. We all know that’s inevitable at this point. But if we embrace the fact that making mistakes is part of the journey and an opportunity to learn more about ourselves, we won’t have to stay stuck in the same place forever. You don’t have to believe what your mind tells you about how you’re not good enough to make this change.

Trust that you will get to where you want to be. If you know within your core and intuition that this is what you need to do, you need to follow that.

Related Post: How To Build Your Self-Trust


02 / Adjust Your Mindset

Once you realize that you have power within you, you can take responsibility for your life and your actions and do the scary things anyway. It all comes down to your mindset and whether you believe you are worthy of having the things in life that you want.

Earlier this year when I had the opportunity to leave my full-time job to start my coaching business, I was terrified. I had this vision in my mind, but I had no idea if it was actually going to work or not. Every day I have my doubts about how I’m going to make this work, but deep within my soul, I know that it is going to work. This is what helps me push through the self-doubt every single day. I know not to let those doubts cloud my mind.

There are so many factors that determine your confidence within yourself, but honestly it’s all to do with you. Work on your mindset, prioritize your mental wellness, and find ways to be much, much kinder to yourself. Rewrite that story that tells you you’re not good enough.

Related Post: How To Detox Your Mindset And Reduce Negative Thoughts


03 / Take Small Steps

You might not have the logistics figured out or know exactly how you will do it, but you have to get started today. I’m not telling you to leave everything behind immediately. I’m telling you to take one step towards the thing that scares you.

Just one small step today, whether that’s starting a blog, researching gyms, creating a plan for your future, or writing yourself an affirmation that you are good enough. Just one small step every single day is what it takes to get you past fear and doubt.


What stories do you tell yourself? What holds you back from your dreams?

“If fear is all that’s holding you back, it’s not a good enough reason.” – A quote by one of my wise and brilliant coaching clients

I don’t know how to say this without sounding cheesy, but you are good enough. If you’re not doing the things that scare you simply because of fear, it’s not a good enough excuse. I don’t want to see you sitting around, feeling stuck and unhappy because you’re scared of making that big leap into the thing that could truly bring you joy. I want you to start taking those baby steps and make it happen someday, rather than never.

About the Author
Catherine Beard
Hi, I'm Catherine! As the creator of The Blissful Mind, I love exploring ways to make life more fulfilling, especially when it comes to our daily routines, habits, and well-being.

18 Responses

  1. Hi Catherine,

    This is a fantastic post, and provided me with some much-needed positive affirmation. I already believe in so much of this, and try to implement a lot of it daily, but it’s always great to have a reminder.

    I’m always learning and re-learning about how to conquer my self doubt. That’s not a bad thing, per se. . .

    I guess for me, I worry about my future. After years of wishing, I finally self-published my first novel this fall, and it’s going okay, but. . .

    It’s like you were saying. Things are going alright with the book, but I don’t know yet how to get to the ultimate goal: a place where I can write for a living. I believe I’ll get there, and I have an idea, but. . .

    Yeah. Battling the self doubt, and mostly keeping it at bay.

    Thanks for the positive, uplifting words. They were music to my ears, er, eyes today.

    All the best,

    Gregory

  2. Great blog, Catherine. I call those negative stories “whispered lies” because, as you say so well, they are false. They may have seemed protective earlier in our lives, but now they’re just messing with our minds! For example, perfectionism—kinda worked for a while for us achievers—but then the stress of the whispered lies (e.g., “Do it better! You’ve got to measure up!”) got to be too much.
    You might check out my blog Gigilanger.com. Perhaps you’d like me to do a guest blog OR you can write one for my blog. Thanks again for your fine thoughts & generous heart.

  3. The story I tell myself is ‘I need to stick to this carreer because I’ve dediacted the last 10 years for this, how I am supposed to restart from zero when I don’t even know how to make money from my talents?’

  4. THIS BLOGPOST MAKES ME WANT TO HUG YOU!!! (Sorry I’m screaming at your but I loved this!!!!!)

    I have to be aware of the self-doubt that creeps in when it comes to my blog and my fitness goals – I think that I sometimes sub-consciously self-sabotage because of that (stupid) feel of not being good enough but then there are days where I feel SO confident and happy and excited and empowered (it can be quite confusing haha)

    I think for me, I just push through – I’m uncomfortable, I’m scared, so what? Just do it. Don’t stop. I’m scared I won’t reach my fitness goals? It’s okay, you still have to go to the gym and you still have to work on eating better every day. I’m worried my blog won’t succeed and I’ll be stuck at my job? It’s okay. Be scared. But keep at it. Work hard, every day.

    http://www.elleisforlove.com

  5. This blog has helped me change my mindset towards my negative experiences as I had an Ex who was harassing me say I was fat and it fustrating to have someone bully you online for the world to see. I finally feel free from the negativity of it by embracing my body and who I am as a person the universe supports me unconditionally. I been using Gabrielle Bernstein universe has your back journal and boy it has made big change for me the meditation climbing from Gabrielle Bernstein is CBT in a different way. Thanks so much for the blog I definitely will use it when I am up against negative people too. ? Bless you

  6. This is wonderful – thinking about picking up and moving from CT to Florida – but not sure i can succeed find a job and afford to live on my own down there. I love it its my time to do something for me – stuck in my world in CT need a change but full of self doubt

  7. Great reading I love to see people being recognised for their positiveness I have grown a lot just by reading this blog and the wonderful comments thankyou for your availability and strength

  8. This is a great post. Sometimes the older you get you always remember when things didn’t go so well.
    The presentation, the audition, etc. You need to push past this and realize that past experiences DO NO
    predict what will happen in the future.

  9. Wow – this is awesome. Thank you.
    So many words of encouragement and motivation. My problem is that I just don’t know what my next journey should be, the path is not clear, but feel I need a new direction.

    1. Well it sounds like one thing is clear – a new direction is needed! 😉 I’d say explore whatever interests/activities/places/people pull you toward them and see where that takes you.

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