“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. —Norman Vincent Peale.”

We sometimes ask, "What would you attempt if you knew you would not fail?" 

It is an interesting question because it brings up many different thoughts. Maybe one of the first in my mind would be, "Well, I doubt that would ever happen" in real life anyway. And we live in real life, but I think it is a question we should explore because so many of us go through life doubting our abilities and what we may be able to accomplish if we had more confidence. So in this post, we will look at how doubt might affect our lives and what we can do about it. 

What is doubt, and where does it come from? 

I enjoy studying and learning more about how our brain works. What really makes us tick, and one of the exciting ideas I came across, is how we develop as children. As a child, we have no filter. Everything we encounter is absorbed by our conscious mind and stored in our subconscious. It's not until we are about 8 years old that our brains start to form a filter, and we can reject some of what we encounter. Imagine if everything you experienced reinforced your giftings and strengths and your confidence grew. You might be described as unstoppable. Now imagine your environment was not so positive. You were laughed at when you tried something new that didn't work out. You were told you were a bad person. Your parents, teachers, and other significant people told you you would never amount to anything because you were no good. Quite a different story, wouldn't you say? In the second scenario, you can see how this person would grow up with little or no confidence in who they are and what they could accomplish. 

What is tragic is we are not always given a choice about what events appear in our early life and how we should respond to them. Consequently, they impact our biases when tackling something new in our life. If we have come more from the positive side, we will try it and recognize our successes. However, when our bias is negative, tackling the same project may not result in our best effort because we have already convinced ourselves it will fail anyway. 

Unless we change something, it will carry over and impact every area of our life. 

So how do we change it? 

Reframe the Narrative

Listening to the negative self-talk in our heads can help us identify limiting beliefs. When you listen to your conversation with yourself and identify the recurring thoughts that are repeated, you have identified the limiting belief. Take that limiting belief and reframe it as a positive. 

Let's say you're feeling overwhelmed with a task and thinking, "I'll never be able to finish this." A positive affirmation could be reframed to "I am capable of tackling this task one step at a time, and I will progress towards completing it." By focusing on your capability and taking small steps towards your goal, you create a positive mindset and set yourself up for success. First, you must understand your strengths and identify the steps necessary to complete the task. 

Take Action 

I have been facilitating a course about discovering our Identity. An exercise we encourage our participants to undertake is to prepare a timeline of their life. They are to take a stack of post-it notes and do a brain dump of events in their life. Then, write the event, good or bad, on a post-it note and place it on a bulletin board or tabletop. Whatever works best for them. We recommend they set aside some serious time to do this. When you organize them into a timeline of your life, you may see a pattern emerge. First, however, I want to encourage you to take from this process and recognize the good things you have accomplished. Make a note of any rewards you received? What were you most proud of? What is it you have learned to do well? 

Listing our accomplishments is an effective way to build confidence, allowing us to see and recognize our capabilities and successes. When we take the time to reflect on what we have achieved, we gain a greater sense of self-awareness and positive self-esteem. This awareness helps us to focus on our strengths. It can increase our motivation and determination to set and reach future goals. It can also provide a sense of progress and momentum, which can be especially helpful when we feel discouraged or doubtful. Acknowledging and celebrating our accomplishments can be a form of self-care and significantly improve our mindset and overall well-being.

Identifying the negatives from our past provides an opportunity to deal with them constructively. The topic of another post. 

Cultivate a Support System

Dr. Henry Cloud wrote a book titled "The Power of The Other" I highly recommend you get a copy. In it, he shows how our relationships profoundly affect how we think, act, and feel. Our personal relationships are a crucial part of our support system, and we need to make sure we have the right people as a part of that system. Who will be your advocates, encouragers, and givers? Spend more time with them. Who are the takers in your life? Could you get rid of them? Well, maybe you can't get rid of them because they are family. Still, you can be strategic about how you spend time with them and what level of influence you allow them to have. In addition, we need to choose wisely when placing our trust in people. What is their motivation, and why are they interested in you. 

Identify what it is that is holding you back. Are you a self-saboteur? Are you unwilling to ask for help? You probably have a good idea of what it is, and I encourage you to ask yourself the right questions. 

In addition to people, what is your personal growth plan? Do you have one? Have you taken any assessments that identify your strengths? John C. Maxwell says we need to be aware of where we are before we can develop a plan to grow to where we want to be. 

Sometimes we need more than our friends and family as part of our support system. If you are suffering from anxiety or depression, please consider getting help from a trained professional. 

As with many things in life, choosing our support system and group is strategic. Be intentional about it. 

Self-doubt is a common condition for most of us to one degree or another. I don't know if we can ever totally eliminate it from our life. But I do know that when we focus on our unique giftings and strengths, we are more likely to move forward in confidence. Our past is a part of us. Identifying what energizes us helps us know our strengths. Dealing with the negative helps us put that in its proper place. If you need professional help, please contact someone who is trained and an expert who can give you the appropriate advice. 

If you are interested in listening to Dr. Cloud speak about the Power of the Other, check out this youtube video.