No Doubt….well, a little bit of doubt

William Shakespeare once said, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

The season I am currently in is full of unknowns, fear, and well….a little bit of doubt. I am trying really hard to lean into my trust muscle, to trust the process and to move forward understanding that all the dots will align soon….just not right now. It’s hard not to doubt when evidence isn’t presenting in favor of your desired outcome. So, what do we do about it? I took to the internet to see if I could find some suggestions on how to overcome doubt and I want to share them with you in case you are in a similar mindset space as me. Perhaps you are doubting a relationship, a career choice, an opportunity, or just yourself, overall. In either case, doubt can really get in our way of living the life we truly desire, so we need to figure out what it’s trying to teach us and how to work with it to move forward and lean into our trust muscle.

Now, this content is coming from a handful of different blogs and articles I found on the internet and will cite each source in the show notes in case you want to learn more about a specific topic.

Let’s dive right in:

From a blog titled 8 Ways to Overcome Self Doubt: We first need to understand where all of this doubting is coming from before we are to tackle it. Narcissistic parents, tough love, past experiences, and fear of failure AND success are cited as some of the main places that doubt can stem from. Looking at this list, if I’m being honest with myself it’s the fear of success and past experiences that are causing my doubt to hang on. I am uncertain about how to create a successful business without burnout and I am afraid that if I do crack that code, what will I be capable of? What will success look like on me? What will I have to learn/be new at at this next level of growth? I am hitting my head on the limit of my potential because I am doubting my ability to figure out the next phase of my life….though I’ve figured out all the phases before this.

One of the antidotes this article suggests to overcome self doubt is to think back to past experiences and spend time with supportive people. When I look back at how I grew my photography business I knew nothing. I didn’t know how to run a successful business, how to make a profit, how to serve clients, how to prep clients, how to create an experience that impressed them….all I knew was that the work I was doing was important. I took workshops and classes and invested in my knowledge to become not just technically proficient as a photographer, but to learn how to run my business in a way that would yield a profit. Essentially….I invested time and money to learn how to do the things I didn’t know how to do and then I did them. Secondly, I surrounded myself with people who I perceived as being successful and growth oriented in their businesses - I tried to avoid spending time with people who complained and whined about the impossibility of making a profit or folks who moaned about how horrible their clients were - these were not people I wanted to be like. As Jim rohn says “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” and if that IS the case, hanging out with people who believe in the dream will only help diminish that doubt - whereas spending time with folks who do not believe in possibility will only provide evidence for the doubt to become stronger.

In an article called 7 Ways to Overcome Self Doubt by American Express they recommend raising your self awareness and practice self compassion. Raising self awareness will helps us become more familiar with the internal voice driving the bus and can give us space to practice compassion for thinking and feeling the things that we do. Self awareness is something I preach constantly because it gives us insight into who we are and why and can give us a better foundation from which to grow. Compassion is one of my core values which is integral in the process of listening to the thoughts and beliefs that I have about myself - it gives me a soft place to land instead of feeling bad that I have bad feelings. It is understanding and a warm hug from myself that regardless of what’s going on I am loved, safe, and supported. Speaking of values, this is one of the other avenues the article suggests for overcoming self doubt and I concur 100% with this. Anytime I feel fear bubble up or have the scarcity mindset that I’ve inherited rear it’s ugly face I am able to confront it with my values of education, empathy, curiosity and compassion. When doubt comes a callin, I can choose any of these values to approach it to help me keep moving forward. The other day I almost threw myself into a full on panic attack because I realized that I no longer have the consistency of income that I had when I ran my full photographed business - scarcity came running out of the dark and was right at the front of my mind. I could feel my breath shorten, my shoulders tense up, and my jaw clench in response to this thought and instead of falling into a further spiral I asked:

What can I do right now to help myself feel safe?
Breath deep and slow

So I did my breathing exercises until the physiological symptoms faded away and I was able to sit with the fear that wedged itself between my ribs. I used curiosity to explore the fear like I was looking at a snowglobe:

“What color is it?”
“What does it mean?”
“Have I felt this way before?”
“Is it possible I’m future projecting instead of being aware of the present?”

I looked at the fear and doubt from so many different angles and perspectives that it gave me the ability to see where it stemmed from. Once I realized I was afraid of not knowing how to monetize my podcast, how to reach more people, how to get people interested in the mission for self development I realized that there was educational content I could start learning to feel more at ease with the process and since I have time right now, I can actually focus on what I am learning.

In How to Beat Self-Doubt and Stop Selling Yourself Short, Dr. Margie Warrell gives a few examples of the way that self doubt can show up: from not publishing the post, not writing the book, not applying for the promotion or the speaking engagement, not reaching out, and just a whole bunch of nots. When we tell ourselves we “should” do the thing and then we don’t we need to analyze what we are afraid of. She goes onto state that Self-Doubt is part of being human and understand that it is there to prevent you from being injured or humiliated - but while it’s heart is in the right place, it’s timing is usually off. One of the things I have always told others and now it’s time for me to apply it to myself is that my mission and message has to be more important than my fear. It is too important for me to encourage folks to embrace their authentic selves than it is for me not to do it. The last thing Margie reflects on in this article is that we must “train the brave” within ourselves. Doing the thing scared. Taking a chance on ourselves and rising above the noise our doubt will try to create. Ask yourself “What would I do if I was being brave right now?” This is such a great question to ask and if I am to apply it to myself right now I would say:

I would let myself step away to get clear and then come back
I would immerse myself in learning how to podcast, write, coach, and speak.
If I was being brave, I would tell people that I don’t know what’s next and that’s okay because I trust that what is next is what is meant for me.
I would say the thing that is hard and that is that I don’t want to talk just about body image because body image is just the tip of the iceberg and instead I want to help people chip their geodes and help them with mindset. I want to let people (and myself) know that we have so much power to change our lives and minds and yet we are choosing not to because of things like self doubt and fear.

If I was brave I would be okay to quit doing what I’ve done and start again - okay to rebrand, revise, and renew - understanding that I didn’t fail being a photographer, it just no longer serves me the way it used to.

Wow. That was a great question to ask.

The last tip I want to share is from an article from Psychology Today, called How to Overcome Self Doubt where the author Tchiki Davis encourages us to move towards unconditional self worth - NOT self love. This is the understanding that your worth is neither increased or decreased by external factors such as how people treat you, your decisions, your body or how much money you make. There are no conditions - you are worthy simply because you are human. I think this is really really important and in this current season of my life this is what I have been trying to prove to myself and I feel like I am on the last level of a Mario Bros quest where I am fighting the biggest bowser in the castle: non-productivity.

I released my studio because I was too attached to it, thinking I needed it to be respected.
I released my instagram last June because I was too obsessed, thinking I needed to post every day to be “relevant” and important.
I released my title of photographer because I was sure my value came from that title.
And now,
I am releasing my productivity - attempting to work and live more intentionally, understanding that my pace of work does not have to be so aggressive.

When I feel my brain start to spiral around guilt of not producing, not working, being “lazy”, and resting I argue back that I am still valuable and loved and supported when I am doing nothing. When I make mistakes or get rejected - I am still a valuable, loved and supported human.

Developing my self worth has taken a lot of years and I need to preface that just because I have confidence, doesn’t mean I have high self value. I very muchly will put myself in positions to do things for the greater good or to help others, but many of those times I will also agree to do those things because I think they will get me more love and acceptance. Understanding what it feels like when I do them for my ego or for my purpose has helped to dispel some of that doubt that can show up.

Overall, self doubt can cause a lot of havoc and wreck our dreams, desires and aspirations before we even begin. I want to encourage you to see where doubt might be getting in your way and ask yourself the following questions to move through it:

1) Have I felt this way before and overcome it? What made me push past it in the past?
2)What is something I can tell myself to reduce the fear this doubt is bringing up?
3)Who in my circle will be 100% honest with me and support me?
4)Where am I seeking external validation and how is this impacting my self doubt?
5)What would I do if I was brave?

Remember, we got this and we are capable of slaying the dragon of self doubt - we just need to be compassionate with ourselves in the process.