Doubt is Natural; Learn to Put It Away

Everyone experiences doubt. We wonder if we can do it. We question whether it’s the right thing to do. We hear from others that we may not be able to. Uncertainty, skepticism, hesitation are siblings of doubt.

You’d be a fool if you always were cocksure of what you’re doing. Doubt makes you check. Doubt makes you think twice. Doubt keeps you from leaping before you look. But doubt becomes a problem when you get stuck in the negative ruminations, the constant “but what if…” statements that go around and around in your brain.

The remedy for doubt isn’t surety; we can never really be completely sure of anything. The cure for doubt is belief. After you’ve sifted through all the what-ifs, after you’ve developed your Plans B, C and D, you must believe that what you are after can be.

If you have stopped believing in yourself, if you are stuck in the muck of doubt, the first lesson you need to learn is that failure is not forever. It is completely normal for things not to work the first or second or fifth time you try. We live in a world where judgement comes quickly and “failure” is easily assigned. But mistakes aren’t failures. Mistakes are the opportunity to fine-tune a plan so your chance of success goes up the next time you try. But there must be a next time.

Remember, too, that if you are doing something that goes against your culture’s norms, against your society’s acceptable limits, you will experience doubt. But that doesn’t mean you should stop.

You have to learn to push past discomfort and trust yourself. You have to quiet your worse-case brain and replace the incessant negative chatter with positive self-talk. And you have to know that you are strong enough to do things that might not work, learn from your repeated attempts and move forward.

It is so easy to become stuck in fear and doubt when people around us are telling us just how much of a mistake we are making. It is so easy to give up and drift with the current when we let ourselves be convinced that our “doubt” is our “intuition” telling us to be careful.

If you stay in that place of doubt, you will continue to be riddled with fear. Your stagnation will continue to breed doubt.

Believe you can and you’ll find a way to dig down deep for the courage you need to get busy doing. If you find you don’t have a lot of self-confidence, then you must build it by looking at the things you’ve accomplished. Make a list of what you’ve done that you’re proud of and keep adding to the list as you think of things. They don’t have to be world-changing events. The first time I managed to complete a knitting project without dropping a stitch I was elated. You betcha that went on my list of accomplishments. Ditto the first time I spoke publicly and didn’t puke first.

It is only by putting your doubt away, by moving from thinking about it to actually doing it, that you’ll find the learning and confidence to know that you are strong. You can do it. I believe in you.