Don't Let Your Doubts Bully You

Given the choice, would you let someone who hated you have power over you?

This is what you're doing when you let your doubts trump your self-belief.

Like the quote up top says, your doubts are anti-beliefs. They're rooting for you to lose, and they'll break down your spirit until you do.

Often, if we’re unaware of the outcome of a potential goal, we feel that it’s too dangerous to reach for it. By doing this, we are rooting against ourselves. We're making the assumption that the outcome will be negative or not worth what it takes to get there.

You psyche yourself out of achieving something that you wanted. In fact, you’re hoping you don’t even try, just because you’re worried about what might happen.

Ultimately, this makes you give up prematurely and miss out on real growth and/or rewards. 

When reaching out of your comfort zone, you won't know what will happen. It's out of your zone. But, again, reaching past your mental comfort zone will allow you to expand. It'll make you grow. You'll never shine if you don't grow. Is that how that Smash Mouth song goes? Either way, real growth requires some form of discomfort.

However uncomfortable your doubts may be, that's not the form of discomfort that will help you. 

What will help you is developing beliefs that are stronger than your doubts, and pushing forward with your endeavor. The possible discomfort that was giving you those initials doubts? That will help you grow into a person who doesn't doubt themselves so easily.

Yes, doubts can be scary. You might even hear your brain throw some of these at you:

• But this bad thing will definitely happen!

• Maybe, maybe, maybe.

• I’m worried.

It’ll take a lot of “figuring things out,” but if you never bother to do the figuring, you’ll never get the things.

Expecting to fail is a great way to fail.

The lack of potential growth will make you feel even worse than the doubts will! So, grow!

Here’s another gold nugget from John Yates:

You need to take that first push PAST the doubts in order to reach for success. Once you reach some success, you can be confident in your judgment, your skills, and your future efforts. But you gotta make that initial push happen first.

When I first started out as a personal trainer, I had insane imposter syndrome. When I learned more about exercise science and helped clients get results, my confidence shot up because I understood what I was doing and knew that it worked. Prospective clients could sense this confidence and were more eager to work with me.

When your self-beliefs are more powerful than your self-doubts:

• You can become more open to more trial and error, and your worries may not come to fruition.

• In fact, another benefit is that you’ll stop assuming the worst and dropping the task at hand at the first hint of uncertainty.

• You will become more fearless.

• You’ll stop overthinking.

Here are some things to keep in mind:   

• If you can't get rid of your doubts, pretend that they will come true.

• Do you think you can handle them? If so, keep moving forward.

• Don’t think you could handle it? Well, could you handle it if you were a badass? Pretend you are, and move forward.

Remember that your doubts are beliefs that work against you, so develop even stronger beliefs to beat the shit out of those.