Do you struggle with self-doubt? Many people do, and it’s something that you can learn to overcome quickly.
This article will cover some of the best ways to learn how to overcome self-doubt, gain self-esteem, and reach your goals without holding yourself back.
1. Change Negative Self-Talk
Negative self-talk can damage our self-esteem and, therefore, induce self-doubt. You know that voice that tells you that you aren’t ready for that. You aren’t pretty enough for that.
Negative self-talk is normal, but we can work to change it to positive self-talk.
Typically, it stems from our childhood experiences. Maybe we were living authentically, and someone snapped at us and said, “You can’t act like that.” So, this little voice inside begins.
If you don’t keep negative self-talk in check, you can wind up with some mental health issues down the road. So, if you are doing this, which I am sure you are because you are searching for information about self-doubt, then let’s look at some fun ways to change this!
The best way to do this is to change the words when a negative thought pops up in your head.
For example, if you say to yourself, “I can’t do this; I’m not good enough.” You instead change it to “I can do this; I am enough, I may just need more…fill in the blank.”
At first, you may feel silly, but at some point, you will begin to form a new neural pathway in your brain that is of a more positive tone.
2. Start Using Positive Affirmations (I Am Statements)
Positive affirmations are good for you to practice bringing your self-esteem up and to help you learn how to overcome self-doubt.
Some of the other benefits of positive self-affirmations include the following:
- Decrease stress
- Increase well-being
- Improve academic performance
- Increase likelihood and openness to positive change
An older but certainly still valid study discovered that positive self-affirmations could stop ruminative thinking. Ruminative thinking is when you are trapped in a negative cycle of negative thoughts that causes you to become upset.
This type of overactive worry will, in fact, lead to feelings of self-doubt as well. Instead, you can use affirmations to overcome self-doubt.
So, an excellent way to begin to practice self-affirmations is to wake up and do them first thing in the morning. You can make a list of about ten positive I AM statements and say them out loud every morning as part of your morning wellness routine.
Depending on what is causing your self-doubt, you can gear your I AM statements to focus on those feelings.
If you are not into saying positive affirmations out loud, then you can try to write them down in a journal. I suggest physically writing them down, too, because the brain is affected when we use our hands to physically write on paper versus typing something up with a keyboard.
3. Self-Love
One of the best ways to learn how to overcome self-doubt is to begin to love yourself. Practicing self-love is so foreign to many of us. We are so used to filling the role of mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and caretakers that we seemingly forget to care for our number one, ourselves.
So, a great way to practice self-love is self-care. I’m sure I mention self-care in every single article and podcast episode, if not more than once. There are very good reasons for this.
Self-care is essential if you want to change negative feelings about yourself. The best way to love yourself is to do acts that show yourself love.
So, a self-care routine can include literally anything that does this, but I recommend focusing on the physical body first.
Toxins are everywhere: the food, the water, the air, the environment, and all of this stuff builds up over time in our physical bodies.
So, working on your physical body is the best place to start a self-care routine. Change the way you eat, sleep, and exercise, and you’ll soon start to notice feelings of self-doubt seem to fade into the background as you begin to feel good again.
4. Heal the Inner Critic
So, I often see articles saying silence your inner critic. I don’t know if that is the best route, but it may work for some people. Instead, I tell my clients to heal their inner critic.
Here’s the difference. When you silence it, you repress it. We all know what happens when we repress anything, right? It comes back and explodes like a volcano a couple of years down the road and runs out all over the people you care about.
So, to heal the inner critic, you will want to work on your inner child. By practicing inner child work, you will begin to heal that voice that keeps telling you that you are not good enough.
It’s only there because someone told you as a child in one way or another that you weren’t good enough. So, talk to your inner child and tell them they are good enough.
Take your inner child out and play in nature. Find a good board game and play it with your friends or family.
Take a fun and exciting new class. When you embrace the inner child inside, you begin to heal the inner critic, the negative voice and feelings begin to fade, and you learn to overcome self-doubt.
5. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
Nothing is worse for overcoming self-doubt than the compare game. Is this not what social media does to people? This is why I tell people to take a step back from social media.
People are taking these photos to show you a version of themselves that is often far from the truth. You know the woman with 400 selfies a day is dying for attention. She’s so lonely on the inside.
Most of the happiest people I know are not even on social media.
It’s designed to make people feel less than. So stop comparing yourself to other people.
Your family isn’t going to look like someone else. Your career isn’t going to look like someone else’s. Your child isn’t going to look like someone else. You don’t need a boat to be happy, because the boat isn’t going to make you happy. The husband isn’t going to make you happy.
You are what makes you happy. So, the best way to learn how to overcome self-doubt is to stop comparing yourself and your family to everyone else and remember to stay in your lane and on your path.
Your journey is going to be entirely different from everyone else’s, and that’s okay. That’s what makes the world unique and not full of cookie-cutter slave drones.
6. Discover What Your Limiting Beliefs Are
The next thing you want to do when you are learning to overcome self-doubt is figure out your limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are these ideas that we have that are limiting.
So, for example, if you think that you don’t have time to work on self-care because you have a job. This is a limiting belief that is holding you back. Yes, you can make time for self-care and still work three jobs.
Another common limiting belief is that I need to change who I am because who I am isn’t good enough to go after my dreams.
You can see how these types of beliefs that you may feel in your heart are 100% true, but they aren’t.
And they are drastically holding you back from reaching your goals.
So, the first step is discovering what they are, and then the second step is letting go of these limiting beliefs.
If you tell yourself it’s too late for me to change, that’s a limiting belief. Instead, say, “There is always time to start chasing my dreams,” and wholeheartedly feel into that.
7. Reach Out for Help
Sometimes, since we can be so hard on ourselves, it’s good to open up about your feelings of self-doubt with someone else.
Think about it, the longer you sit and think about stuff, the more distorted your thoughts can become. Find a supportive person, like a coach or a therapist, to whom you can express feelings of self-doubt.
Having a third party to discuss these feelings with helps you overcome their power over you.
As a coach, I remember having “imposter syndrome.”
But, when I talked it over with a third party. It opened my eyes to how unfair I was being to myself.
My coach showed me that a past “perfectionist” part of myself was trying to hold me to unattainable standards. Once I learned to let go of perfectionism, the self-doubt fell away, and I started to develop my confidence again.
Hire a Coach To Teach You How To Overcome Self-Doubt
If you are struggling and want to learn how to overcome self-doubt, maybe you should consider hiring a coach.
A life coach can work with you to change your mindset so that you can overcome self-doubt and reach your goals.
Reach out to Unleash Your Healing Vibes to set up a free session to map out a plan for overcoming your self-doubt today.