Self-doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. Learning how to manage self-doubt is crucial for small business owners and solopreneurs.
How to manage self-doubt: Introduction
If you buy in to self-doubt long-term, you’ll either tons of time and energy overthinking, overworking, and trying to make your work perfect, or never get started in the first place. Both of those scenarios are devastating for time management, and for achieving your personal and professional goals.
When someone comes to me and says they’re struggling with time management, mindset factors are almost always a huge chunk of the issue, looming just below the surface. Self-doubt is in the mix for many people. Today, I’m sharing five insights to help you learn how to manage self-doubt as a small business owner or solopreneur.
Understand that self-doubt is normal
First, it’s important to understand that experiencing self-doubt is totally normal. Everyone from famous and influential women to juggernaut writers and legendary leaders has experienced self-doubt.
Experiencing self-doubting thoughts doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you. Actually, it means that a part of your brain is trying to do its job.
Part of your brain is designed to keep you safe, maintain the status quo, and expend as little energy as possible. At its core, this is a survival response. When you think about doing something where you might:
- Fail
- Disappoint someone
- Not live up to expectations
- Not produce the quality of work that you (or others) expect of you
…this part of your brain kicks into survival mode. It starts offering up thoughts of self-doubt in an effort to dissuade you from taking action. Your brain is trying to keep you safe from the calamitous consequences it fears will result. This is a totally normal process. And, it’s almost always totally blown out of proportion by your brain – but more on that later.
For now, just know that self-doubt is normal, and that you don’t have to believe the self-doubting thoughts your brain is offering you.
See self-doubt as a stop sign, not a brick wall
Some people allow self-doubt to stop them in their tracks. I used to allow self-doubt to overtake my ambitions all the time. Once I discovered that I always have a choice, everything changed.
Those self-doubting thoughts aren’t necessarily true. Often, they’re your brain’s fabrication or amplification of what could happen, however remote the possibility may be. Just because self-doubt pops into your head, doesn’t mean you have to make a decision based on it.
When you allow self-doubt to stop you, you’re choosing to see it as a brick wall. You’re taking a suggestion from your brain and accepting it as truth.
When you choose to see self-doubt as a stop sign, you give yourself options. You have the opportunity to:
- Pause,
- Consider the thoughts that are bubbling up for you, and
- Decide if it serves your long-term interests to buy into them.
You get to decide how you respond to self-doubt
Like I said earlier, there is always a choice. Self-doubt doesn’t have to stop you, unless you choose to let it. As you figure out how to manage self-doubt, keep this in mind:
Self-doubt is a normal process in your brain. You get to decide how you respond to self-doubt when it arises.
When your brain is offering up self-doubt, it’s trying to keep you safe by keeping your where you’re at right now. After all, that’s kept you alive so far!
In other words, your brain is trying to help you survive. But the thing is, your actual survival is almost never at stake. The situations where we experience self-doubt are almost never life-or-death situations.
So, you can allow self-doubt to stop you, or you can choose to move forward in spite of it. The goal is isn’t necessarily to eliminate self-doubt. Your brain will probably be offering up self-doubt throughout your life, as it’s designed to do. Rather, the goal is to experience self-doubt, choose how you want to think and feel about the situation, and respond/take action from THAT space.
Even if things don’t turn out the way you want, it’s almost always survivable
The part of your brain that wants to keep you safe does an amazing job of telling you super scary stories about what could happen if things don’t go your way. More often than not, these stories are blown way out of proportion compared to what the actual consequences could be.
Take public speaking, for instance. Some people are deathly afraid of public speaking. Their brain senses that they could experience devastating social rejection, ridicule, self-criticism, or embarrassment as a result of getting onstage with a microphone.
But, what’s likely to happen if someone DOES get onstage and makes a mistake while they’re speaking? Is the audience going to jeer, make fun of them, and throw tomatoes their way?
Probably not.
Most of the audience will probably barely register the mistake, and certainly won’t remember it long-term. Unless they have some uncommon obsession with tracking other people’s mistakes.
If the person does make a mistake, maybe they’d keep going. Maybe they’d panic and run offstage. Could that be embarrassing? Yes. Would that embarrassment be survivable? Also, yes.
Whatever scary stories your brain is throwing your way about a goal in your business or your life, ask:
- How would I handle that scenario if it happened?
- How would I make sure that I would be okay in the end, even though it might be emotionally uncomfortable?
At the end of the day, people buy into self-doubt because we want to avoid the “negative” emotions we might experience if things don’t go their way. But those “negative” emotions are survivable.
And, the trade-off is often even worse. By buying into self-doubt and choosing not to take action, we avoid a potential short-term negative emotion (like embarrassment or feeling like a failure) in exchange for a negative long-term emotion (feeling helpless or stuck, regret, self-resentment for not taking action, etc.).
Ask yourself: What else could be true or possible here?
As I’ve said, self-doubt is normal, and you get to decide whether you want to buy into the self-doubting thoughts your brain is offering you.
An effective approach to moving through self-doubt and toward self-confidence is to ask, “What else could be true or possible here?”
For example, maybe you have a thought that, “I don’t think I have what it takes.”
What else could be true here?
- “It’s possible that I have what it takes.”
- “I have what it takes to give this a try.”
- “I have what it takes to handle whatever comes up after I try.”
- “Maybe I can do this.”
- “I’m curious to see what happens when I try this.”
- “If I fail, I will be okay.”
These thoughts, or others that resonate with you, highlight what else might be possible or true for you here, beyond the self-doubt.
How different does it feel to think, “I don’t think I have what it takes,” versus, “It’s possible that I have what it takes?”
The goal here is not to “think away” self-doubt, or to convince yourself that success is the only possible result. Rather, it’s to mentally open up to what else is possible for you – including success.
People are sometimes so quick to buy into self doubt, that they convince themselves of the fallacy that their failure is inevitable. If you find yourself sinking into self-doubt, ask yourself what else might be true or possible.
How to manage self-doubt: Conclusion
Self-doubt can cripple time management skills. It can cause you to overthink, procrastinate, overwork, or stop you from ever getting started. Today, I shared five insights to help you navigate self-doubt, so you can manage your time more effectively and get more stuff done in your business.
- Understand that self-doubt is normal
- Choose to see self-doubt as a stop sign, not a brick wall
- You get to choose how you respond to self-doubt
- Even if things don’t turn out the way you want, it’s almost always survivable
- Ask yourself: What else is true or possible here?
If self-doubt is holding you back in your business, I can help. Schedule a free call with me, and let’s figure it out together.