5 Ways to Replace Self-Doubt with Confidence
BY Kate Darbyshire Evans, Resilience and Wellbeing Coach
It’s common for us all to experience self-doubt at times, especially when we are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. It can hold us back and can prevent us from reaching our full potential or expressing who we really are. By comparing ourselves to others and their achievements self-doubt can be exacerbated.
I spent many periods as a young adult, in my first job in the fashion industry, in a persistent state of fear and self-doubt. Having only just graduated from university I was given the responsibility for totally re-branding and designing all the collections. The responsibility was enormous and the pressure intense. I started to doubt my ability to produce what was required. I often worked sixty or seventy hours a week trying to prove I could live up to the company’s expectations and climb what I believed to be the ladder of success. I never thought of the consequences on myself until I was overwhelmed with stress and physical and mental fatigue that lead to burnout.
What I learnt from my experience was that I needed to change the way I responded to my self-limiting thoughts. I took a step back, allowed myself to be vulnerable, which was not an easy thing for me to do. I explored and learnt how to find ways of overcoming my self-doubt, by being realistic in acknowledging my abilities and capabilities. It helped build my confidence and trust in myself. By not being realistic or honest with myself I had pushed myself to do the work of 2 or 3 people, this was unsustainable. Having regained my confidence the first thing I did was to act and ask for assistants to create a design team.
Many clients I have worked with l have experienced self-doubt at sometime and the resulting negative impact it had on them. As I work with female entrepreneurs it’s often because they feel they have to be good at so many different things to get their business started. Even when they have been running their business for years self-doubt still creeps in from time to time. They may doubt their abilities to handle all the responsibility and can feel overwhelmed. This can if left unchecked result in them feeling paralysed when having to make decisions and can result in stress and ultimately burnout.
But the good news is that Self-doubt is not always negative
The nervous energy you feel from the stress and anxiety caused by self-doubt can work for you. If you can harness that energy in a positive way it can help you to motivate yourself and use it to take action. To help you overcome self-doubt in a healthy and productive way and so that it doesn’t get in the way of your success.
Here are 5 ways that can help you replace self-doubt and grow confidently from your experiences.
Is your self-doubt realistic or unrealistic?
Ask yourself where is the evidence for your self-doubt?
Realistic self-doubt is when you can acknowledge that you have set out to do something that is more than you feel you can achieve at the moment. That’s okay as it makes sense. By owning that you can then act on this realistic knowledge and make a decision about what to do in order to make it more achievable. For example perhaps you could take a course or ask an expert in that field for their help.
Unrealistic self-doubt is when you know you have got the resources and skills to achieve what you are trying to do. Think about something you may have done similar before. It may be challenging, but you know it’s achievable with effort and commitment. In this case your initial feelings of self-doubt are likely to be inaccurate. There is no real reason to doubt your capability.
Trust yourself
When you have a decision to make you may ruminate on it too long and that just feeds your self-doubt. Self-doubt can lead to you look for reassurance from others. The best way is to trust yourself and go with your first reaction. Think about it. How many times having chosen to follow someone else’s suggestion and then you realised that you should have listened to your gut instinct and gone with that. Make a decision and go with it. You can always tweak things as you progress. Trusting yourself that you know what’s the best course of action for you. Trusting your intuition is the way you can gain confidence and to take action.
Clarify your values and what matters to you
When you decide what really matters to you and find your purpose and meaning in life your self-doubt will diminish. By following your values you can use your talents and abilities to find your own voice. This will help you to connect to yourself and others and it is a great tool to help you manage the challenges and decisions you have to make. Success to me is doing what you love and believe in and enjoying it.
*Why not find out what your values are by going to the VIA site and take the free assessment online https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register
Treat yourself with self-compassion
I remind myself daily to practice self-compassion. If you constantly judge yourself or are seeking to be perfect at everything you do self-doubt or your inner critic will creep in as a form of protection. Instead think of how you would respond to a close friend who is struggling with feelings of self-doubt and respond to yourself with the same words you would say to your friend. Or keep a journal of
Don’t compare your accomplishments to others
Comparing yourself with others serves no purpose. Everyone is an individual and on their own journey. What matters is that you are following the path that serves you well and that you are doing what matters to you, what works for you and is personally fulfilling. Doing what you love and enjoy is what makes you feel good about yourself and it doesn’t matter if it is different to what someone else is doing.
About the author:
Prior to qualifying as a coach Kate spent 25 years in the fashion industry, initially as a designer and later a Board Director in Design and Development. Kate often worked with other designers and entrepreneurs who ran their own fashion businesses. Although it was exciting, they often talked about how working in the fashion industry, with its unique pressures, could be very stressful and for some, including myself, overwhelm and anxiety had led to burnout.
Kate qualified to post graduate level as a business and personal coach with one of the UK’s leading training institutions, Barefoot Coaching. She had been practicing as a resilience and wellbeing coach for 10 years in my own practice, Finer Thinking. Skilled at connecting people with their resourceful selves, their ideas and actions that cultivate success.
Kate uses a variety of evidence based coaching techniques including positive psychology, NLP and transactional approaches. She offers one to one coaching and training in resilience and stress management for individuals as well as teams or groups. Her coaching practice echoes my values which are honesty, respect, integrity, self development, commitment, accountability and kindness.
If you want to stop anxiety and overwhelm preventing you from being successful and enjoying the industry you love then take the first step and BOOK a Complementary Stress Breakthrough Session on www.finerthinking.com or contact kate@finerthinking.com