How To Overcome Self-Doubt & Believe In Yourself

We wouldn’t know how dangerous self-doubt can be until we become paralyzed and can’t participate in the fulfillment of our purpose.

At the beginning of the year, I found myself drowning in self-doubt after meeting with a group of professional writers. Just to give you a background, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but fate led me to engineering and built a world around it. To be in a writer’s world was new to me, and I got so overwhelmed by everything that seemed basic for them — writing prompts, genres, styles, grammar, and vocabulary — while the only thing I could confidently share was how to design a high-rise building. (Of course, I was quiet the entire meeting and didn’t say anything like that to them.)

Even though I knew it was created to support other writers, I couldn’t help but feel small and amateur. My ego definitely took over, and I ended up doubting my writer self. I knew it wasn’t a simple doubt because the feeling of being discouraged always got into my nerves every time I sat at my computer, and I’d never finished a sentence without asking myself if I did it right and beautifully.

Deep self-doubt is not something you can brush off by running away from its source. When it is rooted in a traumatic experience such as failure, rejection, or being shamed at something that matters to you, it doesn’t resolve on its own until you confront it with honesty and courage.

To overcome self-doubt, you need to go through inner work that often involves acknowledging your fears and forgiving the people who made you feel small and unworthy of who you wanted to be. In fighting my demons, I learned that self-doubt reflects our greatest fears. It cannot paralyze us if we don’t permit them to control us.

Here are 6 tips on how to overcome self-doubt.

1. Know your doubt triggers and deal with them

I always believe that this process requires courage. Learning about our triggers means digging into our shameful experiences that destroyed our trust and self-confidence. It is like scratching a scab on your skin and letting that old wound sting you the second time around.

Self-reflection is necessary to discover what makes us anxious and scared. Here are some guide questions to help you know more about your triggers:

• What traumatic or unwanted experiences have you had in the past that hold you back from doing what you really want to do?

• What are the negative narratives that play in your head when doubting yourself? (For example: My sentences are not well constructed because I didn’t learn them in school.)

• What do you see in others that makes you feel small? (For example: I feel small when I meet writers who have formal education in writing because  I’d never be as good as them, and that they know something I don’t.)

Journal your answers and look for a common denominator. What I learned about my triggers was that I had a limiting belief that I needed permission from the world, a writing degree, so to speak, before I could call myself a writer.

Self-doubt is a wound in the soul that doesn’t fully heal. You have to face the demons you’ve been running away from to realize what’s going on inside of you, and figure out what needs healing. To overcome self-doubt means facing your fears and increasing your awareness of how they limit you from being your best self.

2. Mindfully shift negative thoughts into positive ones

Being mindful of your thoughts can save you from unnecessary mental and emotional load. Self-doubt is a sign that you’re dwelling on negative thoughts, and it has negatively affected the way you see yourself. If you are mindful of the thoughts you play in your head, you can easily catch them and shut off what doesn’t bring inspiration to pursue your goals.

Creating this website and building a writing career through it has brought me thoughts and emotions I didn’t imagine I would have. It was a foreign experience for me to look down on myself because it wasn’t my nature. When we are in deep self-doubt, all we see is the unworthy image of ourselves. But what saved me from drowning in negativity was breathing in the things I should be grateful for.

You are capable of choosing the battle you play in your head. When a negative thought starts to creep in, shift right away before it gets into you. You can never run out of good things in life, no matter how it may seem to be the opposite. They are just waiting for you to appreciate their presence and embrace them.

Overcoming self-doubt means letting go of negative thoughts and choosing the positive ones. If you find shifting difficult, start slowly, but be consistent with it. Mindfulness is acquired through practice. Build a habit of thinking about good things that happen to you every day, and be grateful for them, no matter how small they are. 

3. Evaluate your situation and set realistic goals

Setting realistic goals is important not only for ticking off your to-do list but also for a healthy mental state. Being too idealistic can create self-inflicted pressures, and failing to meet expectations makes us feel inadequate and not good enough.

Evaluate yourself with these questions:

• Are you not good enough, or are your standards just too high?

• Where does your idealism take you? Is it bringing you forward or causing you to self-doubt?

Getting over self-doubt requires a clear understanding of your current situation and abilities. If you’re expecting too much from yourself, even if you already have too much on your hands, learn to adjust according to your situation without compromising your needs. To overcome self-doubt means listening to your circumstances and not forcing yourself to get other people’s approval. 

4. Stop comparing yourself with others

In the early stage of creating content for Shifting Psyche, I compared myself with other bloggers and judged my work based on how they did theirs. Soon enough, it became a reality to me. My writing became worse than before, and I felt I would never get to where I wanted for my career.

There’s so much truth in the cliché, “comparison is a killer of joy”. Comparing yourself with others kills passion and creativity. Not because your work is not as good as others, it isn’t worthy to be seen. You can still be good even if there are people who are better than you. 

Stop using your time and energy in a toxic comparison and focus on improving yourself and the craft you have yet to learn. To overcome self-doubt means acknowledging that you are not perfect, and that there will always be someone better than you are.

5. Find people who inspire you to improve

If there are people who make you feel small (intentional or not), there are also people who inspire you to be better and grow. Finding people who will inspire you to believe in yourself again doesn’t have to be someone you can physically talk to. There are many inspiring people you can find in books or on the internet, like blogsites and social media platforms.

When I was looking for inspiration, I found a writer with a website called the Truth Within Silence. Her high respect for writing and publication reflects on her works, and that inspires me to get better at writing messages I want to share with my readers. Healing and growth happen when we humble ourselves and appreciate others for their hard work and dedication.

Fill your mind with people and things that make you feel comfortable for who you are, and even the things you are not confident about. Go for the things or people in your life that remind you of the value of your dream. To overcome self-doubt means choosing the people who bring out the best in you and setting boundaries for those who don’t.

6. Keep on showing up

Self-doubt can feel like a massive wall that blocks the way, and the only way to knock it down is by beating it a thousand times. When you show up, even if you are afraid, you are beating that wall and creating a door that will free you from doubting.

Show up, even if there’s a voice in your head that says ‘you can’t do it’. You may not be as capable as others, but it doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to live as you are. My doubts had been an almost daily narrative for me since January, but I kept on writing even if reading my works made me feel more stupid.

When you keep on doing what you’ve got to do, your nervous system will eventually get used to it and become part of who you are. And if you’re humble enough, you might be able to befriend your fears until they cannot scare you anymore.

Your doubts cannot define who you are. It is diligence and bravery that reveal your true power and worth. To overcome self-doubt means realizing that your character is more important than any talent or achievement. 

Doubting yourself doesn’t always mean you’re weak or lacking in faith. Sometimes, it means you value something so much that you can’t afford to lose or fail. We go through it because we’re humans trying to find our place on earth. Doubt is an invitation to explore yourself in depths you haven’t dived in yet, and discover how brave you can be and how far you can go. 

As Winston Churchill said, “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”

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