[success]You do not need to pay attention to those voices within you that create pain, or make you feel less competent, smart or able. ~ Sanaya Roman[/success]
There are probably times when you’ve struggled with self-doubt, I know I have.
But allowing it to paralyze you is not okay.
Any moment you can decide to start the process of getting your mind to work for you, instead of against you.
OR…
you can let your doubts and fears work in whatever ways they wish, ways that hold you back and keep you stuck in the same old place doing the same old thing and feeling those same old crummy feelings.
You can start the process of changing your life today, immediately, or you can wait until next week.
You could also do nothing.
One thing is certain you’ll reap the harvest of your activity or your indifference.
Life isn’t always easy for any of us, but don’t allow the struggle of self-doubt to become a lifestyle…it’s simply a moment in time.
Check out these ideas, they may help turn self-doubt and discouragement into action.
1. Ease your way through daily challenges
We all rely on our creativity to find new ideas to ease our way through day to day challenges.
It isn’t just the artists, writers, musicians and poets who can access creativity.
It belongs to every parent who invents something new for the family. It belongs to those who run a successful business, those who organize a gathering, decorate their room or home. It belongs to you.
Be wise enough to never be afraid of getting things wrong, it hurts your chances of using your innate creativity to the fullest.
And when you’re at your lowest point don’t wish for your days to be better, create them to be better. You have been gifted with untold power to create positive change in your world. Implement that power today.
2. Open your hands and heart
You can’t reach for a new tomorrow when your heart and hands are full of old fears and worries and doubts. What if you knew you had the power to achieve anything you set your mind to?
Truth be told, as you develop confidence in yourself, you’ll become aware of an inner power to accomplish much that you never realized you were capable of!
Be confident that you were put on this earth to accomplish something special, something only you can do and completely commit to it. More confidence will follow, but first be ready and willing to receive.
3. Stop falling down the same rabbit hole!
What happens when you find yourself in the same situation over and over again? You recognize the feeling of deja vu. You’ve been there before. Someone said that before, did that before. And you didn’t much like it before.
Problems arise when you recognize the path you’re walking down as the one with a giant hole that you’ve fallen into more than once, but you keep on walking anyway.
You might even find it’s getting easier to pull yourself out, but, a better, less complicated thing would be to stop falling down the same rabbit hole.
There’s more than one path.
If you don’t like the current events of your life, choose a new path. Respond in a new way. Think about what you’d rather experience and determine to stop repeating old habits.
4. Finding the miracles
Don’t limit your choices to what seems probable in this moment. Let your heart and spirit lead you away from compromise towards creative abundance, the place where everything is possible.
The only thing standing between you and the awesome life that is truly possible for you is your self-doubt and fear.
Keep your eyes and heart open.
Look both ways. Look all ways.
Miracles are hidden in the unlikeliest of places.
5. Use the law of averages to your advantage
You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to choose a bigger life. All that’s required is a little discipline, and determination. Don’t put it off: one day you might discover there’s no time left.
You don’t have to conquer life all at once. Instead choose to take that one step out of your comfort zone, that’s where your success lives, one step at a time away from where you are and towards where you want to be.
The more often you forge ahead, even when afraid and filled with doubt, the greater the belief you create in your abilities.
The more confidence you have in yourself, the more you’re likely to try even harder and through the law of averages greater success will be your reward.
6. Don’t miss your chance to catch a star
If you let doubt and fear rule your thinking you’ll never get up the nerve to reach for the stars.
Instead of doing your best, you’ll be allowing yourself to do less than what you can do. And before too long you’ll find yourself decreasing your confidence, your value and your self worth. Don’t do this to yourself.
Things won’t just drop into your lap. Reach out to them. If something is worth having, it’s worth reaching for.
The tragedy of life isn’t that you missed catching a star, the tragedy would be that you never had a star to reach for.
Your dream might be challenging to capture but to not have a dream would be truly sad.
Dream big and dream deeply. Dreams are your future plans.
7. Stop wishing and start believing
It takes courage to turn away from the problems that plague you and turn towards the light of what you truly desire. Its all too easy to do nothing but wallow in our troubles. We’ve all done that. We all know people who still do that.
Those who are successful, and confident with few self-doubts have their share of problems just like me and you.
They don’t become discouraged by their challenges because they remember they’ve handled them before and come out stronger and wiser.
So they turn their attention away from the problem and onto the thought that every problem has a solution. And so can you.
Face challenges by focusing on solutions, that’s what makes you strong. And even on your most difficult days you get a bit stronger. So today, stop wishing for the problem to disappear and start believing you have what it takes to handle it.
8. So you’re not sure what to do next
Be less concerned about being unsure what you should do next and more concerned with paying attention to the thoughts and feelings you consistently have about yourself and your life. They will determine the next actions you take. They determine your future experiences.
No matter what happened yesterday, or your past failures, these old experiences have little to do with what is possible for you today, in this moment.
Endless inner conversations about all that’s wrong and difficult can be changed. Begin to intervene in self-talk that isn’t supportive. Every time you catch yourself speaking words of regret or complaint or doubt…stop and ask yourself ‘what’s a better thought’?
The universe we live in is a universe of laws not of chance, and no matter who we are when we repeat the same thoughts and actions we’re going to get the same results.
Make your life about growth and expansion. Expect to learn and grow and understand and remember, every success and every failure isn’t an accident.
Thanks for being a part of my life and for reading till the end!
And now over to you. Do share in the comments below the biggest insight you’re taking away from this week’s post, or how you handle self-doubt when it strikes.
As always, I appreciate your kindness, compassion and encouragement. Your ideas may be exactly what someone else needs to find their way onto the path that’s right for them. And if you can think of anyone who might need a word or two of encouragement when filled with self-doubt please share on your favourite social network.
Encourage one another.
With love and appreciation,
Elle
16 Comments
I appreciate your reminder that creativity isn’t limited to artists! We all can apply creativity to make the best of our life. I don’t feel plagued by fear or self-doubt, but I do often wonder what’s truly the most important way to invest my energies in this life. That can get me in a swirl! Thanks for these helpful ways forward.
What a lovely word Sandra, swirl. It’s so appropriate I can almost ‘feel’ it. Finding the best way to invest your energies every day is a truly creative act isn’t it?
I think we often misapply the ideas of certain words, like creativity. Many don’t appreciate how creative they are in terms of the life they lead. Hopefully when someone reads this post they’ll begin to celebrate the generous gift of creativity bestowed upon them and begin to fashion a supremely wonderful life. I certainly wish for that. 🙂 As always Sandra, thanks for sharing your words of wisdom.
Elle,
My suggestion for a topic or subject to help others is to devote some energy towards people who have really hit the bottom (in their world, my bottom might be 500 feet higher than someone elses, everyone has their own depth) and provide vision, encouragement, and motovation so they (we) do not make being at the bottom their residence. When we get there, we tend to keep looking down instead of up.
Hi Paul, that’s a great idea and I’m adding it to the list. It’s not always easy to focus on the stars when we’re stuck in the mud of all that’s wrong and all the wounds and problems we’re dealing with. I so appreciate you taking the time to share your ideas and you make a great point that our lowest point might not be true of someone else. Nicely done. 🙂
Beautiful post and as always encouraging. This is exactly what I’ve been working on these last few weeks, overcoming my fears that I have towards some of the dreams and goals I’m working towards. Always nice to read words that keep on pushing me to put fear aside.
Hi Edith,that fear thing somehow manages to pop up at the most inopportune moments doesn’t it? Sometimes out the seeming blue, there it is. And it is nice that we can share the journey towards our dreams. We, none of us, are immune from fear, even those who say they’re never afraid! But together we can encourage and motive and inspire. All of us need a helping hand every now and then and I’m happy if I can give one to you Edith. You go for it girl…and keep us posted on those little signs that tell you you’re well on your way. 🙂
Thanks,Elle. You wrote exactly the wrds of encouragement I need to hear right now. Staying positive and talking back to negative messages is a challenge. I like the thought of turning away from challenges and toward growth. I find writing grateful things in the morning and at night help me to look forward to the day.
Thanks, Elle!
Hi Faye, you’re right, it is a challenge. But you know what…every time you face it you become stronger and wiser and it gets easier. Your gratitude journal will make a HUGE difference in your life. Isn’t it amazing when we stop to pay attention, how many things we actually do have to be grateful for. What a wonderful energy to immerse yourself in. Yay for you. 🙂
Another fantastic article, Elle !
Fear and self-doubt can wear such huge masks, hiding that they are really quite insignificant in the grand scope of things.
It’s in Love and our ability to imagine our most wonderful life that our true power resides.
The poet R Hunter once wrote” Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right”.
The Light, wonderful outcomes and happiness are always there . . . merely awaiting our acceptance . . .
Write on, Elle !
Hello Joseph! You should write a book, you have such a lovely turn of phrase and that quote…just fabulous. You bring so much light each time you join in the conversation and hopefully we’ll see you hear a lot in the future. Your words are so wise. 🙂
This is such a great post, Elle. Self-doubt definitely affects all of us at one time or another. And we can either let it hold us back or we can do something about it. I’ve found that the best way for me to deal with it is to just do what scares me anyway. Usually once you start doing something, you realize that you’re more capable than you thought. Then instead of breeding self-doubt, you start to create momentum to continue to do the things you want to do.
It’s funny Melissa how what one person finds scary another handles with ease. Not to mention the different levels of scary we might have. Your point about action is great. It doesn’t even need to be action towards dealing with the fear. There are times I’ve discovered that the action of a ‘reality check’ does it for me. That way I can put things into perspective and then ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’! Thanks for being such a stalwart commenter. I love what you have to say. 🙂
This week I’ve been bogged down with severe self-doubt. Even to the point where I felt I wasn’t worthy of the good things in life. After reading this post, I feel so much more powerful. I feel like the things I want in life, I can have them once I decide to make things happen for myself.Thanks for sharing these amazing words. Your blog inspires me so much!
Hi Erynn. That’s a bummer but I’m so happy you didn’t let the fear take you way down the rabbit hole. Isn’t it amazing how looking at life in a slightly different way supports us on our journey of growth and fulfilling our dreams. Alone we make progress, but together we can far. We can all inspire and encourage one another on this journey. After all we’re all in it together aren’t we. Thanks for your encouragement…it’s truly appreciated. 🙂
Excellent post!. For me, when self doubt strikes. I’m always try to remember something good in the past. It’s always encourage me.
Hello Vania – that’s a great technique. For some strange reason I got the ‘grumps’ at one point today, not something I’m used to and I did the same thing, turned my attention onto things that make me happy! 🙂