Episode #7: How to stop doubting yourself
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This episode is all about how to put an end to self-doubt - about time right?!
What youâll learn in this episode:
Why so many of us working Mums struggle with self-doubt and how self-doubt transcends various areas of a working Mumâs life
My own experience with navigating self-doubt as a Mum in a high-pressure career - my fear of making any mistake
The consequences of constantly feeling self-doubt
How you might perceive that you portray a confident exterior even though you experience a lot of self-doubt
How to redefine and reframe self-doubt
Unique and practical strategies to overcome your self-doubt today
How to embrace self-doubt as your ally
How to use self-doubt to grow and evolve yourself
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TLC for Working Mums Podcast Episode 7 - Full Transcript
Hi, and welcome to another episode of TLC for working Mum. Today we are going to talk about how to stop doubting yourself.
Self doubt has got to be one of the biggest reasons why my clients come to me and I have not yet met a working mom that does not feel self doubt in some way, shape or form.
I'm going to teach you some strategies today that have honestly changed my life and have allowed me to see my self doubt in a different way and utilise it to move me forward in all areas of my life. And I'm going to share the secrets with you today because they have helped me so much.
As a bit of a background about me, I used to practise law and as a lawyer, it is ingrained in us that there is a right and a wrong. People come to us to get the right answer. And when I worked in a top tier law firm, what that meant was any mistake that you make was catastrophic. Or at least that's how I felt at the time.
I was so afraid of making a mistake that I would doubt myself and my decisions all the time. So I would be sitting at my computer, preparing work for a client mulling over the tiniest things. I would check and recheck and recheck my work so many times for the fear of making any decision, any mistake.
And then this doubt would spread into all other areas of my life, and I would stand in the grocery section at a supermarket agonising on inconsequential decisions that I had to make such as, what vegetable are we going to have with our fish for dinner.
I doubted myself and my abilities. I questioned every thing, every decision, because I was so afraid I might get something wrong, make a mistake, fail.
Self-doubt literally stopped me in my tracks. Looking back I'm surprised I was even able to graduate as a lawyer and get into a top tier law firm and then work in house as a lawyer with all that self-doubt!
A high-functioning self-doubter.
On the surface however, I mustâve portrayed a confident appearance towards others. And this is what often happens with us working mums, to others we seem quite confident. We have a pretty perfect life on paper. But inside there is a lot of turmoil.
At least for me, I had a lot of doubt and a lot of critical self talk.
Often my working Mum clients come to me feeling a lot of self doubt, especially when it comes to their work and their career path. And also sometimes when it comes to being a mom and if they're making the right decisions for their children.
What I see though is that self doubt prevents us, or at the very least, significantly delays us from making decisions and taking decisive action.
And because as a working Mum, inevitably there are so many decisions to make and often several things to choose from when making those decisions so we sit in confusion, and then thereâs also so much to do, so we become completely overwhelmed.
We say that self-doubt, along with confusion and overwhelm are indulgent emotions because they perpetuate themselves. They keep us stuck. You might feel like youâre doing something when youâre feeling those emotions, but they are completely draining of your energy and donât fuel the actions that you need to take to achieve your desired result. They instead fuel a lot of inaction, procrastination, indecision, as well as rumination and worrying.
Iâm going to do entire episodes on how to make the right decisions, how to get out of confusion and how to overcome Mum overwhelm because these are such common things that I see with us working Mums, and that I had to work through and overcome myself in order to achieve what I want in my life.
So, back to self-doubt. How do we stop doubting ourselves so much and so often?
After I worked as a lawyer for several years, I followed my passion and skill-set to start working in the NFP space, and after a few years there I was CEO of that NFP. I returned from maternity leave after my second child was just a few weeks old. I âhad it allâ right - the high-powered prestigious job, the kids, the family. But it was all too much. It was completely unsustainable. I had to reevaluate my life and my career. I left as CEO and I felt completely lost.
I was riddled with self-doubt. I had thought I had failed. Failed at being CEO, failed at being a good Mum as I went back to work when my baby was so young.
My self-doubt was all consuming. So I started searching how I could feel better. How I cloud stop doubting myself so much. And thatâs when I discovered life coaching. And it was then that I learnt how to use my self-doubt to serve me, instead of breaking me down and then beating myself up for feeling so much self-doubt (which would just compound my negativity towards myself).
And this is what Iâm going to teach you today.
So how do you define self-doubt? Self-doubt is defined as a lack of confidence in oneself and one's abilities.
Sometimes it presents as imposter syndrome in the workplace, and iâm sure a lot of you feel or have felt imposter syndrome in the past - that experience of feeling like a fraud, thinking you're not qualified enough or doing well enough. I know for so many of my working clients, they feel this so much, even even if they have been in an industry for 15 years and are at the top of their game, they still feel impostor syndrome.
Self doubt also makes us procrastinate as it perpetuates indecision.
It causes inaction, not action, and it completely erodes our self confidence and self-trust. It keeps us stuck and holds us back from pursuing our dreams and our goals.
When a lot of my mom clients want to change careers, it not only makes them doubt skills and abilities in doing something different to what they are currently doing with work, but it also blocks them from getting clarity on what they actually want in a career - what work might light them up, what job functions excite them, what industries they are passionate about.
So we know all the negatives of self doubt.
I know us moms working Mum are very smart. We know logically we shouldn't be feeling so much self doubt. But still we feel it.
As I explained in episode two, us humans have a negativity bias and that is just how our brain was designed. And so of course we're going to naturally revert to thoughts that are negative and thoughts that perpetuate the feeling of self doubt. So we have to go in there and consciously examine those thoughts, see if they serve us and if they don't, if they're not serving us to move forward, we need to start thinking and believing something that will serve us in relation to self doubt. And so this is what I want to share with you today.
So here are five strategies and mindset shifts to manage your self doubt.
The first is this: I want you to think about the last time you felt self-doubt about something.
If you think about at what point self doubt actually happens - usually it is before you do that thing thatâs making you feel self-doubt about.
So for me, when I started facilitating workshops for organisations, of course I felt a lot of self doubt.
Do I know enough? Am I good enough? How would they respond to this work? Will I be able to do it in the right amount of time? Will they show up?
These were just some of my thoughts that were making me feel so much self-doubt.
BUT nothing had actually happened yet. We mostly feel self-doubt before weâve done that thing we are feeling self-doubt about. So for me I hadn't even done the workshops yet facilitated the workshops yet and I was consumed with self doubt.
But nothing had actually happened yet.
We mostly feel self-doubt before anything has happened.
Nothing has actually gone wrong. Yet your mind is going crazy as though something has gone wrong.
So now, when I feel self-doubt I remember that nothing has actually happened. Nothing has gone wrong. Itâs all in my mind and in my body.
The second strategy is this: for so long I used to make self doubt mean that I don't know something, that I'm not good enough, that I can't do something. But now I've shifted my mindset around self doubt, to see it as a positive thing. Because when self-doubt is present, it often just means that you're doing something you haven't done before. It means that you're stepping out of your comfort zone, that you're expanding yourself, that you're discovering what's possible for yourself.
So if self doubt is there, it means you're right on track. You're doing something that's going to evolve you into the next best version of yourself. It's going to evolve you into the person that you want to be.
And this leads on to my third strategy, which is that self doubt will always be there. It will always come along for the ride.
And I'm sorry to say it in some ways because I think some people believe that you will get to a point in your life or in your career where you stop feeling self-doubt, but thatâs not the case.
I look at entrepreneurs that now have eight figure a year businesses and they used to talk in rooms of five people and feel massive self-doubt and now they talk in rooms with 1000s of people and they say that they still feel self doubt. So every new level you get to, youâll have a different flavour of self-doubt. Self doubt is going to come along with you for the ride. It never leaves, and this is actually a knowing this has set me free because if it's always going to be here, my aim is not to get rid of it, but to just get good and skilled at knowing how to manage it.
The issue is when we let it kick our butt and stop ourselves from doing the thing we feel self doubt about. And if you stop yourself from doing the thing that you're feeling self doubt about then you can never succeed at that thing.
You're having self doubt about doing something because youâre thinking âwhat if I failâ, but if you are doubting yourself so then you don't do that thing, because you're worried you'll fail, you're really going to fail at it because you're failing ahead of time by not doing it.
The fourth strategy I love because it's kind of a visual analogy and I always visualise this. When I'm feeling self doubt I visualise that I'm driving a car and self-doubt is in the back seat. And of course, itâs going to kick up a fuss at some point and start shouting about something. So Iâm going to calmly acknowledge itâs there, but I'm going to continue driving. Because if I let self-doubt take the steering wheel, otherwise Iâll for sure stay stuck. I wonât go anywhere.
And then the fifth strategy is to recognise that self doubt is a choice because yes, you are feeling self doubt because you're thinking a thought that is causing you to feel self doubt.
And as we've spoken about in previous episodes, you can choose what to think about something - what to think about yourself and your abilities. So right now you are choosing to doubt yourself. I love to say, if you're so good at doubting, it's time to start doubting your self doubt.
Self-doubt comes from a thought that doesn't support you and your capabilities.
It's also a thought, an optional thought. It's not an absolute truth in the world.
You can either commit to self doubt or you can commit to your commitment to take action in the face of self doubt while it's there.
As I mentioned in the last episode, one of the most useful emotions that you can generate to help you overcome your self doubt is courage.
BUT you can only generate courage if some form of self-doubt exists.
So, because you want to use courage to do something that scares you slightly, that youâve never done before, you will feel some self-doubt.
It's time to see self doubt from a different perspective and use it to propel you forward and still take action.
So, answer this question - if you didn't feel self doubt about what you're currently feeling self doubt about, what would you do? Or rather, if you weren't afraid of feeling self doubt, what would you do? (and then just do that thing)!
I hope this episode was really helpful for you, and just to recap, here are the five strategies and mindset shifts for managing your self doubt:
nothing has actually gone wrong if you're feeling self doubt. Often nothing has even happened yet.
what are you making the presence of self doubt mean about yourself? Are you making you mean that you're not good enough? Or that you can't do something? Or can you make it mean that if itâs there, it means I'm stepping outside of my comfort zone. I'm discovering what's possible for myself.
self doubt will always be there. It will always come along for the ride. And if it's there, it means you're on the right track, it means you're growing.
visualise self doubt being in the backseat of your car. Acknowledge its present and have compassion for why it's there. And then don't let it take the steering wheel.
recognise that self doubt is a choice. You're choosing right now to doubt yourself. So if you have a choice to doubt yourself or evolve yourself, choose the latter. Choose to evolve yourself. And if you're so good at doubting, start doubting yourself and questioning why you're thinking thoughts that are making you feel self doubt and whether those thoughts are actually true.
So the secret is we want to feel self-doubt, but we just want to learn the skill of how to manage it in a way that serves us.
Thanks so much for listening to another episode of TLC for working moms, and I can't wait to speak to you in the next episode.
