Morning Vibes With Dr Jerry - The First-Episode 143/Overcome Self Doubt

Saturday                        3rd February 2018

Morning Vibes With Dr. Jerry - the First

Hello and welcome to #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst-Episode 143

Title:          If You Have To Choose Yourself First This Year, These Are The 8 Things To Throw Overboard - Overcome Self Doubt

In continuation of our discussion on the habits to drop like a piece of hot charcoal if you have to choose yourself first this 2018.

Yesterday we took a look at Low Self Esteem and we discussed in details what it is and how it can be overcome in order to live a better quality of life

Today we are taking a look at         Self Doubt

Self doubt is a lack of confidence in yourself and your abilities.

William Shakespeare did say

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

Self doubt is that feeling of uncertainty about your ability to accomplish something.

This dark shadow of insecurity can lead to hesitation and indecision. If left unchecked, it can cause us to abandon our course or radically compromise our expectations.

Self-doubt can be a troubling and persuasive voice that holds you back.

There is a #MonkeyVoice or #DestructiveInnerVoice in each of us, how we accentuate it determines what our altitude would be

Self doubt holds you back from seizing your opportunities.

It makes getting started or finishing things harder than they need to be.

Even the most self confident among us will experience self doubt from time to time.

Because we can’t completely avoid it, we need a strategy that allows us to contend with, and conquer self doubt.

So, what is the difference between those who overcome this insidious foe, and those who are controlled by it?

How do we know when we are harbouring self doubt?

There are certain words and thoughts that reveal the presence of doubt and we should train ourselves to spot them early on.

Phrases like “I’m not sure, maybe I was wrong, I don’t feel up to the task, or this is too hard” may indicate a weakening of confidence brought on by self doubt in our own abilities.

As soon as we say or think anything similar to any of those phrases, we should attempt to identify the source.

Granted, such expressions don’t always indicate self doubt, but we would do well to check it out, so we can be sure.

Do not underestimate the destructive power of self doubt

Because self doubt is a temporary expression of insecurity, it can reach right to our core.

Like termites chewing away at the foundation of a strong building, self doubt can undermine our strongest beliefs.

Often times, it is the only thing that stands between where we are, and where we want to be.

On the positive side however

As with other kinds of fear, there are positive aspects of self doubt for those who manage to overcome it.

For example, self doubt that is conquered yields stronger resolve.

Our determination will always be greater once we successfully meet challenges to our self confidence.

Once we develop a history meeting self doubt head on and conquering it, we become much less susceptible to its influence.

It will still surface from time to time, but we will see it coming, and know how to neutralize it.

Surely, self doubt can sometimes be useful as it helps you to soberly see your current limitations or simply recognize a half-baked or bad idea. But mostly, it holds you back in life.

Self-doubt is a special kind of hell. A small failure makes you question yourself and your abilities and, next thing you know, you feel like you aren’t good enough or smart enough to do anything. And that’s about the time you stop trying.

We’ve all been there but, not everyone handles it the same way.

I want to tell you a story about a young genius who, despite having every reason to be crippled by self-doubt, learned to share his talents with the world:

A four-year-old boy sits at home, playing with his toys.

He’s hungry, but he doesn’t tell anyone. He’s tired, but only his posture reveals it. Four years old and he can’t (or won’t) speak.

Every day, his family wonders, “What’s wrong with this boy? Is he mentally disabled?”

When he starts school, his teachers and classmates think him a dunce.

They try to teach him art and languages, but he doesn’t pick them up like the other kids.

He’s only learned enough German to get by.

In high school, he repeats his sentences to himself.

Everyone thinks he’s slow. He applies to college, but fails the entrance exams.

Eventually, he earns his degree, but can’t get the teaching job he wants, so he spends his days working in a boring patent office.

But, through the many years growing up and thought of as a nobody capable of nothing, the young man told himself a different story.

He knew he was good at something, and that something was science.

The young man was Albert Einstein and, in 1905, he shared four ideas that would become the foundation of modern physics.

Einstein was a genius. We all know that today, but it couldn’t have been further from obvious in his formative years.

Did he make the impact on the world he did just because he was smart?

Does intelligence shine through despite the odds?

Probably not. Lots brilliant people never overcome the hurdles of feeling they like they don’t belong.

Brilliance was one critical ingredient in the Einstein formula, but an equally important element was his ability to overcome his self-doubt and keep working.

Today, there’s convincing evidence that how well you perform in life depends a lot on how much you believe you can improve when it seems like you’re not achieving anything.

So how can you get around that, how can you overcome those times of self-doubt so that you can move forward once again?

You Can’t Pep Talk Your Way Out Of Self-Doubt. But You Can Do This…

Q: What do basically all motivational talks have in common?

A: They don't work for the man struggling to come to terms with who he really is!!!

Those high-flying “be your best self, you can do it you handsome devil, you” inspirational sermons are great for people with high self esteem.  

They’re just what you need when you believe in yourself and you need that little push over the edge to amp up your performance

It’s like the words activate a hidden energy in your cells that inspires you to spring into action.

But when you’re stuck in a rut and your confidence is shot, it’s more like having Pinocchio tell you how incredible you are.

What studies have shown is that we’re pretty bad at talking our way out of a rut (but we can get better with help).

So what actually does work?

Like Einstein, how do you get yourself to believe you’re capable of more and then actually boost your performance?

There are some important things you can do, and none of them is particularly intuitive, especially when you’re having a pity party for one.

1. Take action rather than trying to convince yourself to change.

It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than it is to think your way into a new way of acting.

One of the key principles of psychologists who help people struggling with depression is to get them to downplay everything they’re thinking and convince them to start doing things, even if those things don’t feel right at first.

Rather than try to convince yourself you can do better, just give it a shot.

Even if you fail, action is motivating and encourages you to try again which—of course—increases your odds of success and gets your thoughts headed the right direction, too.

In the list of things to do therefore would be

A.    Recognize and acknowledge your self doubt.

 You cannot overcome something until you first recognize and acknowledge its existence.

If we give into the temptation to ignore or deny self doubt, it will impose limits on our ability to act.

Self doubt can be a stealthy problem. If you suspect that it exists, you need to pull it into the light so it can be dealt with.

The better you become at identifying hidden doubts, the easier it will be to overcome them.

B.      Analyze your self doubt

 Spend some time drilling down and figure out what triggered it and why?

When you analyze feelings, you make them vulnerable logic and reason.

Normally, feelings override logic, but questioning the validity of feelings brings them within the reach of

reason.

C.      Identify the source

 If you can figure out where these feelings originate, then you can hit them where they live.

You don’t need to psychoanalyze yourself back to childhood or anything like that.

Just try to get a handle on the area of your life that creates your sense of uncertainty so you can work on it.

D.     Find out if there is a pattern?

 Do you have a history of self doubt in this area?

Self doubt tends to have favorite places to hang out.

This raises the likelihood that we have probably experienced it in a similar situation before.

Think back, have you been down this road before?

Did you overcome your doubts?

If so, what steps did you take?

If not, what can you do differently this time around?

E.      Design a plan

Sit down and plan out a strategy for defeating your doubt.

Make an educated decision about what to do next.

Choose a path that you think will lead to conquering your doubts.

Next, put your plan down in writing.

F.      Anticipate possible challenges

Now look at your plan and try to identify possible challenges along the way.

Is there some area that you need help with? If so, ask someone close to you to give you some encouragement.

Sometimes, some foresight and a little support is all it takes.

G.     Take action

You have a plan, the next step is to put it to use by taking action.

Stick to your plan and ask for help if you need it.

In fact, encouragement is good even if you think you can go it alone.

For most people, self doubt is just a temporary condition.

Think of it like a speed bump on the road to success.

Take the bump in stride, then put the pedal to the metal, and go for it.

When your confidence is challenged, just start with these seven steps above and you will be on the road to get past it.

In fact, I have no doubt about your ability to leave self doubt in the dust.

So Say stop.

First, when your inner doubts bubble up, be quick.

Don’t let them spin out of control or grow from a whisper to a stream of discouraging sentences.

Instead, talk back to that doubtful part of yourself.

In your mind, say or shout something like: No, no, no, we are not going down that road again.

By doing so you can disrupt the thought pattern and stop that inner self-doubter from taking over.

2. Focus on past successes.

Psychologists have discovered that how you remember your past determines how you feel about yourself in the present.

Do you focus on the negative—the failures you’ve experienced?

Or the positive—the successes you’ve engineered?

Your answer has a big impact on what actions you’ll take next and how well they’ll turn out for you.

So, look to the past and awash yourself in the memories.

Be real with yourself and ask yourself:

How many times when I doubted myself or feared something would happen did that negative thing come into reality after I still took action?

The answer for me – and probably for you too – is not very often at all.

Self-doubts are most often just monsters in your head that your mind may use to keep you from making changes and to keep you within the comfort zone.

If you look to the past and see how well things have gone many times despite those self-doubts then it becomes easier to let go of them or to ignore them and to focus on the more likely positive outcome and to take action.

3. Build momentum by celebrating small wins.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. It’s a lame, overused figure of speech. Why? Because the answer is both true and timeless.

When you’re stuck in the pit of self-doubt, your attention is consumed by it.

Even if it’s not true and not a big deal, you make it true and turn it into a big deal in your head.

You create the elephant.

And just like it took a series of small but important actions to sink to that level, it takes small but important actions to climb out.

So celebrate that small step and win.

When you’ve taken one small step forward and you’re done with it then you have a win.

It may be a small one but it’s still a win. So celebrate it.

Have a tasty snack or your favorite food for dinner, spend some time on your favorite hobby or buy yourself something you’ve wanted for some time now.

This will renew and recharge your motivation and make taking action feel more exciting and fun.

And that will push self-doubts aside so that you can keep moving and get more small and bigger wins.

Small wins are motivating because you see real progress being made, and the momentum built by those tiny changes add up quickly.

4.     Stop comparing your accomplishments to your friends’ and colleagues’ accomplishments.

I find that I doubt myself the most when I’m comparing what I'm doing with what other people are doing as well.

When I compare my accomplishments to a colleague’s, I start feeling inadequate. Your colleague's accomplishments are not a litmus test to grade your own success.

One key thing to remember when you find yourself in this mental pattern is that everyone is on his or her own journey.

I find that I am most successful in my personal and professional life when I am following what works for me and what makes me feel good, even if it is different from what someone I look up to is doing.

So, don’t allow yourself to get stuck in the comparison trap.

If you compare yourself to other people all too often, to their successes and especially to their high-light reels that they share on social media then self-doubt can quickly creep up.

A better way to go about things is to compare yourself of yesterday to yourself of today.

To see how far you have come.

To see what you’ve overcome.

And to see how you’ve kept going, succeeded and grown as a human being.

5.    Stop Making Excuses

Self-doubt often makes us rationalize a situation to fit our emotional state.

We may be afraid to fail,

afraid to look bad,

afraid to take on more than we think we can handle.

So we become adept at making a lot of excuses for why an opportunity that presents itself isn't a good fit.

As Steven Pressfield says in Do The Work! Overcome Resistance And Get Out Of Your Own Way

, "The enemy is our chattering brain, which, if we give it so much as a nanosecond, will start producing excuses, alibis, transparent self-justifications, and a million reasons why we can't/shouldn't/won't do what we know we need to do."

Think back on opportunities you turned down.

What reasons did you give yourself? Where these legitimate reasons or just excuses?

Excuses are mental barriers we erect that hold us back.

6.    Beware Of Your Close Circle

There is a popular saying that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

While there is no scientific study to support this notion, there is a kernel of truth in the statement:

Those we habitually spend time with can have a profound effect on us, whether we are aware of it or not.

We know from brain plasticity research that experiences reorganize neural pathways in the brain.

According to Dr. John Kounios a Professor of Psychology and Brain Science at Drexel University, our neural connections change even after a 20-minute conversation!

Who do you spend the most time with?

What effect do they have on you?

When you spend time with them, do you walk away feeling better about yourself or worse? "

At the end of the day," says Leo Babauta, creator of Zen Habits, "the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people we will become."

7.    Raise Your Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is one of the most powerful personal development tools in your arsenal.

Make use of it by understanding the root causes of your self-doubt.

What specific situations trigger bouts of self-doubt?

If it's a lack of skill in an area, resolve to do something about it.

For example, it may be a fear of delivering presentations.

Or it may be anxiety at having to make cold calls.

Just about anything can be learned.

Go out there and get the training you need, or get a coach to help you. 

8. Practice Self-Compassion

While it's easy to extend compassion to others, very few people are able to temper their self-criticism with self-compassion.

Self-compassion is simply being kind to oneself.

Studies show that there is a strong correlation between self-compassion and positive mental health, such as reduced anxiety and greater life satisfaction, as well as higher self-esteem. Dr. Kristen Neff, of the University of Texas at Austin—dubbed the compassion evangelist—developed a self compassion test.

For example, when you fail at something that's important to you, do you keep things in perspective, or do you become consumed by feelings of inadequacy?

When something doesn't go right, do you try to keep your emotions in balance?

Self-compassion develops emotional resilience. To become better at this, Dr. Neff advises a three step process:

Notice your own suffering, especially when it's caused by your self-judgment or self-criticism;

don't be cold-hearted toward yourself,

and remember that imperfection is a part of our shared human experience.

As Neff puts it, "Where's the contract you signed when you were born that said that you would be perfect?"

9. Stop Asking For Validation

Seeking others' input and advice is helpful.

However, if you are in the habit of continuously asking others what they think before making decisions on important matters, you might be weakening your faith in yourself.

For example, if you're working on a presentation, setting up a website or undertaking a new project, and you continue to change what you have created based on feedback you receive, you might end up losing your voice and the end product becomes a diluted version of you.

Take some advice, but at some point, make a decision on what feels right to you.

10. Don't Talk About Your Plans

"I never talk about a project I’m working on," Pressfield says. "It’s bad luck."

He's not the first person who advises us to keep our mouths shut about our impending goals. Derek Sivers, professional musician and entrepreneur, popularized this notion in "Keep Your Goals To Yourself," one of the most watched TED Presentations.

As Sivers shows, psychology studies have proven that when we tell someone our goal, and they acknowledge it, we are less likely to do the work that is necessary to accomplish the goal.

This is because our brain mistakes the talking for the doing.

In other words, the gratification that we receive from the social acknowledgment tricks our brain into feeling that the goal has already been accomplished.

The satisfaction we experience in the telling removes the motivation to do whatever it takes to actually make it happen.

11. Trust Your Values

In Disrupt! Think EPic! Be Epic!, author Bill Jensen outlines the 25 successful habits of 100 contemporary heroes—people who found ways to cut through the complexity of today's fast-paced, ever-changing environments to do extraordinary things.

These are individuals such as Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo;  Garret Camp, founder of Stumble Upon,

and Guy Kawasaki, author and entrepreneur.

The trait driving the majority of the best practices for these 100 entrepreneurs is "Trusting Your Gut and Values.

" More and more, we are called upon to make quick decisions with very little information. When you know what you stand for and what is important to you, it becomes easier to make decisions that are aligned with your values, with what matters to you.

Self-doubt cripples our ability to make important decisions—knowing yourself and living your values is one of the best antidotes to self-doubt.

One of the many practical tips Jensen provides is to find two mentors, one twice your age and one half your age. One will share the wisdom of experience; the other will take you on an unknown path. Drawing from these wells will strengthen your trust in your ability to pursue your goals

12. Start Shipping

There is one voice that is tirelessly pushing every budding entrepreneur to stop stalling and "go make something happen."

That voice is Seth Godin, American entrepreneur and author.

Anyone who follows Seth knows one of his most insistent messages is to "start shipping!"

If you're an artist holding back from exhibiting your work because you don't feel it's your best work yet, if you're a writer struggling with a manuscript until it reaches Flaubertian perfection, if you have developed an app but are afraid to take it to the next step: This message is for you.

You may be holding back because you don't want to be vulnerable—exposing yourself and your ideas to the world and running the risk of criticism, or failing.

What ideas are buried because you distrust yourself?

Perhaps you want to start a healthy fast food truck business in your city,

or you have an idea for developing a glucose counter;

perhaps you are mulling over starting a home business to create old-fashioned candy as your grandmother used to make,

or starting a day-care business that ensures happy and healthy pets.

Self-doubt is mental paralysis.

The only cure for it is having the guts to get started.

Allowing self-doubt to prevent you from grabbing opportunities that come your way is an act of self-sabotage.

And the only way to deal with it in a constructive way is to apply these 12 ideas already discussed in this broadcast

Until I come your way again, this is #MorningVibesWithDrJerryTheFirst

Keep it coming!!!

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