Self-doubt is something we all experience at one time or another in coping with the challenges of everyday life or confronted with new opportunities. It sometimes presents itself as a sense of feeling unprepared, unworthy, or even unqualified to take on the challenge before us. In most instances, we are able to overlook these moments of self-doubt and deal with the issue at hand. However, self-doubt becomes a problem when it begins to destroy our self-confidence, cripple creativity, and limits our willingness to accept new opportunities. If left unchecked it will bring the best of us down or prevent us from living up to our full potential.

Here are three suggestions to enhance your ability to overcome self-doubt:

1) Rid Yourself of Fear to Make Mistakes

Self-doubt is often grounded in fear of the unknown. Fear that we will make a mistake or do something wrong.  It is often fear of how we will be perceived by others if we fall short of their expectations. You will never become all that you can be if you remain afraid to make a mistake. Life doesn’t require us to be perfect and mistakes are stepping stones to learning.  So, don't allow mistakes to make you feel less than, rather, let them be your teacher. Successful people recover from their mistakes and become more stronger and successful than before. However, it requires a certain mindset to embrace mistakes as tools for success. It requires that you adopt a growth mindset.  People with a growth mindset are not afraid of mistakes.  In fact, they embrace mistakes as part of the learning process for personal growth and development.  These individuals tend to see mistakes as opportunities for improvement.  They openly take chances to pursue their goals no matter the failures they experience.  Lewis Alerson author of Growth Mindset suggests that folks with a growth mindset tend to believe that perfection is not a requirement for success and accept that they are allowed to make mistakes.  You will never grow unless you are willing to take risks. 

2) Take Control of your Emotions 

Uncontrolled emotions leads to unnecessary worry, frustration, anger, and self-doubt which impede our ability to make sound decisions.  This hinders our capacity to do things in our own best interest. We spend a lot of time second-guessing ourselves and seeking validation from others. We tend to delay taking action until circumstances force us to do so. As a result, we sell ourselves short and are forced to accept less than we deserve. Feelings of self-doubt are often driven by uncertainty of the unknown which makes it easy to stay within our comfort zone. Uncontrolled emotions will severely limit your ability to move forward in life if you allow them to.  To overcome emotional feelings of self-doubt, you must recognize when they they occur and understand that you have the ability to rise above them. Unfortunately, not enough of us are in touch with our emotions and have no idea why we feel the way that we do.  Here is where emotional intelligence, as it relates to self-awareness, is so vital to our ability to overcome feelings that stifle our growth and development. According to James Williams, emotionally intelligent people tend to acknowledge and process their feelings as they occur, instead of allowing them to build up.  They are more likely to deal with their current feelings about a situation and let them go.  Emotionally intelligent people are also able to shift their mindset and move on regardless of how they feel.  You too must go forward and do whatever you need to get done regardless of the feeling of self-doubt.  Emotional feelings can be very strong, and it is not always easy to pull away from them.  But, to be able to take your game to the next level you must behave contrary to these feelings of doubt.  Otherwise, they will continue to dictate your life and hold you in bondage.

3) Develop Mental Toughness

Always bet on yourself to deliver the goods. Bear in mind that, in any situation, you could either fail or succeed. So why not be optimistic about your ability to reach success.  It requires a certain level of mental toughness to keep pushing forward when things don’t seem to be going your way.  Mental toughness will give you the internal strength to take on any obstacle or challenge and to remain focused on your goal.  People with mental toughness don’t allow themselves to become distracted and go off course.  In the book Mental Toughness, Thomas Turner advocates that mentally tough people tend to believe that as long as they keep trying, they will succeed. Failure is never an option for them.  They always look for positive outcomes no matter their struggles and circumstances.  Purposefully lean towards the positive side of every situation.  It’s as simple as looking at the glass of water as half full instead of half empty.

The power to overcome self-doubt begins with you.  You must believe that you can achieve your destiny despite what other people say or society expects from you. Do not allow circumstances to dictate what you can achieve in life. Perhaps you had several bad breaks in life and negative messages were pumped into your head to promote self-doubt since you were a child, you now have the chance to turn it around. If you desire to fulfill your dreams, let go of self-doubt and move through the world with uncompromising confidence and will power.

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions.  Visit www.mindpowersolutions.com to learn more about our personal development and training services.