How To Overcome Self-Doubt and Achieve Your Dreams

The most common reason you fail to achieve your dreams

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

You wouldn’t know that I struggle with my self-confidence. If you were to meet me or read more of my writing, you would probably think I have everything all figured out. But the truth is, most of the time, I feel like I’m trying to catch up to where I should be.

I have a ton of self-doubt in my life.

Even though I have a decent little following for my writing, I find myself thinking about all the things I don’t know how to do and ways that I am missing opportunities. I find myself thinking more about what I lack than what I’m good at while chasing my dreams.

Every time something goes right in my life, I fear things will go wrong.

Over the last few years, I have been working hard at overcoming this in my life. But it’s hard. Even today, as I write this, I feel plenty of feelings of inadequacy. I look at writing stats or income from my dream and things are nearly zero.

This is where I either spiral into the self-doubt pit or pick myself up.

Interestingly enough, I find more and more people experience this in life. They are working so hard toward this or that, grinding day-in and day-out, and don’t feel like they are getting anywhere.

It has made me realize that self-doubt is probably one of the most common enemies of our dreams. Because it works hard to keep us from seeing our potential. And when we don’t see our potential, we can’t possibly see our dreams.

Changing the Narrative of Our Lives

“We are what we believe we are.” — C.S. Lewis

Over the last few years, I have been working hard on understanding the power of self-doubt in my life. Because it is something I deal with on a regular basis, I have been forced to step into it in order to find a way past it.

In order to understand how to overcome self-doubt, we must first understand it’s nature.

Self-doubt is a story. It is a story that focuses on comparison to others, cowardice, confusion, and lack of commitment. When we believe this story, we are completely unable to overcome our self-doubt and fail to chase our dreams.

Once I realized this in my life, I was able to make changes that helped me re-write my personal story. As I began to do this, I was able to focus inwardly, find courage and clarity, and commit to what it takes to chase my dreams.

It was a complete change in the narrative I believed about myself. But, we cannot simply overcome self-doubt by changing the story. We have to start actually making the story happen in order to put self-doubt in its place.

Moving Your Narrative Forward

“We are what we repeatedly do.” — Aristotle

Once we have a new story to tell and live out, we must actually start living it out. The best way to do this is by doing one simple thing. And then do another one, and another one and another one.

As we begin taking these steps we begin creating momentum. This momentum helps us show up daily and do the work which helps us chase our dreams.

Sometimes we will get off track. This is when self-doubt starts to pop up again. Yet, we need to remember the narrative that is true about us. Then, we start taking one step, then the next, then the next.

Progress Overcomes Self-Doubt

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” — Confucius

Each step we take, each small thing we complete is a movement toward our dreams. Soon, these steps turn into miles of work done. The progress we make chasing our dreams is the evidence that we have the ability to achieve.

Self-doubt wants to halt progress.

Because progress is the very thing that overcomes self-doubt.

The only way we can make progress is by starting with our mindset. When we focus on a narrative of courage, clarity, and commitment we can start taking the action which will get us where we want to go.

When we take the action, one thing at a time, we start to move the mountain we think we are up against. Once we make progress, we can start to see that we have the ability to chase our dreams and see them come true.

Final Thought

Progress has ups and downs. There will be times when it doesn’t feel like we are making it very far. In these moments, we need to focus on the narrative.

There are other times when progress seems to take leaps and bounds and all of a sudden we aren’t sure what to do next. In these moments, we need to take one small step at a time and the progress will continue.

If you have a dream, you have the ability to chase it and see it come true.

But you need to have the right mindset and take action over and over again to achieve your dreams and overcome self-doubt.

Self-doubt is only one barrier to seeing your dreams come true. In fact, there are six common barriers and they all need to be worked out in our lives before we can see our dreams come true. Read more about the six barriers.