How to Stop Doubting Yourself And Just Do What You Really Want to Do
You’re self-sabotaging.
“What will they say about me?”
Before I do anything, I always think about what other people will say.
When I worked in tech, I knew my family was impressed with me. I was young(er), had no college background, and worked at a well-known company. I thrived off of my mom bragging about me; it felt like I was doing my due diligence in being a good daughter and fulfilling my role in society.
I had no doubt in my mind that I would succeed in my role in the company. I knew what I was doing; my job was like second nature to me.
The problem was I hated it, and I was depressed. I’d come home miserable, pick fights with my boyfriend because I needed to get my irritation out, and I felt like my life was devoid of meaning. I wasn’t doing anything special. I wasn’t fulfilling a purpose.
One night my boyfriend asked me if money weren’t an issue, what would I do?
I told him: “I’d make videos and post them online because I want to remember my life. I’d write every day and put my thoughts into words. I’d read. I’d read every goddamn book in the world all day long.”
Boyfriend: “So why don’t you do those things?”
Me: “I don’t know how. I’ve never made videos before. I don’t know how to talk to people. I’m boring. What would I even write about? People won’t care about what I have to say.”
Boyfriend: “You’re self-sabotaging yourself by shutting the ideas down before even giving them a try. You don’t know what could happen. I’d read what you write. I’m sure someone else out there would too.”
Someone else out there would too.
Those six little words are what catapulted my content creation career.
Your #1 enemy is your mind.
“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.” — Steven Pressfield.
Your mind is what tells you to skip the gym when you swore to yourself you wouldn’t miss it.
Your mind is what tells you to eat all the ice cream in your freezer when you damn well know you’ll regret it. Your mind is what cares about what strangers think of you.
Your mind is telling you you’re incapable.
Who is in control of your mind?
You are.
You’re wired for comfort.
“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” — James Allen.
Research suggests that the average person will typically have more than 6,000 thoughts in a single day. The research also indicates that the majority of our thoughts are negative.
The negative thoughts in our minds are usually untrue. They’re things we come up with based on insecurities or fears. For example, I didn’t want to start a YouTube channel out of fear of being boring and worrying about what others would say about me.
And yet, how would I know I’m boring if I’d never done it before? And why would I think people would say bad things about me for pursuing a passion of mine?
As human beings, we’re wired for comfort. We set goals and dreams for ourselves, but we’re afraid to chase after them because we’re comfortable in our tiny bubbles, doing the same thing over and over again.
We’re even more afraid to step outside of our comfort zone and voice how we feel or what we think because God forbid someone judges us for having thoughts and opinions that differ from theirs.
We listen to our mind when it tells us not to do what we really want even though there’s something inside of us telling us we should go for it.
We allow our negative thoughts to become our beliefs.
When you think about how hard it is to go to the gym and how you never get the results you want, the “going to the gym is so hard” thought relentlessly plays through your mind throughout the day.
And because you nurture this thought and surround yourself with people who probably do the same thing, you start forming a belief system that going to the gym is hard, and you’ll never get the results you want.
The results you see showing up in your life will reflect your beliefs. It’s the law of cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
“Man becomes what he thinks about all day long.”
The law of cause and effect says every effect has a specific and predictable cause, and every cause or action has specific and predictable effects which means everything you currently have in your life is an effect that is a result of a specific cause.
Causes are the decisions you make and the actions you take on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant your decisions are; every decision you have made and every action you’ve ever taken has set a particular set of events into motion, therefore creating predictable and specific effects that you’re now experiencing in your life.
Your thoughts create causes, and they manifest your reality.
I once read, “thoughts are like seeds, you plant them, water them, nurture them, and they’ll produce fruit.”
Your life is a reflection of your thoughts — and if those thoughts are constantly negative, they become your core belief system that ends up hindering you in every aspect of your life.
Your mind is your strongest muscle.
I struggle a lot with negative self-talk. Sometimes I feel like there are two parts of me. The one who knows what she wants and chases after it, and the other part of me who constantly tugs on the leash and tells the other part of me to stop.
- “Stop setting goals; you won’t achieve them.”
- “Stop going to the gym all the time. You look like shit either way.”
- “Stop trying to put yourself out there. That’s not you. It won’t work out.”
- “Stop trying. You’re not good enough for this.”
Your mind accepts whatever you give it. It doesn’t filter whether it’s a fact or not. If you constantly tell yourself you’re not good enough and act on that thought, you’ll never be good enough.
Regardless of how the world sees you, the voices in your head will ultimately win. Your mind is your strongest muscle, and it’s the key to changing how you view yourself and preventing self-doubt.
It’s the one thing that can talk you in and out of action every day. In a workout, it’s the one thing that can push you to finish your last set even when you feel like giving up.
I tried this out just yesterday when I was doing my last set of push-ups. My mind was telling me to give up, to fall smackdown on the mat and rest. But I knew I had three more reps in me. I reminded myself that my mind was just playing tricks on me. I could either succumb or beat it by completing those last three reps.
I completed them and then did one more to prove to myself that I could.
The key is to be aware of your thinking and identify whether what you’re feeding your mind is a fear-based thought or the truth. When you start doing this on a consistent basis, your mind becomes your greatest ally.
When you allow your mind to become your ally, achieving success is predictable and can be repeated if you’re aware of what you’re doing.
You’re not born with fear and insecurities engraved in you. You feed them to yourself throughout the course of your life for various reasons. Maybe someone insults you, and you take it to heart.
Maybe nobody ever told you how capable and powerful you really are, so you go about your life never really going for anything because you don’t think you’ll be any good.
When I was in 4th or 5th grade, my step-dad used to insult me all the time about my weight. His comments stayed with me for a long time. They would linger in the back of my mind whenever I would eat on a date.
They would sneak their way into my thoughts whenever I was alone. I spent years of my life feeling ugly and not good enough.
I didn’t think I was good enough to start a YouTube channel or be a writer, but now I’m doing the thing — and making money from it. Not only that, but I receive emails from people about how my words have impacted them in a positive way.
You never know what will happen if you just stop giving in to your doubts, insecurities, and fears and just do what you really want to do. Be brave enough to go after your dreams and not doubt your ability, especially before you’ve even given them a chance.
