How To Stop Self-Doubt From Ruining Your Dreams

Sometimes, a little self-doubt can benefit you.

Have you ever thought to yourself, if I can just make over $10,000 per month, I’ll be really happy.

Have you ever thought to yourself that if I can land this role and make the right connections, my career will boom.

If I write the book, I’ll be a New York Times Best Selling author. If I lose some weight, I’ll finally gain some confidence. If I put myself out there, I’ll find the love of my life.

You know what you’re capable of, and you know what you want out of life. The problem isn’t being indecisive; the problem is you’re so afraid of chasing your dreams that every morning you wake up thinking, maybe tomorrow.

You’re so oblivious to the fact that everything you want is within your reach. You’re coming up with excuses daily to make yourself feel better about not putting in the work. Once again, the problem isn’t a lack of time; the problem is you doubt your abilities so much you’re not even willing to give yourself the time of day.

William Shakespeare once said,

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

Analyze the situation; why are you doubting yourself in the first place?

Our doubts often don’t make sense in the first place. How can you know whether or not you’ll be good at something if you’ve never tried it before?

For example, a few years ago, I decided to launch a food blog. I was great at cooking, but I had zero knowledge of blogging, food photography, editing, SEO, etc.

For months, I was extremely hesitant to get started on the blog. Not because I’d done it before and failed, but because I doubted whether or not I’d be any good. All that doubting led to no action and had I utilized that time towards my blog, I would have been way farther along — and I would have realized whether or not food blogging was the right fit.

Before jumping to negative conclusions, take a moment and ask yourself why you doubt your capabilities in the first place. Fear of failure is a common human emotion experienced by the majority of the world’s most successful people, and it should never hold you back from giving your dreams a shot.

Maya Angelou once said,

“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, “Uh-oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.”

How to apply:

Your self-doubt is preventing you from making changes in your life to keep you within your comfort zone. My self-doubt towards my blog held me back from getting started — and from getting my recipes out for the world to see.

I know it’s hard, and whoever said putting yourself out there is easy had no idea what they were talking about; as an introvert, I completely understand the doubt you often feel when you’re trying to do something with your life.

However, instead of allowing doubt and fear to hold you back instead, think back on past achievements in your life. Like when you were scared to try out for the school football team, but you did it anyway and made it. Or when you were sweating bullets in the bathroom before your job interview, and you went in and killed it.

The majority of achievements are born out of initial uncertainty and doubt, and it helps when we remind ourselves about the times that things have gone right because the same thing could happen in the present moment.

Remember that nobody is paying attention to you and what you’re doing.

You’re afraid to put your work out there or step outside of your comfort zone because you’re scared of the criticism and judgment from others — yet who’s watching you this closely anyway?

It took me over a year to post my first YouTube video after making the decision to start a channel, and it wasn’t because I didn’t have a camera or because I didn’t know how to edit videos. I binged every “how-to” video on YouTube routinely.

In truth, I was scared of what my family would think — I was afraid of what my friends would say; who does she think she is? Starting a YouTube channel? Hilarious.

I’ve come to learn that people are so self-absorbed in themselves and their own lives that they don’t even have time to sit and judge you and what you choose to do with your life.

And if your friends do judge you, is it worth having friends like that in your life anyway?

Psychotherapist William Berry says people often judge themselves so harshly that they believe others, especially those they share their intimate details with, are judging them. This is called projection, and it happens all of the time without us even realizing it.

Projection colors one’s reality. We see what is inside of us, often unknowingly, in others. When we don’t like something about ourselves and try to deny it, C.G. Jung called it the shadow. His theory is one’s defense mechanism projects this unwanted part into someone else.

Jung is quoted as, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Herman Hesse said, “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part yourself. What isn’t part ourselves doesn’t disturb us”.

Anaïs Nin is credited with saying, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

You get the idea that this is a repeated theory. So, according to this theory, it is not others judging you, but you are judging you.

How to apply:

My family heavily judged me for some of my lifestyle choices. I come from a fairly religious family, and some of them don’t agree with the fact that I moved to Los Angeles by myself, dropped out of school, and live with my partner without being married.

While I didn’t necessarily cut them out of my life completely, I decided to put my energy elsewhere and only see them on special occasions. At the end of the day, you have to protect your mental state and do what you feel is best.

Avoid the ones who blatantly judge you or make you feel less than, and as for the rest, don’t even bother thinking twice about them.

When it comes to judging yourself, you need to ask yourself whether your judgments are constructive or destructive. If everything you say makes you feel incapable, then are you really helping yourself? Or are you allowing your progress to decline even more?

I’ve struggled with self-compassion for a long time, and I still do to this day. Anytime I criticize myself, I try my best to be realistic but also productive when giving myself feedback.

Train yourself to overcome self-doubt daily.

Sometimes you just have to make the decision to push through the self-doubt and discomfort.

I’m not always confident when I walk down the street with a vlogging camera, and people are staring at me as I talk to myself, but I swallow my discomfort and do it anyway because I have a goal. I want to reach people, share my life with others, and connect with people worldwide. I can’t do that if I’m too afraid of what others will say or if I’m too shy to push through.

Van Gogh once said,

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

You’re always going to feel doubtful initially, naysayers will tell you you’re not good enough, or smart enough or young enough or even old enough, but none of it is ever true.

Author Dr. Margie Warrell says a great way to build confidence within yourself is to have the courage to act despite misgivings. In Forbes, she writes,

“One way we do this is by applying the research of BJ Fogg at Stanford University, who found that scaling back bigger behaviors into smaller ‘bite size’ actions can create dramatic shifts that last. You need to think of courage like a muscle; the more you act with it, the braver you will become.”

How to apply:

The best way to train yourself to overcome self-doubt daily is by facing whatever problem or opportunity you have right now. Instead of prolonging it out of fear, putting it off till tomorrow, convincing yourself you’re not good enough, ask yourself, if these doubts weren’t here right now, what would I be doing?

Every morning when I wake up, my job is to write for several hours and then go to the gym. Every morning I have a little voice that tells me to stop, that my words don’t mean anything, that I’m not even good, my messages are unclear, and when I push past those fears, I know I’ve overcome my self-doubt that day.

When I go to the gym, my body tells me it’s incapable. You’re tired — you didn’t sleep well. Yet, I still push through because I know doing so will make me feel better in the end.

Every time you choose to take action despite your doubts, you will inevitably dilute their power and amplify your own.

The next time you catch yourself doubting your abilities, ask yourself, why? Have you tried it before? What went wrong? Two or even three failed attempts don’t mean you’re not any good at it; it just means you might need a little bit of extra time to learn. That’s not a bad thing.

The next time you catch yourself not doing something out of fear of being judged, ask yourself, why? You need to remember that people are so busy with their own lives, they don’t have time to go through yours.

Finally, it’s okay to feel discomfort at times when you’re chasing your dreams. Push through it; you’ll come out stronger than ever.

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