 |
| @mushroomalice |
I feel that I am taking longer and longer to write my blog posts. Well not just writing them but editing and posting them. This is closely linked to today’s topic of self doubt. The past month or so I have struggled with motivation and found every possible way that I could to put off posting on my blog as I doubted my own ability to write. I have had so much positive feedback about my blog and I am beyond grateful for that. Today I want to discuss something that I personally feel victimized by (raise your hand if you’ve ever felt personally victimized by Regina George).
They say that history repeats itself and I believe that this is true not only for the world but our own unique history. How many times have you said you won’t ever do something again and well you end up doing it again. Perhaps we didn't learn our lesson the first time or we doubted our abilities to fully follow through. This brings me to the reason behind the title of this blog post, the Victim Of Self Doubt. Self doubt is not something you can just turn on and off. Being a victim of self doubt is lacking confidence in oneself and abilities. It’s so easy to say something but to actually believe it or feel it is an entirely different thing.
For example I chopped my long hair off recently. The last time that I did a big chop was in 2016. After cutting my hair off in 2016 I said that I was going to grow my hair out and keep it long (I also said I wasn’t going to colour it again … LOL). Well here I am 4 years later with short hair. I really liked having short hair but I felt that I was strongly influenced by others to grow my hair out again. It became embedded in my brain that I should have long hair because other people told me that I should and I doubted my own choices. After recently chopping my hair most of the feedback that I have received has been positive but others made comments that really made me doubt my choices … yet again. It made me panic and think oh no what have I done? When really I love my new hair but my self doubt kicked in and made me think otherwise.
A lot of people don’t understand that their words can be a trigger for other people. I have talked about this in many other posts but I'll say it again be mindful of others. I cannot emphasize this enough! I am no angel when it comes to this topic because I say (or strongly express with my eyes - virgo energy) what comes to mind. I have gotten better at being more mindful over the years and I'm way more situationally aware than I used to be. I’ve been on the other side of people's hurtful comments and it’s not fun.
When I take on new tasks I usually doubt my abilities. I instantly think about all of the things that could go wrong or dwell on my past not so great experiences. I’ve even fallen victim of letting others do tasks for me simply because I doubt my abilities to perform them. I think a lot of this stems from my childhood and a constant need for perfection. When I was younger I didn’t stray far from my comfort zone, I knew what I excelled at and stuck to that. I wasn’t forced to try new things either which made me want to just coast with what I was good at. I am the type of person that doesn’t understand that new things can be difficult to learn and take time to perfect. I also think that if I’m not good at something right off the hop that I will never get it. So I think we can agree that overcoming self doubt is extremely difficult for me. I’ve braved from my comfort zone more recently and it has been very rewarding. I do believe that much of this success is linked to the amazing support system that I now have.
 |
| @maxineluzia |
Here are some examples of what I do to cancel self doubt when it arises.
Bring awareness to my initial thoughts and question why I wanted to do this in the first place?
Have I been in this situation before and what was the outcome? Did I make it out of the situation unharmed and how did I feel?
Cancel the negatives with positives, usually there are more positives than negatives about the situation but the negative is way more scary.
Overwhelm them with kindness - If someone is trying to inflict my self doubt habits or make me second guess my choices I REMEMBER to not take it personally. They might be doubtful due to a negative experience they had with this situation in the past.
Rapid firing a situation of self doubt that I have overcome. I fuel myself with a positive outcome. This is like the ultimate hype man!
It’s scary how quickly self doubt can take over your life. You'll spend all of your time thinking about the negatives instead of just enjoying the experience. More often than not you will fail, but after trial and error you can succeed. When you look at the big picture things aren’t all that scary but the image we build up in our heads is so much scarier than the real thing.
Thanks for reading! Bye for now.
Xx. The Stressed Out Millennial
Comments
Post a Comment