92% of people say that they often have times when they doubt themselves at work.
(April 2021, Courageous Success Study of 450 people)
It’s not just you! What is your personal stimulus plan for the other side of Covid 19?
I asked this question last Summer as the UK was coming out of it’s first lockdown (little did we know!) I know from our work that the challenges that we have with self-doubt existed before the challenges of Coronavirus. The pandemic has made this worse.
Working remotely from colleagues and even at a social distance isolates us. With recognition from others one of our top strategies to feel good enough, we are feeling the pinch. It is also harder to control things when we are apart, another top strategy!
Courage, which destroys self-doubt in a nano second, is often cultivated through shock and having to get your work, your family, your life to survive. The energy takes over and we not only cope, we grow. Many of the strongest and most resilient people have suffered great stress. Be it through loss, illness, poverty or war. Challenge really does make us stronger.
As I reflected on this month’s ‘92%’, it once again reminded me how much self-doubt is in itself a form of challenge. It hurts, it is stressful and the self questioning can make us react with anger, rage and tears. If challenge makes us stronger, how much self doubt do we need to go through before we get the courageous energy to destroy it? Good question no?
At Courageous Success we work with people to eradicate self doubt through unpicking and challenging our doubts directly. One of the main questions in our process is ‘what price are you paying for carrying this doubt?’ A question for 92% of you, have you ever asked yourself this question properly? My guess would be no. Most of us would rather distract ourselves, focus on something else, ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist. After all it isn’t a comfortable experience opening your Pandora’s box of insecurity, so why do it? COURAGE. That’s why!
Image you were one of the 8%. What must it be like to be free of doubt and believe in yourself? Ah ha! There you have it. We tend to perceive that people who don’t doubt believe. Wrong. In my experience those who don’t experience self doubt just don’t think about it.
They are not wondering around reciting positive affirmations about themselves, bathing in the warm glow of their gloriousness! They just get on with their life and work without questioning their worth. If they don’t know something they go and find out. If they try something new, they assume that they won’t fail because they don’t normally.
The secret, the secret of not thinking about it isn’t about turning your back on your doubtful thinking. It is about letting go. Letting go of the need to always be right, to be perfect, to please others and to be recognised. This is otherwise called freedom.
Sound good as a personal stimulus plan? Try letting go for the weekend, the next week or even the next 24 hours. Want a strategy to help you through it?
Be you.