Tag Courage

The Tyranny of Self-Doubt

Steve Keating 11 Comments

When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.” ~Honore de Balzac

There are not many obstacles bigger and more challenging for people on the road to success than the tyranny of self-doubt. It’s robs people of their ability to think clearly. It cheats them of their creativity and can paralyze them straight into the failure that they so greatly fear. 

Yes fear!

Fear is a tremendous source of self-doubt and it is a key part of a vicious cycle. More fear cause more self-doubt and more self-doubt causes more fear. Let’s look at some ideas to help eliminate both for our lives. 

First set goals and have a plan to achieve them. Knowing what needs to be done and how you intend to accomplish it goes a long way towards eliminating self-doubt. The more specific your plan the less “scary” it is so be specific. List start and end dates for each action required in your plan. Be realistic, do not set goals that cannot be achieved and know your sources of support. Things will not go exactly according to plan so build in alternatives for each step of your plan. 

Remember past successes, even small ones. One of the best predictors of what you’ll accomplish in the future in what you’ve accomplished in the past. Even people on something of a “failure streak” have successes in their past. That’s where your focus should be; on your successes. Learn from your failures, store that knowledge for later use but forget the failure. 

Get rid of the “victim” mentality. There is just no nice way to say this… most people full of self-doubt see themselves as victims. Victims of circumstance, of other people, of the economy, and sadly, sometimes even victims of themselves. The most successful people know this fact: Circumstances, people, and other “stuff” can make you a victim for a time but only you can make yourself a victim for a lifetime. When you accept full responsibility for your success, regardless of anything or anyone else, your odds of success go way, way up. 

Eliminate toxic people from your life. Toxic people poison your mind. They convince you that their failures are yours. They tell you, often repeatedly, that you “can’t,” can’t do it, can’t learn it, can’t think it, you just can’t. Their negative attitude is terribly contagious so stay the heck away from them. Instead find successful, positive people to associate with They will push you and inspire you. There’s no nice way to say this either but here’s a fact: your friends might be the nicest people in the world but if they have never experienced sustained success in their life it’s unlikely you will either. 

Do something. Doing almost anything is better than doing nothing. The longer you sit idle the more time you give self-doubt and fear to grow inside of you. Even if you attempt something and fail you’re still closer to your next success than if you had done nothing. Get going, move, mingle, network, TRY! 

The elimination of self-doubt comes from effort so make the effort and make yourself a success. 

How to Find Courage

Steve Keating 12 Comments

I had the opportunity this morning to present to a group of sales professionals. During one part of the presentation I made the comment that fear holds us back. Oftentimes when we need to do something and we can’t make ourselves do it it’s because fear gets in the way. 

I kind of let that thought hang and moved on but it got me to thinking; how do we get past our fear to do the things we need to do in order to succeed. 

I know some of the people in that group read this blog so for those of you who do, feel free to pass this along. For everyone else, I think you’ll find this useful too. I think that because fear is a major obstacle for anyone looking for success, so major in fact that I’m tempted to say THE major obstacle.

We don’t need to look very far to find courage; it’s already within us, all of us. It’s deeper in some people than others but to find success we all simply need to bring it to the surface. Here’s a few ideas on how we might do that:

Push Yourself. Do something, even if it’s small, to push yourself outside your comfort zone every single day. Think differently, admit you could be wrong. Give someone you think you don’t like a second chance. Look at a situation from another person’s point of view.

Trust Yourself. Surround yourself with people who care about you and have your best interests in mind. Your self-confidence and your self-value will improve. If you struggle to believe that “you can do it” then it’s vitally important that you have people near you who will remind you that you can. Stay away from people who would tear you down, they almost certainly do not have your best interests in mind.

Set Meaningful Goals. Make small easily accomplished goals each day. Once that becomes a habit make the goals a little more challenging. Once you teach yourself just how much you can accomplish fear tends to head for the exit. Once it’s out of you it’s very difficult for it to find it’s way back in. 

Control YOUR Attitude. The fastest way to improve your life is to improve your attitude. You can’t control every circumstance of your life but you can control your attitude everyday. A positive attitude is the enemy of fear. When you let other people and events impact your attitude you also let fear inside your head. A positive attitude reminds you how good you can be, it reminds you what you have already accomplished. A positive attitude will help you remember that you’ve overcome fear in the past and can do it again.

Don’t Procrastinate. The best time to take on a difficult task is the first chance you get. Fear doesn’t shrink by pretending it doesn’t exist. Attack it, prove it wrong. Do the most fearful thing you have to do first and the rest of your tasks become easier. When in doubt, DO IT NOW!

Courage is not the absence of fear, courage is doing something, moving forward, making progress, regardless of the fear. Take baby steps, you don’t have to eliminate all fear in a day, you just have to eliminate some fear everyday. 

Go for it!