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Do you have Self Doubt?
Do you doubt yourself and your abilities? What is it that you feel you cannot
accomplish? What is it that you want to achieve but feel you can’t? Whatever it
is, as we enter 2006, now is the time to do it. Now, in 2006, is the time to
overcome that which is stopping you from progressing and move forward.
How?
By learning to believe in yourself and build your confidence.
But before we start: what is your inner critic saying now? What is that inside
voice saying to stop you from progressing?
The inner critic has a dynamite grip on our daily lives. S/he wants you to stay
the same. Doesn’t want you to change so uses such phrases as:
You’re not good enough
That will never work
You could never do that;
remember the last time you tried?
You’re not clever enough
What you. What makes you think she/he thinks you are attractive?
What does
your inner critic say that stops you from progressing?
Now make a list of all the things it says. Go on just try, what have you got to
lose?
In our experience most of the critic’s power comes from generalising from one
example. So what:
you failed once. Well we’ve got news for you; failure is not the
end of the world. Everyone has survived failing at something.
What is the end of the world;
is thinking that trying something and failing means
you can’t do it. You are a failure.
Trying something and failing means: Well done. You’re on the road to success.
Don’t you see, the outcome is irrelevant, what is important is the fact that you
had a go.
All that is wrong is that you have given the wrong part of the process power. If
you focus on the end result, not achieving means failure. So, therefore, your
inner critic can now undermine and sabotage you whenever it wants to.
If you focus on the fact that you made an effort to do something you had never
done before and congratulating yourself for that, irrespective of the outcome,
the critic has nowhere to go. S/he cannot use your actions to distract and
undermine your progress.
All overnight successes have spent years perfecting their act. Do you think they
just did it once and were a great success? Remember that phrase your grandmother
kept repeating to you time after time as a child:
Practice makes
perfect.
She was saying the same. It doesn’t matter if your first try was successful or
not. Do it again and again. The next time you can do a bit more and a bit more.
Each time you have the confidence to try more.
Let me give you an example. We live in a Spanish speaking country. When we first
went shopping we chose the supermarket so we could select our items and pay the
cashier without talking. We didn’t have the confidence to try and our inner
critic said, ”You're
too old to learn a new language”.” You can’t learn a foreign language, you tried
at school and failed”.
Then over time we ventured into other grocery shops where you have to speak to
the owner. Gradually we have learned to ask for what we want and have a short
conversation with the shop owner. We don’t understand every word,
but we are more
confident that we can understand what is being said and become involved in the
conversation.
You see we are progressing irrespective of our inner critic because we have
actual proof that practice makes perfect. Proof that the more we make the effort
the more confident we become.
We have broken the code. We have found the secret ingredient.
Confidence breeds confidence breeds confidence breeds confidence.
It’s not the outcome that matters. It’s the fact that you had a go. Next time it
will be easier.
Go on have a go.
Good Luck
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