It happens to all of us. It’s easy to let self-doubt and circumstances sabotage your life and business. These tips will help you build some resiliency and become a more confident and sturdy business owner.
1. Stop making excuses.
Self-doubt can cause you to rationalize a situation to fit your emotional state. You might be afraid to fail, to look silly, to take on more than you think you can handle. So you become a master at making excuses for why presented opportunities are a bad fit.
You have to quiet your chattering brain which is churning out excuses, alibis, obvious self-justifications and a million other reasons why you can’t/shouldn’t/won’t do whatever it is that you need to do.
2. Surround yourself with AMAZING HUMANS.
Don’t dismiss this.
What if I told you that you are average of the five people you spend the most time with? Of course, science can’t prove this, but somehow science being a sometimes food is a thing in 2020/21 so let’s roll with it.
Those people you habitually spend your time with will have a profound effect on you. We know from brain plasticity research that experiences reorganize neural pathways in the brain, and we know that our neural connections change even after a 20-minute conversation.
So who do you spend your time with? What do they think and talk about? What do they ask of themselves? What effect do they have on you? When you spend time with them, do you feel more possible or worse? We are what we think about and we become what we ask of ourselves.
Upgrade your crew.
3. Find the actual constraint and get to the heart of it.
Make sure you actually know why you’re doing what you’re doing, and thinking what you’re thinking. Find the root causes of your self-doubt.
Think about something right now that you want to do that you are not doing. OK? Now ask yourself why. Now tell yourself your reason. OK? Now ask ‘why?’ again. Keep repeating this two-step process until you get to the heart of the issue.
I did this with a friend of mine the other day and helped him figure out that it wasn’t a lack of time, or a deficiency with his tech, funding or any of the other excuses he shared with me to justify his lack of action. Once he got honest and kept digging, he discovered that at the core of this issue was a simple, painful truth. He didn’t really have the idea figured out. He only had half an idea.
4. Be kind to yourself
Are you nicer to other people than you are to yourself? You’re not alone, most of us are. We give other people breaks and we treat them the way we wish they would treat us, but we are horrible to ourselves sometimes, and we’re even worse when we’re riddled with self-doubt.
Being kind to yourself will help you develop emotional resilience which will help you bounce back quicker by not being so hard on yourself, by keeping your failures in perspective and your emotions in check.
By the way, we have an entire event coming up on resiliency this May 11,12,13. You can read about it here www.seriousshiftsummit.com.
5. Start shipping …
Early on, it would take me about 3 months to ship something. I could create it and finish it completely in 5 days; the other 85 days were for stalling and making excuses.
You may be holding back because you don’t want to be vulnerable – exposing yourself and your ideas to the world and living with the risk of criticism or failing.
What kind of great ideas are you sitting on because you don’t trust yourself? Self-doubt is mental paralysis. The only cure is to ship, start.
These are my five. There were some others I considered adding to this list but I think these 5 are the most impactful for me.
I’d love to hear yours.