Dealing with Self-Doubt

Listen, we all deal with self doubt. It's not something that's ever actually going to go away with you. So you've got to figure out how are you going to reframe it? How are you going to use self doubt as like a tool to motivate you, to make you stay driven, to make sure that even in those things you're scared of, you approach them with courage. Self doubt isn't something you should be upset that you have. You know, I go under arenas where there's, you know, 25,000 people in the audience and I'm backstage and I have that anxiety, I have that concern. Sometimes I don't like my shirt. I have the doubt of am I going to do a good job today? And I worry about it too. Everybody has self doubt. The challenge is some people think they don't need to ever have it. And some people are using it as a tool to stop towards their dreams instead of progress towards their dreams. So here's four big ideas on how to deal with self doubt better so that you can still go after your dreams. Number one, you have to reframe confidence. A lot of people say, well, Brendan, I'm just not confident. I wish I was more confident. I wish I had more fire. I wish I believed in myself more. I just, it's my doubt. I always worry about myself. I never believe in myself. I'm always selling myself short and I always never give myself credit. I just quit and maybe. But I think what happens for a lot of people is they just never really learned what real confidence is. It's like they're not necessarily without each other. It's not like they're necessarily mutually exclusive. Right. It's like sometimes the truth is you can be confident but still have doubts about capabilities. That makes you real. It makes you a non egomaniac. Because only super egomaniacs have no self doubt. Like, only sociopaths lack enough self doubt. And so self doubt can be okay. What you have to figure out is what does confidence mean to you? Instead of worrying so much about the doubt, like, what's the opposite? What's the other part of that? What does confidence really mean to you? And we did the largest study that's ever been done on high performers worldwide. And what we learned about is like the most successful people in the world, the way they think about confidence is simply this, their belief in their ability to figure things out. So it doesn't mean they don't have self doubt. They just believe I can figure things out, give me enough time, energy, Resources, mentorship, support, and I can figure anything out. And you've got to start believing that. As much as you spend time questioning yourself, you have to think, okay, can I remember that I figured out things in the past that I wasn't prepared for? You've done projects in the past, you've been in situations in the past where you had no idea how to handle it, but you figured it out. Take confidence in that. Next time you're going in a situation and all you can do is think about yourself, think about yourself, think about yourself and freak out. What I want you to do is to remember all of those times where you did overcome the doubts, did overcome the anxiety, came, you know, overcame the lack of skill or the unknowns and you still pulled it off. And there's been more times in your life that that happened than you give yourselves credit for. I mean, maybe you showed up that one time at school and you were self doubting, but people liked you and you were just fine. Maybe that one time you went in that project and you knew you didn't know how to do it, but by the end of that week or the end that month, you figured it out. You have to have a memory for, for the things that you did overcome as much as you worry about the things that you're lacking in. Does that make sense if all of your thought pattern is always running on I lack, I lack, I lack, I lack, I lack. Of course you're going to self doubt all the time to a degree where you stop. But if you remember, oh wait, yeah, I overcame that. Yeah, and I learned that and I figured out how to do that and that went just fine and they were fine with me and I did okay over there. If you can have that self talk, remind yourself of all the times you overcame what you did not know. That will be more of a genuine self confidence that says, you know what? I believe in my ability to figure things out. Even if I have some doubts about how it might go or doubts about how things might turn out, I do know that I will figure it out. Give me enough time, energy, effort, resources and support. Like I said, that's genuine self confidence. It's not like I know everything, it's you know what, I'll figure it out and that's all I'm asking for you. So even though you have doubts, next time you're going to the situation where you have doubt, I want you to say, you know what, I'll figure it out, I'll figure it out. And trust in that. The second Thing. If you want to deal with self doubt, you absolutely must start entering each day as more intentional of a human. Because the issue is, one of the reasons we doubt ourselves is because we're just all over the place. You know, sometimes you're cool in this situation, but you're dumb in that situation. Sometimes you, you don't do well here, but you do well here. And what happens is so many people, they're going through the motions or they're just showing up in life every single day and they're reacting. And because they're always reacting, they don't have a character. They haven't determined who am I really, who am I gonna act like in this situation, who am I gonna behave like in this situation? How am I gonna treat people in this situation? Because they haven't shown up intentional enough and sought to live out that intention. They feel a lot of discord in life. Like they don't know who they are because they just keep showing up and reacting to what's there. But guess what? What's there is always different. The world is always changing. People are always changing, situations are always changing. So if all you ever doing is showing up and reacting, I guess I'll just go through it and see how it goes. You're never forming an intentional character. So of course you doubt yourself. Because every situation is different and you can never have certainty in that. But you can have strength inside. If from now on you wake up every day and you say, okay, I'm going to be these three words today. And you just set the words, you say, okay, I'm going to be fun, I'm going to be playful, I'm going to be kind. And that day you are fun, playful and kind. And the next day you say, okay, I'm going to be patient today. I'm going to be thoughtful and I'm going to be appreciative. And you're patient, thoughtful and appreciative. You do that over and over and over again. Set an intention for who to be, be that. Set an intention, be that. Set an intention, be that. And you do that in more situations in your life and more days and more weeks and more months and more years. And one day you wake up and you're like you're confident in self because you know that you can direct your mind and your emotions and your body to be the person who you really want to be. The more often you do that, the more real, genuine self confidence will come into your life. I think the third thing you have to do and this is the hardest one because it sounds so tactical but it's so important. You got to get clarity, you got to get a plan and you got to get momentum. What I mean by this, a lot of people have self doubt in their lives because they don't have clarity for what they want. A lot of people wander in a situation and they have a lot of self doubt because they didn't sit down and plan it out. They didn't prepare, they didn't ask mentors or model others or do the research to figure out okay, I should do A, B, C, D and E. In other words, if you don't know the steps to success, of course you'll have more self doubt. If you don't have the plan, if you don't have the map, if you don't know what you're doing, of course you're going to have more self doubt. So part of it is just like decide to build a plan even if you have to ask for help and say hey guys, how would you do this? What would be your first step? What would be your second step? I'm always asking that. Even at this stage of my career, I'm still saying hey guys, if you're going to launch this, how would you do it? If you're going to promote that, how would you do it? If you're going to create this thing, how would you do it? If you're going to build this team or build that business, what would you do? And I always try to get the map before I enter the woods so that I have the steps. I know the path. Because if you can remove the doubt about the path, you'll have more confidence in yourself. Fourth, big idea for you and this one's so straightforward, but I think people don't do it. You need to learn versus judge when it comes to your behaviors and your results in life. So here's what I love you to do. Start a Sunday review. And every Sunday all I want you to do is sit down and really evaluate how you showed up this last week. I mean how did you really show up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? What situations did you do good in? What situations could you have done better in what did you learn about yourself and use that review session not to beat yourself up, but not to say I wish I would have coulda. Not to be mad at yourself, not to stir self talk that's filled with self hatred, but rather to say, okay, what did I really learn about who I am and what I prefer in life? What did I really learn about what I like, what did I learn about the best of me? And what did I learn about the go through the motions me? Where did I feel down? Where did I feel confident? And start experimenting with how you view yourself by better doing a job of reviewing your week. I think one reason people don't have as confident mentality as they should is because they're just barreling through week after week after week after week, kind of blind and dumb to how far they've grown. But if you can, instead of judging yourself like I sucked yesterday, you can like every week have a real self evaluation session. How did I do? What did I learn? And in that personal development where you can look at yourself objectively without judging, without being mad, without giving it negative labels and just go, how did I do? What did I learn? What could I have done better? Oh, I could have done this. And just kind of observe how you're going through your life and then tell yourself, okay, next time I'll do this and next time I'll do this and next time I'll do that. That's a learning mentality versus a judgment mentality. A judgment mentality was I was an idiot, I was stupid, I didn't like myself, I look stupid. People are going to make fun of me, they're going to hate me. I that judgment self talk is why you have so little self confidence. Because most people spend most of their time criticizing themselves. Their self talk is so negative instead of learning oriented. As soon as you switch from like a negative standpoint to a learning standpoint, disappointment goes away, embarrassment goes away, self hatred goes away and you start just learning your way into the new and strongest you. So next time you're plagued with self doubt, think of a few of these things. Reframe confidence. Don't think you have to be completely confident. Just say, you know what, I'm going to figure my way through this. It's going to be okay. I'm going to trust. I figured out things in the past, I'll figure out this one. Make sure that you start each day or walk into each situation with a little more intention. Who do you want to be? And live into that more consistently because that will start to form your character that, that you can take confidence in. And then make sure you get the plan. Just take those steps, you get a little momentum because with momentum comes a little bit more confidence and a little more like self assuredness. And then as always, make sure you are learning. Keep learning from me. Keep learning from other people. Watch my other videos, listen to my podcast, read my books, listen to other people's podcasts and books, and just get yourself in the game of personal development in a perspective where you're learning about yourself and you're proud of yourself for that growth. Because you know when you're going to be the most proud of yourself. When you're, when you find real genuine self confidence is when you are growing at the rate and the speed that you truly desire. So keep learning, my friend, because listen, you're stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Sam.