Power to Overcome Self-Doubt

Self-doubt is something we all experience at one time or another in coping with the challenges of everyday life or confronted with new opportunities. It sometimes presents itself as a sense of feeling unprepared, unworthy, or even unqualified to take on the challenge before us. In most instances, we are able to overlook these moments of self-doubt and deal with the issue at hand. However, self-doubt becomes a problem when it begins to destroy our self-confidence, cripple creativity, and limits our willingness to accept new opportunities. If left unchecked it will bring the best of us down or prevent us from living up to our full potential.

Here are three suggestions to enhance your ability to overcome self-doubt:

1) Rid Yourself of Fear to Make Mistakes

Self-doubt is often grounded in fear of the unknown. Fear that we will make a mistake or do something wrong.  It is often fear of how we will be perceived by others if we fall short of their expectations. You will never become all that you can be if you remain afraid to make a mistake. Life doesn’t require us to be perfect and mistakes are stepping stones to learning.  So, don't allow mistakes to make you feel less than, rather, let them be your teacher. Successful people recover from their mistakes and become more stronger and successful than before. However, it requires a certain mindset to embrace mistakes as tools for success. It requires that you adopt a growth mindset.  People with a growth mindset are not afraid of mistakes.  In fact, they embrace mistakes as part of the learning process for personal growth and development.  These individuals tend to see mistakes as opportunities for improvement.  They openly take chances to pursue their goals no matter the failures they experience.  Lewis Alerson author of Growth Mindset suggests that folks with a growth mindset tend to believe that perfection is not a requirement for success and accept that they are allowed to make mistakes.  You will never grow unless you are willing to take risks. 

2) Take Control of your Emotions 

Uncontrolled emotions leads to unnecessary worry, frustration, anger, and self-doubt which impede our ability to make sound decisions.  This hinders our capacity to do things in our own best interest. We spend a lot of time second-guessing ourselves and seeking validation from others. We tend to delay taking action until circumstances force us to do so. As a result, we sell ourselves short and are forced to accept less than we deserve. Feelings of self-doubt are often driven by uncertainty of the unknown which makes it easy to stay within our comfort zone. Uncontrolled emotions will severely limit your ability to move forward in life if you allow them to.  To overcome emotional feelings of self-doubt, you must recognize when they they occur and understand that you have the ability to rise above them. Unfortunately, not enough of us are in touch with our emotions and have no idea why we feel the way that we do.  Here is where emotional intelligence, as it relates to self-awareness, is so vital to our ability to overcome feelings that stifle our growth and development. According to James Williams, emotionally intelligent people tend to acknowledge and process their feelings as they occur, instead of allowing them to build up.  They are more likely to deal with their current feelings about a situation and let them go.  Emotionally intelligent people are also able to shift their mindset and move on regardless of how they feel.  You too must go forward and do whatever you need to get done regardless of the feeling of self-doubt.  Emotional feelings can be very strong, and it is not always easy to pull away from them.  But, to be able to take your game to the next level you must behave contrary to these feelings of doubt.  Otherwise, they will continue to dictate your life and hold you in bondage.

3) Develop Mental Toughness

Always bet on yourself to deliver the goods. Bear in mind that, in any situation, you could either fail or succeed. So why not be optimistic about your ability to reach success.  It requires a certain level of mental toughness to keep pushing forward when things don’t seem to be going your way.  Mental toughness will give you the internal strength to take on any obstacle or challenge and to remain focused on your goal.  People with mental toughness don’t allow themselves to become distracted and go off course.  In the book Mental Toughness, Thomas Turner advocates that mentally tough people tend to believe that as long as they keep trying, they will succeed. Failure is never an option for them.  They always look for positive outcomes no matter their struggles and circumstances.  Purposefully lean towards the positive side of every situation.  It’s as simple as looking at the glass of water as half full instead of half empty.

The power to overcome self-doubt begins with you.  You must believe that you can achieve your destiny despite what other people say or society expects from you. Do not allow circumstances to dictate what you can achieve in life. Perhaps you had several bad breaks in life and negative messages were pumped into your head to promote self-doubt since you were a child, you now have the chance to turn it around. If you desire to fulfill your dreams, let go of self-doubt and move through the world with uncompromising confidence and will power.

Written by Dr. RL Kight for Mind Power Solutions.  Visit www.mindpowersolutions.com to learn more about our personal development and training services.

Connect with People to Find Self-Empowerment

Have you ever noticed how some people are so naturally friendly when placed inside a room of strangers? They quickly connect and engage in conversations with almost everyone in no time. We often refer to them as a people-person, outgoing and charismatic, with the ability to charm a spot from a leopard’s back. They can entice others to contribute and celebrate their success. These individuals appear to operate from a mindset that they can accomplish anything because of the overwhelming support base behind them.

In all honesty, these are skills that I dedicated a significant amount of time to improve over the past years. By nature, I am somewhat reserved, but recognized I could never reach my full potential if I didn’t do more to aggressively connect with others to broaden my circle of influence. At one time, I could walk among hundreds of people and didn’t feel the need to connect with any of them. In hindsight, the lack of a more outward going personality probably hindered my career advancement and limited my access to other opportunities. Fortunately, I began to recognize these as flaws as a hindrance to my ability to maximize my knowledge, skills, and talents. Thus, I began this journey of self-improvement.

Working to enhance my own social skills has enabled me to better connect and relate to family, friends, colleagues at work, as well as complete strangers. The transformation in this area of my own personal development allows me to experience the level of self-empowerment I now enjoy. I no longer feel vulnerable in my efforts to reach out and connect with others. In fact, I seek as many opportunities as possible.

This drive for self-empowerment has been a process of making a general overhaul in my life and turning myself into a more confident and positive person. While still comfortable in my own skin, most people would probably think of me as a more outward going person today. Next, I would like to share some of the strategies used to better connect with people that led to my own sense of self-empowerment:

1. Be genuine.

Be true to who you are. There must be consistency in your behavior and interactions with others. Attempting to live a double life will eventually bring you down. Once you are perceived to be a hypocrite with selfish intentions, you might as well say goodbye to self-empowerment. Therefore, keep your ego under control by constantly monitoring your thoughts, decisions, and behavior.

2. Be a great listener.

To earn the respect and trust of other people, listen to their problems and empathize with them. Do more than hear them out, listen to them with your heart. Give them your undistracted attention by making eye contact when talking and acknowledging them. Listen as if every word matters, and you are truly interested. You win them over when they sense you care about them as a human being.

3. Laugh sometimes.

It’s not necessary that you force yourself to laugh at every joke cracked by someone, albeit you do not find it funny at all. However, you should find humor in things and not be too serious. Laugh at yourself daily. Learn to use humor to keep things light when you or people around you may be facing their greatest challenge.

4. Don't forget yourself.

It’s easy to get caught up in the challenges of day to day life and lose touch with yourself. Do not be afraid to nurture the qualities in yourself that you expect from others. Remember to love and value yourself before anyone else. If you present yourself as respectable and worthy of affection, people will respond to you as such. You can ultimately determine how the world and others respond to you.

5. Do random acts of kindness.

Make it a practice to do a random act of kindness each day. It’s not necessary to do a Warren Buffet and give all your savings to charity. Little acts of kindness matter the most, and this can be as simple buying someone a cup of coffee or giving up your seat on public transportation.  A warm word of encouragement could mean the world to someone down on their luck. 

6. Stay in touch with old friends.

Try to maintain connections with old friendships. Although some friendships have served their purpose and should be allowed to fade away, others may have been allowed to fall by the wayside for no apparent reason. Thanks to technology (social media), you can do something about it. Pull out the old yearbook or address book and reach out to the people who brought value and fun to your life at one time. 

7. Refine your personality.

Are you grouchy, grumpy and generally miserable? Stop it! You can't go through life behaving this way and be at your best. Yes, life has a way of beating you down, but you must rise above these bad traits and habits that are certain to hinder your growth and development. Who wants to around a grouchy irritated person all the time?

8. Be confident.

Learn to stride across the room and meet and greet people with warm and radiate positive energy. Just remember: be confident, not arrogant. Promote your “can do” brand at all times. There are people watching you even when you do not realize it. Always strive to display the best you no matter the situation, even if shaking in your shoes.

9. Practice control.

When angered, do not be overtaken by your emotions.  Avoid throwing tantrums and the “I told them syndrome”. Try to stay calm and collected. Be mature enough to take control of the situation and transform your anger into something more productive or a solution. People will tend to avoid you once they learn about your inability to control your anger.

10. Keep nurturing your relationships.

Relationships with family, friends and significant others are too precious and you must not neglect them no matter what happens. It’s important to go out of your way to enjoy them. Do things that pull you closer together. As you strive to reach the top, be sure that you don’t arrive there all alone. Keep close people who have a genuine interest in your success.  The “Johnny Come Lately” is normally not really invested in you, but more interested in what you do.

You too can become more of people-person; it will pay dividends in both your personal and professional development. In the end, connecting with people for self-empowerment requires you to become a more assertive and engaging individual. It's a win-win situation: the people know they can count on you anytime and vice versa.

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A "Can Do" Mindset Makes a Difference in How We Live Our Lives

Mindset is often defined as our collective thoughts and outlook on the world. This plays a critical role in what we achieve and accomplish in our lives. It determines how we respond to adversities and experiences that challenge our well-being. It can also be a driving force to push us forward no matter where and under what conditions we were born while others fall short. It’s amazing how so few of us ever give consideration as to how our mental outlook influences our approach to life.  

Dr. Carol Dweck in her book MindsSet indicates that people have either a fixed or growth mindset that dictates their outlook on life. People with the fixed mindset tend to stay stuck and not to live up to their full potential while those with a growth mindset appear to be unstoppable and willing to take on new challenges in life.  I prefer to identify people as having either a “can’t do” or a “can do” mindset. Each day we awaken, we can decide to have a “can’t do” or “can do” mindset. A person with a “can’t do” mindset tends to search for reasons for why things cannot be done. They hold themselves back from pursuing their goals. Some see defeat before they ever get started.

A “can do” mindset reflects our internal drive and determination to get things done.  It gives us the confidence to do whatever necessary to achieve our goals. People with a “can do” mindset don’t sit around waiting for someone to remove the obstacles in their lives. They find a way to overcome, go around or through them if necessary, but never give up. A “can do” mindset empowers us to rise above negative circumstances and to remain hopeful no matter how many setbacks we encounter. 

The right mindset enables us to make the correct choice or decision at crucial junctions in our lives.  It serves as a catalyst that helps us to decide which road of life to travel. There comes a time when we are faced with the decision to take the short or long road to achieve our goals. A “can’t do” mindset is more likely to select the short road to success and the “can do” will most often follow the long road. The short road tends to be the ideal path because it often brings immediate happiness, instant gratification and requires minimum effort.  It may not require a major investment of time and effort to produce immediate results. This is good when everything goes according to plans, but it can be a life changer when they don’t.

On the other hand, the long road tends to be more uncertain. There are no guarantees that the outcome will go accordingly to plans. When things don’t go accordingly to plans, the person with the “can do” mindset is usually more willing to continue on - driven by their dreams, hopes, and aspirations. It can be just the opposite for someone with a “can’t do” mindset.    

Writing this blog caused me to reflect on the significance of having a “can do” mindset in the lives of my brothers and I. We grew up in a rural town in southeast Georgia. There is only one red light within the ten-mile city limit boundary. When visiting, I run the entire city limit within one hour and a half. We were the first in the family to go to college and establish ourselves in relatively successful careers. Thus, we have provided a quality life style for our families, traveled the world, and become contributors to the well-being of society.

A “can do” mindset has been a game changer for us because we:

·       chose to focus on where we were going and not where we started from and what we didn’t have.

·       concentrated our efforts on continuous self-improvement and raising our game to the next level.

·       believed in our ability to accomplish whatever we set our minds too.

·       never set limitations on what we could or could not do.

This story is shared not to boast, but to serve as an example of how having the right mindset has made a difference in our lives.  My brothers and I approach each day with a belief that our goals are achievable through hard work and perseverance. The self-confidence we display is often mistaken for arrogance and pride.  This is not the case at all. Failure has never been an option for us.

A “can do” mindset will empower us to take on new challenges and opportunities knowing it will require personal sacrifice and commitment. The constant pursuit of dreams, hopes and desires is never ending. There are no short roads to success. It’s is a life long journey with many unseen pot holes, curves, and turns.  It requires a “can do” mindset to endure and overcome the obstacles that block our pathway to living up to our full potential in this highly competitive world.  Please share this blog with at least 10 other people that you think would benefit from this discussion. 

Written by Dr. RLKight for Mind Power Solutions at www.mindpowersolutions.com