Nearly everyone has some self-doubt. In fact, if you’re entirely free of it, you may have gone a little too far in the other direction. It’s normal to sometimes wonder if you’ve made the best choice or if you’re right about something. However, at its worst, self-doubt can be crippling. It can keep you from doing what you want to do and can leave you feeling trapped and helpless. The tips below may not banish self-doubt from your life forever, but they can definitely help you reduce to a healthy degree.
Thinking Exercises
One thing you will need to do to combat self-doubt is rewire your mental pathways. This means paying attention to your thoughts. When you do so, you may start to notice how often they are negative. Some of the reasons why goals are not met are rooted in a lack of positive thinking. Sometimes, you might notice that you are spiraling unreasonably in imagining that one bad outcome means that many other bad outcomes will follow as well. It can help to do a mental exercise when you notice yourself doing this to shut that negative voice out. You could imagine that the voice is trapped in a conference room with soundproof glass walls. You could work on turning negative comments around into something more positive. You could also make a practice of regularly listing the things that do make you feel confident about yourself.
Create Some Security
Changing your thinking is great, but self-doubt isn’t just about what’s in your head. You may be consumed with it because you don’t have the job, the relationship or the life that you want, sometimes even after trying very hard to get those things. You can become mired in self-recriminations if you begin to feel insecure about your place in the world. It can help to give yourself some financial security. Money worries can be all-consuming and destructive to your self-confidence. Many experts agree that a great way to start investing is with real estate. Among the benefits of investing in real estate are that it can feel more tangible than the stock market and it can be an ongoing source of income. While you can invest in single-family homes or a commercial property, another option is purchasing shares in property. This frees you from the obligation of being a landlord but still provides you with rental money. Making a good decision like this for your present and your future might increase your general optimism.
Explore the Origins
It might not work for everyone, but you may want to consider digging into the origins of your self-doubt and trying to figure out where it stems from. Talking to a trusted friend or daily journaling might help you uncover answers. You may find that your family, a teacher, a friend or someone else in your early life undermined you, possibly even not on purpose, and this has resulted in a pattern of self-doubt that persists today. Knowing where it came from can often help you deal with it, especially once you see that it is not an objective assessment. You may be able to look back and reframe the situations that shook your confidence and start to move ahead with a more positive outlook.
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