Self-doubt can be a really toxic emotion. If we don’t overcome it, it can eat our creativity, stunt our ambition and professionally paralyse us.
If you're reading this, then I guess, like me, you're afflicted by this most common of human emotions. What I find surprising is that it hasn’t diminished to any great degree with age, experience or success.
Even after 20 years of professional life, I still start every new project wondering if I’m a fraud.
Hard work, creative epiphanies and coffee mean I always get there in the end. But what’s annoying is that these thought patterns cost me wasted time and anxiety nearly every day.
So how can we overcome the nagging voice of our inner critic?
Here are a few tips I’ve picked up from recent reading - particularly from a psychologist called Melody J. Wilding - that are helping me defeat my daily doubt fest.
1. You can kick the habit
Research tells us that of the 60 to 70,000 thoughts we have every day, around 98% are the same. This seems a little high to me, but I can see the underlying point.
It shows that our inner critic is really just a habit. Like watching Love Island or drinking too much cold rose, it's a repetitive thought pattern that we can kick.
Wilding recommends starting by identifying the underlying beliefs - usually rooted in our childhoods - that make us feel we don’t deserve success.
Once we acknowledge these, they show themselves up for what they really are - exaggerated and irrational.
My own self-doubt almost certainly flourished as a teenager at comprehensive school.
If you showed signs of talent in any area but football, you’d be laughed at and most likely given an unfortunate nickname.
One time, I achieved something significant outside school and got my picture in the paper. In the run up to it being published I was terrified about what my classmates would say.
Luckily, it turned out they were much more interested in listening to On a Ragga Tip and playing Kick Off 2 than reading the local paper, so no one even noticed.
But success was always tied up with anxiety for me.
2. Get in the ring with your inner critic
Self doubt isn’t all bad. If it’s rational, it can protect us from making the wrong decisions. But the stuff I’m talking about is the repetitive nagging that deep down you know isn’t justified.
Wilding suggests we answer our inner critic back. So, for example, if it’s telling you that you’re not good enough to go for a promotion, you need to argue the case.
Use it as an opportunity to honestly evaluate your skills. If there are gaps to fill, then respond positively by embarking on training or finding a career coach that helps you address those areas.
Use your inner critic to move forward - rather than allow it to hold you back.
3. Don’t let fear strangle your ambition
If you feel fearful of change and uncertainty, take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone.
Self doubt will appear for most of us any time we try to do something new or significant. According to Wilding, this is a good thing. Because it reminds us that the thing we’re confronting requires us to be brave. That it’s something really important to us.
So whatever doubts we have, we can choose how we use them. Allow them to stop us. Or, as Wilding says, use them as our ‘greatest strength and most valuable tool’.