5 ways to move from self-doubt to self-confidence

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26 January 2022

How often do you wonder if you’ve made the right decision or whether something will have the outcome you hope for?

Self-doubt is real, and it’s a quick route to self-sabotage as your fears can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

When you have self-confidence though, you find you make better decisions, you’re more productive and produce better quality work, networking is easier (and dare I say, fun?!) as people are far more drawn to a bit of sparkle; whether emanating like a disco ball from an extrovert, subtly shining like a flickering flame from an introvert, or varying depending on mood and audience from an ambivert. When you take action (no matter how small) to become more confident in yourself, you generally find that life starts to get better too.

Regain your confidence and gag your inner critic using these strategies to get you going:

1. Pause. Reflect on these feelings of doubt. What events have happened to make you feel insecure?

Consider how you’re speaking to yourself. If you’re unconsciously saying negative things to yourself like “I can’t do this” or “I’m not good enough” again and again, you’ll start to believe these thoughts and they’ll hold you back from moving forward.
When you next recognise you’re feeling self-doubt, stop and ask yourself why you think it’s true? We have to try our best to live in the present – the past can’t be changed, but we can learn from it – the future can’t be predicted, but we can influence it with our actions.
Reframe your negative self-talk with positive self-talk. Instead of the thoughts about ‘what if I fail?’, ask yourself ‘what if I succeed?’

2. Be kind to yourself. When you feel insecure and full of self-doubt, it’s easy to start beating yourself up. This then leads to feeling even worse about ourselves and off we go into a cycle of frustration and procrastination. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s how we learn. Every challenge is an opportunity to grow. Mistakes don’t make you stupid – they make you human. Be kind to yourself.

3. Make a list. I do love a good list. For this one, take a blank sheet of paper and make two columns. On the left side, write down all the nasty thoughts of self-doubt you're having, and on the right side, list all of the positive facts that provide evidence against your doubts.

For example, maybe you’ve been asked to do something you've never done before, and you immediately think you can’t do it. On the left side of the list write "I can't do this because I don't have the skills." On the right side of the page, counter that thought of self-doubt with "I was given this task because I'm a quick learner who always gets the job done."
You'll soon find that you have a lot more positive facts listed than doubts. When you first do this, you might be so full of doubt that your positive list is short. Maybe even empty. If this happens, don’t beat yourself up (again, you’re human), instead give your best friend/supportive colleague/someone else you value a call, and ask them to tell you some positive things that counter your thoughts of self-doubt. You’ll soon get used to going through your list of talents and good qualities (and yes – they are there and you do have them), and before you know it you’ll be whittling off the counter arguments to your doubts and kicking them out of the park.

4. Write a letter. It might sound silly but writing a letter to yourself can really help to release all the pent up insecurity and doubt in your mind. Note in the letter all the positive things about yourself, and the challenges you’ve got through in the past. It’s easy to forget the amazing stuff we’ve done when we’re full of self-doubt.

5. Make an appreciation folder. I call mine a ‘kudos’ file. Log all the nice things that have been said about your work and you because when you’re feeling doubtful, it’s so easy to forget all these lovely comments and feedback you’ve got that have helped others in some way. Keeping track of others’ appreciation of you helps to silence the inner critic when it starts to rear its head. Read them whenever you feel the self-doubt kick in.

We all have doubts, and it’s really common and very normal to doubt ourselves every once in a while. But if you are having more self-doubt than confident thoughts, you want to be able to put the inner critic to bed as soon as possible when it pops up.

These steps will help boost your confidence and smash self-doubt before it has the chance to sabotage your success.

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