self confidence

7 Ways To Become More Confident

7 Ways To Become More Confident

7 Ways To Become More Confident

Confidence is all you need to succeed in many cases. The confidence that you can achieve a goal or live a dream, powers you past obstacles. It’s contagious, too.

Build confidence once and you begin to feel confident regularly. It’s a self-fulfilling success cycle, and is incredibly powerful if you can harness it.

For more goal-crushing, dream-achieving confidence, here are 7 proven practices successful people use to turn desires into reality.

Not Caring What Others Think Can Boost Your Confidence

Many failures can be blamed on worrying about what other people think. It may be tough to hear, but the world really doesn’t care about you. It’s true. The people you think are waiting for you to fail or will otherwise make fun of you if you don’t succeed at something are probably not even paying attention.

On the other hand, the people that truly love and respect you won’t be kicking you when you’re down. These two facts mean you’re wasting your time if you’re concerned about what other people may be thinking about you.

Who really cares, anyway? The minute you stop worrying about how others perceive you is the instant point in time where you start feeling more confident that you can handle just about anything.

Start Acting “As If” You Can

Many self-help gurus will teach you to “fake it before you make it” on your way to pursuing a large goal. This is because of the inability of your subconscious mind to differentiate reality from imagination or fantasy. If you dress and act and walk and talk “as if” you have accomplished something, that immediately improves your confidence.

This doesn’t mean to be arrogant or to lie to yourself. It means that acting as if you can do something triggers a belief in your mind that you actually can. You basically trick your subconscious mind into thinking you have already succeeded at some tasks, even if you never have.

Of course, it goes without saying that you don’t lie to others; this is a purely internal process.

Take Small Steps To Grow Your Comfort Zone

Try this. Do just one thing that makes you scared or unsure every day. Seriously, intentionally take small steps outside of your comfort zone. Science tells us this is where the largest achievements are found.

Researchers into goal achievement wondered how they could help people realize more of their dreams. Their testing led them to a startling discovery.

They found that when an individual takes small but challenging steps in the direction of uncertainty and fear, huge achievements are often the result.

Be careful with this. Those researchers also found that when people took huge leaps out of their comfort zone the end results were not favorable.

This means you should be experiencing minor discomfort and uncertainty regularly if you want to become more confident and capable. Push yourself and slowly expand the boundaries of your abilities.

And don’t forget to enjoy the journey you are on. So many people are only focused on the end goal that they forget to enjoy the whole process of getting there. If you want to know more about this, take a look at this training here: Enjoy The Journey

Build A Confidence Support Team

Teamwork can accomplish what individuals cannot in many cases. Having a support team that motivates you and keeps you focused is a great way to build more confidence.

We are all going to stumble and fall on our paths to success. It’s just normal, and it’s how you react to that obstacle which determines where you will end up!

Knowing that you have a team of friends and loved ones to support you makes it a lot easier to ignore those temporary setbacks that are going to appear in your life. This gives you more confidence because you know that there are people that have your back when you need them.

Visualize, Rehearse And Practice

Visualization is used by the most successful athletes in the world. Actors and politicians visualize giving a great performance or speech. This goes back to how you can program your subconscious to create the desired result.

You can also enjoy being your most confident self by rehearsing or practicing. It’s not always possible to practice something you’re going to have to attempt. When it is possible, get those practice sessions in.

Rehearse and rehearse and rehearse.

Be Calm … Learn To Relax

Confident people aren’t usually freaking out. There is definitely a positive relationship between staying calm and focused and having a confident belief in one’s ability.

Remember, stress is the enemy of confidence. It can wear down even the most confident person. You can’t be very self-assured when you’re stressed out, nervous and anxious.

Take up yoga. Start meditating. Those are two proven stress-relieving practices that go back thousands of years. Work to stay calm in the face of anxiety and stress and you can enjoy more confidence.

If you have religious beliefs, prayer can also help and can be very powerful for the Christians among us.

Start Helping People

You can’t help someone else until you take care of yourself. This means you should be practicing self-care. Self-confidence can come from feeling good about the person you are, and that means respecting yourself enough to take care of your mind and body.

Another thing that boosts your self-image and cranks up confidence is helping someone. When you help another person improve their situation in some way, you feel good about yourself.

This gets those positive hormones and neurotransmitters doing what they do best … making you feel confident and self-assured. Reach out to someone in need and help them. Do this regularly and you’ll enjoy more self-assuredness and confidence.

These are simple practices. They don’t require anything more than a change in mindset on your part. Simplicity can be powerful, and it is here. These are some of the things successful people do to turn their dreams into reality. They can give you the confidence to achieve all the important things in your life.

Being confident requires self discipline and many people struggle with this, so if you want to harness the power of self discipline, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂

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Overcoming Doubt And Becoming More Positive

Overcoming Self Doubt And Becoming More Positive

Overcoming Self Doubt And Becoming More Positive

One of the hardest things that some people ever do is transform themselves from a person full of self-doubt to a self-assured person that believes in themselves. But, the truth is that no matter where you are in life right now, no matter how many mistakes you’ve made, opportunities you’ve passed up, or what’s happened to you in life, you can overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself.

This is true even if you had a poor upbringing and even if you’ve never believed in yourself before. It’s within your power, and it will change your life completely.

So, congratulations on reading this article, soaking it in, and implementing the suggestions. Once you do, within just a short period of time you’ll start feeling better about yourself, feel more confident, successful and know that your future is bright.

Let’s get started learning how you can overcome self-doubt and believe in yourself.

What Is Self-Doubt?

The dictionary defines self-doubt as, “the lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.” This is a very good definition, but it doesn’t fully demonstrate the problems caused by self-doubt and not believing in yourself.

Think about these questions:

  • What are the dangers of self-doubt?
  • How does self-doubt affect your life?
  • Where does self-doubt come from?
  • And most importantly, how do you overcome it?

In this article we’ll give the answers to all these questions and more. If it helps, take notes as you read through when you notice issues that resonate most with your current situation. Everyone has different issues, reasons for their self-doubt, and problems in their life. You’re a unique person and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.

The Dangers Of Self-Doubt And How It Affects Your Life

There are many dangers inherent in hanging on to self doubt that you should be aware of. If you suffer from self doubt, it’s important to understand the type of damage you’re doing to yourself if you continue to hang on to it. It has affected your past, is affecting your present and can devastate your future if you don’t deal with it. Here’s why.

  • Self-Doubt Damages Motivation – When you don’t think you can do much, and don’t trust yourself to do something right, fear can get in the way of doing anything. This can turn into a severe lack of motivation to do more than you have to just to get by. It can affect your entire life because you may have fewer satisfying relationships, a job you hate, and not enjoy life much.
  • Self-Doubt Causes Procrastination – If you don’t think you know how to do things “right” then you may end up thinking you’re a perfectionist, which is just a way to procrastinate and never finish anything or finish it at the last minute. This is how you set yourself up for failure. No one is perfect and perfection is not necessary to thrive in this life.
  • Self-Doubt Leads to Regret – When you miss opportunities, you will experience regret. Regret, when left unresolved, can lead to chronic stress and anxiety. This will then build upon itself to create even more self-doubt, which will create more regret, and so on.
  • Self-Doubt Causes Defeatism – If you allow self-doubt to continue, you can start to become almost morbid in your belief that you cannot experience anything good or happy. It’s essentially an acceptance of failure.
  • Self-Doubt Stunts Self-Improvement – When you have no faith in yourself, it’s hard to even think about self-improvement. You think you have too much to improve because you can’t do anything, and maybe you even think you’re a victim of your circumstances to a point that you cannot achieve even if you try.
  • Self-Doubt Stifles Inspiration – When you don’t believe in yourself, it’s hard to get inspired to do anything new or to create anything new. Ending the self-doubt will bring out the creativity you already really have.

As you can see and may have experienced yourself, self-doubt can be dangerous and these are all good reasons on their own to work toward overcoming self-doubt and learning to believe in yourself.

How To Identify Where Your Self-Doubt Lies

 Knowing how you developed self-doubt can sometimes help lead to recovering from that condition. You can build self-esteem by getting to the bottom of how it happened.

Some people did have self-esteem at one point, then lost it. Some never had it in the first place.

No matter how you determine what causes your self-doubt, you’ll be able to overcome it. It doesn’t matter if it’s something that developed over time or something you learned in childhood. You can work toward building your belief in yourself so that you can overcome self-doubt.

Limiting Beliefs Learned In Childhood

Unfortunately, many people learn to put off their dreams and limit their ideas due to well-meaning parents (or sometimes they’re not so well-meaning but perhaps abusive parents) who are also stuck in their own self-doubting lives and cannot ever envision anything different.

This happens a lot in communities where people are often born very poor and end up lacking experiences and education to see beyond their own lives to the possibilities that are outside their world.

It’s not usually the fact that parents want to keep their kids from dreaming; they’re just trying to be realistic. When their child tells them about their big dream to travel the world and become a writer, they react in fear and make statements that may be statistically true but that limit their child.

For example, they might discourage their child from becoming a writer by telling them no one makes money writing, or they might discourage their child from becoming anything that is above what they’re used to due to the fear of the costs and the fear that their child really can’t do it even if they try. But this is only due to their own lack of success and understanding of life.

This rubs off on the kids. That’s why statistically most people do not break out of the class they were born to. The exciting thing to remember, though, is that some people do, and the reason they do is they were able to see and envision the possibilities and then take the action to see it through.

Past Experiences From Bad Relationships

If you used to have a good self-image and didn’t suffer from much self-doubt but then suddenly or over time started to develop self doubt, it’s possible that you allowed your past experiences and bad relationships to get into your head and create this self-doubting experience.

It can be a parent relationship, a friendship, a love interest, a spouse, even a child who is dragging you down and creating the self-doubt in your life. These relationships are sometimes defined as toxic relationships. Unfortunately, a toxic relationship can involve any type of relationship, both relatives to non-relatives.

If you’ve been in a relationship where a person criticizes and cuts down your ideas and tells you that it’s impossible, or tells you about all that can go wrong or is even abusive to you about your ideas, you may have learned your self-doubt from past relationships.

If you are still in any of these relationships, it may be time to end it if you cannot explain to the person that you are going to do what you’re going to do regardless of their opinion due to fear of abuse.

Bad Work Environments And Experiences

At some point in your life, if you had a job of any kind that turned into a bad experience (especially if it started with your first job), this can stunt you for a lifetime if you let it. Sadly, many people, especially those who take service-oriented jobs or lower paying jobs, end up with bad experiences.

Even some people who have higher paying jobs can allow criticism to affect them so badly that they develop a fear of failure which causes them to not take risks. This in turn ends up causing them to get bad job reviews. Then after a bad job review, the person may react badly to that and end up more stuck.

As you can see, this path can end up affecting a person badly at the time and in their future if they are unable to understand that sometimes things happen to good people. They can’t accept that they’re a good person and a bad thing happened to them. Or they can’t learn from their mistakes and realize that they can do better next time. This is a dangerous pattern that can grow and become more than it should.

Lack Of Life Experiences

Sometimes a person can suffer from self doubt simply due to a lack of experience. If you were overly sheltered in childhood, were sick, or had issues that caused you to not have a lot of experiences in life, that can turn into fear, anxiety, and even other problems such as agoraphobia that prevent you from stepping out of your comfort zone.

If you have no successful experiences to look back on, it can be hard to imagine success. If you have only experienced failure, it can be doubly hard to envision success later.

Whatever the reason for these experiences: overprotective parents, an illness, undiagnosed mental illness, being super-shy… whatever is causing it needs to be addressed so that you can start experiencing small successes and know what if feels like. If you don’t know what that feels like, it’s going to be hard to move forward.

Your Zip Code

This can be hard to accept for some people, but where you are born makes a huge difference in how you view the world and your own place and potential in it. If you’re born on third base, you can still experience self-doubt if you have controlling parents who see only one way that you can have success, such as following in the family business when you don’t want to.

But most of the time it’s because you were born either in a place without a lot of opportunities or you were born to parents who, while loving, are poor.

The sad fact is that most people do not escape the situation they were born into today. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t. It just means that due to lack of vision, most people only know what’s inside their own small portion of the world, and don’t have their eyes open to the possibilities out there for them.

Just by reading this, no matter what your situation is, you are getting your eyes opened to the possibilities in the world to escape your circumstances and make the most of your life in a way that makes you thrive. That’s a great thing and can make so much difference.

Undiagnosed Anxiety

Anxiety can actually be a symptom of self-doubt, but it goes in a circle. Self-doubt can cause anxiety and if you can find a way to address the anxiety, you may be able to lessen the effects of your self-doubt. Many people who have anxiety describe it as a bad feeling of a million butterflies in their stomachs whenever they think of doing something that makes them uncomfortable.

Often, this feeling is so bad that the person suffers from panic attacks, which can be debilitating. Some people don’t get the panic attacks but they don’t push themselves beyond that feeling of butterflies that they experience as unpleasant.

There is a theory that adrenaline junkies see this same feeling as positive and they seek it out, whereas a person with anxiety uses that same feeling to stop doing anything that causes that feeling. Interesting, isn’t it?

If you suspect that you have anxiety, it can be hard to even get the help you need by going to your doctor and telling them about it because that also makes you anxious. You fear they’ll think you’re silly. But you can get help with your anxiety by seeking help from your doctor.

Some anxiety is caused by vitamin deficiencies, so your doctor will likely perform some blood tests and they may recommend you see a psychiatrist who can prescribe medications to help you (at least on a temporary basis) so that you can start experiencing success instead of being blocked from it.

It’s important not to allow this to cause you to stay stuck in your current patterns. The healthiest people seek help and even if you don’t want to take medications, there is help for you to overcome anxiety disorders naturally too.

Established Patterns

Often people experience self-doubt simply due to patterns they’ve established since childhood, or in some place in adulthood that sent them down a bad path of experiencing failure or even something traumatic.

For example, everything could have been going fine, then something traumatic happened like a car accident, a death in the family, and so forth. This may start leading you down a path of repeating bad patterns or accepting that your life is just going to be full of failure and you won’t go anywhere. However, this is something you can overcome by changing your patterns.

The process requires that you are introspective enough to be able to see the truth about yourself, your choices, your relationships, and more about your life.

Then you’ll need to be able to take decisive action that will help you start to experience success in your life that you can build on as you overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself. Even now, there are so many reasons that you should believe in yourself. Once you start realizing that, this part should be simple.

Reasons To Believe In Yourself

Let’s go over some reasons that you should believe in yourself so that you can combat and rid your life of self doubt. The fact is, this something that must come from within and not from other people.

The idea that if you don’t believe in yourself no one else will is very true. That might seem harsh, but it’s a fact that you’ll need to deal with in your quest to develop your new belief in yourself.

Read the information below, take it in, and really believe it. It’s true of everyone, and you are included in this. You were born with everything you need to experience success in life.

Your success may look different from someone else’s success and that’s okay. You should be the one who is happy living your life because it’s your life to live.

Bear these things in mind:

  • You Deserve It – You really do deserve to have a happy, full, and successful life that you enjoy. You can and should wake up each day ready and psyched to continue each day, no matter what it brings. You deserve to feel good about yourself and to rid yourself of self-doubt. You deserve to live a life that invigorates you, regardless of your circumstances. Even if you are experiencing challenges that no one else can relate to, you can still overcome them and live a fulfilling life.
  • Your Current Relationships – Look at the relationships you have now that are successful. The ones that make you happy. The ones that are supportive. The ones where you are supportive and helpful and make you feel needed. They likely believe in you, and you believe in them. Imagine if you told those people how you feel inside about yourself; wouldn’t they support you and try to talk you out of your self-doubt?
  • Where You Are Now – Even if you’re struggling now, you’ve survived this long, right? That means you’re doing something right. You’re alive and you’re able to get this and read it. That’s a positive that you should focus on right now. Focus on what you have right this moment that is good and that is a reason to believe in yourself.
  • Prior Success – If you’ve been successful at something, revel in that. Did you manage to get up this morning? That’s a success. Did you do well in school? That’s a success. Did you get a driver’s license? That’s a success. If you need to get down to the very smallest success, that’s okay. You don’t have to have huge successes to draw on to know what it feels like to be successful doing something.
  • You’re Just As Good as Others – Remember that you are just as good as someone else and deserve the life that you want to live. No one deserves it more than you do. No one is more special and for that fact neither are you. But, even though everyone is basically the same, we all have different ideas of what constitutes success and that too is just as good as the next person’s idea of success.

The truth is, if you look from a distance at your problems and put them into relation to the world, how important are they really? If you’ve made some bad choices that have resulted in going through a rough patch emotionally, financially, or spiritually, that’s okay – this is how you grow in life. You grow in life through experiences. It really is how you react to these struggles that make up who you are.

Let’s look at how to overcome negative thoughts so that you can better deal with self-doubt.

How To Overcome Negative Thoughts

It is possible to train your mind to overcome and turn negative thoughts around. Let’s look at some strategies to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts, or to at least stop the negative thoughts faster when they start.

  • Change The Focus – When you encounter a negative situation, try to immediately turn it into something positive by focusing on what you can learn about the situation. Even if all you learn is that you don’t want to do that again, that’s a positive thing.
  • Most People Don’t Care – The truth is, even if you say the wrong thing or dress what you think is wrong for an event or do something that you feel embarrassed about, most people don’t care that much. If you can develop the ability to laugh at the situation, that’s even better. Most people really don’t have time to think about your bad choices, especially if it doesn’t affect them.
  • Ask Whether You’re Being Too Serious – Sometimes it’s easy to take something seriously when it shouldn’t be. Does it really matter if you slipped and fell when you were trying to sit in your seat at work? Does it really matter that you put on the wrong shoes? Does it really matter that much if you pronounced a word wrong? Don’t hyper-focus on one mistake or one bad day.
  • Replace Negativity In Your Life – Whether it’s people, places, or things, it’s time to rid your life of negativity when you can. Sometimes negative people attract negative people. If you want to be more positive, try to find new friends, new activities, and things that make you happy and feel positive.
  • Don’t Make Decisions Bigger Than They Are – Many people plagued with self-doubt tend to have trouble making decisions. Even if it’s just what to wear, what to eat, or what to buy, they’re turned into bigger situations than they are. When you are making any decision, ask yourself whether this is going to matter in a month, six months, or even five years from now. That way, you’ll be able to determine whether this is a serious situation you need to spend more time on or if you need to just make a choice and either get on with it or not.
  • Take To Someone – Now, make sure the person you’re talking to is positive and doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself. Sometimes it helps to ask someone if you’re overacting, especially if you can find someone who understands how you’re trying to change your life and get over self-doubt. This may be a professional, a life coach, or a friend – even someone from a support group or an entire support group.
  • Stop Thinking About It – Sometimes negative thoughts can ruin the experience you’re living. It’s better to try to shelve the negative thoughts during the experience and try to really live in the moment. Being in the present enables you to truly realize that this thing isn’t negative at all, or not as much as your mind is trying to tell you. Then when you look back on it, you will likely be able to pick out a lot more positives than negatives.
  • Exercise – When it comes down to it, most of us have a lot of extra energy (adrenaline) that needs to be burned off. Some people realize this and that’s why they get moving. Whenever you start experiencing negative thoughts, instead of letting yourself do it, get some exercise. Go to the gym, go for a run, go for a walk, ride your bike, jump rope, go for a swim – anything that you can do that you like doing is a good thing to do instead of thinking negatively.
  • Realize When It’s Really Fear – Sometimes negativity will poke its head in your life when you’re doing something a little bit uncomfortable or pushing your comfort zone a bit. There is a quote by George Addair that is useful here, “Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” If you can remind yourself of this quote when you are experiencing negative thoughts associated with fear, you can overcome it.

It will help a lot with overcoming negative thoughts if you put these suggestions into action. You may come up with some of your own too. The point is, you want to turn negative thoughts around so that you can instead experience positivity in your day. That way, you don’t get stuck in a pattern of self doubt.

Strategies For Dealing With Self-Doubt

Now, let’s go over some important ways to deal with self-doubt when it happens. Be assured that even the most successful person works to overcome self-doubt at times. Feeling self-doubt is not the problem. Letting self-doubt control you, make your decisions for you, and rule your life is the problem.

  • You’re Not Alone – Everyone experiences self-doubt and whether you have friends, family, or anyone to talk to right now about this, you are not alone in your feelings. It’s all how you react to it that matters. You can find others to commiserate with by joining Facebook groups or other types of groups and forums to help feel less alone with your issues.
  • Keep A Journal – One way to overcome self-doubts is to keep a journal to help remind yourself of accomplishments that you have experienced. You can talk about the self-doubt you felt and how you pushed through it. It doesn’t have to be a false representation of what you’re doing, but do try to focus on the positives of each situation and what you learned from it.
  • Don’t Compare Yourself To Others – The worst thing you can do is to make comparisons of your life to someone else’s. This only breeds more self-doubt and even jealousy. The truth is, you have no idea what other people have gone through to be where they are, or even if they’re really being honest about their situation. You only know the truth about your own situation.
  • Learn Gratitude – Every single event in life has something to be grateful for. Even the worst things can be turned around to be a lesson that can help you in the next situation in your life. People who have overcome the worst things that you can imagine – death, crime, illness – all have one thing in common: that’s their ability to see the positives in it or at least be grateful they knew the person, loved the person, or something good.
  • Set Small, Immediate Goals – One way to overcome issues with self-doubt is to experience success. Start setting small goals that allow you to experience immediate success. It depends where you are in your journey, but success can be as small as getting up in the morning, to going to the store, to something more challenging like applying for new jobs. (Note that this said “applying for new jobs”, not getting one.)
  • Surround Yourself With Positive People – Take the time to pick out people you already know who makes you feel good about yourself. If you don’t have those people in your life, it’s time to seek them out. You can find people via meetups online, taking a class, group meetings, a book club and so forth. The important thing is to start being around positive people more.
  • Learn To Respect Obstacles – Everyone has obstacles that prevent them from experiencing full joy and push them back into self-doubt. Everyone. The way to deal with these issues is to respect the fact that you may have something to learn or gain from the experience. Find a way to respect the obstacles that are put in front of you and learn from them.
  • Learn From Mistakes – When you make a mistake, instead of beating yourself up, accept it and learn from it. Sometimes it helps to write down the experience in your journal with a focus on what you learned and how you’ll do it differently if that comes up again.
  • Know When To Walk Away – There are times when giving up is not a failure. There are many times in life where you try something but it’s just not working for you and it’s time to walk away. That may be a business choice, a relationship choice, or something else entirely. If it’s causing you too much stress that cannot be overcome, it’s time to leave it and move on.
  • It’s OK To Be Uncomfortable – One thing to realize about life is that it’s okay to be uncomfortable sometimes. You won’t grow if you don’t experience some discomfort. That doesn’t mean you have to be into mental, physical, or spiritual torture; it’s just that feeling a little fearful, uncomfortable or unsure is natural. Put things into perspective so that you know you’re making good choices.
  • Assess Your Strengths And Weaknesses – One way to deal with self-doubt is to honestly figure out where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Then, develop your strength and even improve upon your weaknesses when you can. Sometimes the way you improve a weakness is to let someone else deal with it. For example, if you’re a bad cook but you want to lose weight, and don’t want to learn to cook, it’s okay to order a meal kit or to get someone else to do it if you have the ability. There is always a way around a weakness. The strengths you possess naturally can also be improved upon almost painlessly.
  • Get Accountability – When you are trying to overcome self-doubt and start believing in yourself, it can help to have someone around who can offer accountability. This can be a life coach, a counselor, a friend or a group. It’s best not to choose a friend without their knowledge, though. If you have a positive friend who is willing to help you, that’s okay. But if they don’t know what they’re doing, they may lead you astray. A life coach is a great way to help build your self-image and overcome self-doubt so that you can believe in yourself because they have training and know their role.

These strategies for dealing with self-doubt will not work for you if you don’t implement them. The issues with self-doubt are so serious that they can make you stuck in a life that you don’t want and aren’t loving. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and that can spiral into a bad situation.

If you really want to experience true joy in life, believe in yourself, and get rid of the debilitating self-doubt you’re experiencing, start implementing now. Don’t delay or make excuses.

What To Do Right Now

Now that you’ve read all of that, you are probably wondering where to start, so use this last part to get yourself organized and ready for change.

If you really want to overcome self doubt and start believing in yourself, it will take action on your part. So, let’s get started.

Pinpoint Where Your Self-Doubt Began

Using what you’ve learned, it’s important to figure out where your self-doubt began. It may be from childhood, in which case it may take some professional help to overcome it.

It may be something you fell into due to other issues that need to be identified. If you’re in a toxic relationship, for example, you may have to work on getting out of it before you can move forward.

Honestly Assess Your Strengths And Weaknesses

One way to do this is to get out some paper and a writing utensil, and simply write on one side of the paper your strengths, and on the other side your weaknesses.

Then take a highlighter and highlight the things you want to work on to improve your strengths and the things you would like to do better in terms of your weaknesses.

Get A Physical From A Doctor

This is important because sometimes self-doubt is caused by anxiety and sometimes anxiety can be caused by vitamin deficiencies.

Get a vitamin panel and tell your doctor that you’re experiencing anxiety.

They’ll know which vitamins to test for to ensure that you can get the information you need.

Eat Right And Exercise

This may seem silly but eating right and exercising can be one of your first successes and experiences that you can look back to that show that you make good choices.

This small thing can give you the confidence you need to stop having so much self-doubt in your life, building your ability to believe in yourself. If all you do is add more water, more fruits, and veggies and start walking each day, that’s going to help a lot.

Buy A Journal

Find a good paper journal that you can write in each day before you go to bed and when you first wake up.

It’s good to do this without technology because it’ll be something you can do without causing you to experience extra stress from the blue light in technology that can cause people to experience anxiety and insomnia.

Seek Out Help

Whether you have a friend you know will help you, or you feel the need to seek professional help in the form of a counselor or life coach, it’s important to find help.

The right help for you is what works. It doesn’t matter what anyone else uses; it only matters what is working for you to build your belief in yourself while you’re letting go of self-doubt.

Make Small Goals

Set some small goals so that you can experience success. Your small goals might consist only of the things on this list.

But you may have identified some things by reading this that stick out to you as small goals that you can immediately see results from that you want to add.

Implement

You can learn all that you want to learn about ridding yourself of self-doubt and building your belief in yourself, but if you don’t act and do something (in other words, implement), you won’t see the success you desire.

Even if it’s the smallest thing, like reading this or taking a course, or finding a group, that’s doing something. Small things can lead to big results.

Hopefully, you’ve learned a lot of information that is going to help you build your self-image, help you get rid of self-doubt, and move toward believing in yourself again quickly. Remember that nothing is gained without putting one foot in front of the other. But also remember that you are capable, you can do it, and you deserve to do it too. You are worth it.

Self esteem and self doubt  affect the way you think and if you are living with doubt you need to start to think differently. If you want to know more about developing a positive success mindset, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂

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Is Your Self Doubt Due To Your Previous Failures?

Is Your Self Doubt Due To Your Previous Failures?

Is Your Self Doubt Due To Your Previous Failures?

How many times do you think Thomas Edison failed in his attempt to bring light into our lives by inventing the lightbulb? Likely, he failed more times than we can count. Imagine how he felt when he worked so hard (during daylight hours or by candlelight) to find something that worked, came so close each time – and then failed with each attempt.

Then, finally it happened. One path Edison took led to the invention of the lightbulb and all other attempts were forgotten. We’ve been bathed in iridescence ever since. Edison and other successful entrepreneurs have all suffered from self doubt but trudged on through the lack of confidence to make their dream a reality.

Think about the times in the past (even as a child) that you’ve persevered through disabling doubts that you could do something, only to find out that it wasn’t within your grasp even though you gave it your all.

Either you shrugged and went on to something else or withered away in self-pity that prevented you from possible future successes. Virtually every successful person in the world has failed many times before.

It’s doubtful those failures are even remembered because the success is so bright that they aren’t visible. Online entrepreneurs are highly susceptible to self doubt. There’s so much to learn and so many ways to go about each venture that it may seem overwhelming – especially to newbies.

Rather than wasting time stewing over each failure and making yourself miserable, make a firm decision to move on – and then do it. Begin on the new project immediately by setting short and long-term goals and really dig deep into how you’re going to ensure it’s a big success.

Each success will spur you on to the next project – and the next, until you have some firm accomplishments under your belt. Next time a failure happens, you can focus on the successes you’ve had to break the cycle of self-doubt and begin again.

Before you begin a project or new venture, think about all of the possible scenarios that can happen. Make sure you include the worst-case scenarios along with the rewards that will happen when you succeed.

After you face your fears of “what if,” you can use those fears as challenges. Looking at fears as challenges rather than obstacles can only help boost your self-confidence and help you begin to see success in your future rather than failure.

Use Every Failure As An Opportunity To Learn And Grow

Most of us don’t think of failures as opportunities – but successful entrepreneurs know the secret to turning the knowledge learned in a failure into opportunities for growth and success.

Kids learn about winners and losers at an early age and may be taunted when playing sports or about the dismal results of a test. Some take the “loser” label and define their future self worth with it and are reluctant to take risks, while others become more determined to show everyone that they can win.

We hate the way failure makes us feel, but when we realize it’s not the end of the road and we have time to come back as a success, failure can actually be a learning experience.

What you learn from failure is invaluable to your future success. A close analysis of what went wrong with the failed idea or venture can help you make sense of the situation and learn lessons that will make you a true winner.

You may have to dig deep to find the reasons for a failure. Did you devote enough time to the project and were you prepared for the results? Could the failure be one that’s out of your control or could you have changed something along the way to strengthen the outcome?

Every failure can be turned into a unique opportunity to grow and learn – and every success might be detrimental to future successes. It’s a contradiction that’s difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced both the opportunities in failure and the dangers in success.

Being honest with yourself is the first step in turning failures into opportunities and learning experiences. Blaming failure on others or making excuses can only serve to dig you further into a state of denial.

When that happens, you don’t learn anything. If you don’t use your failures to find flaws in your thinking or how you managed a product or venture you’re likely doomed to failure.

Learning from past mistakes is a trait that every successful person on this planet has profited from. Remember, that every failure you experience shows that you tried. If you never fail at anything, chances are you’re not trying hard enough to succeed.

While none of us seek to fail, the process of life and how it works condemns us to some failures along the way. Your success will come when you seek to learn how you failed and figure out what you’re going to do next time to ensure success.

Trying To Predict Success Sets You Up For Failure

Some of us tend to doubt ourselves right out of future success with “what if” predictions we make. It could be named the “what if” syndrome. It’s when you’re mired in self doubt so much that you begin to imagine and predict obstacles and outcomes that aren’t even there.

The “what if” syndrome is especially prevalent after you’ve hatched up a brilliant idea for an online project that’s going to make you lots of money and help your fellow entrepreneurs.

You’re sure everyone will love it and want it. Then, self-doubt sets in and you begin to think of all of the reasons why it won’t succeed. You walk on the shadowy side of your ability to make things happen and talk yourself down or out of even trying.

You were so excited about the idea at first and it fired up your creativity to a point where you could hardly wait to begin. That lull – somewhere between the excitement of the idea and taking action to make it happen – is where self doubt takes root.

You may begin to think of past failures and how they made you feel or become highly sensitive to the fact that you’ve never endeavored something like this before. If you keep thinking about past failures or what “might” happen, you may come to a point in the project where a big wall is placed in your path.

Since your self-doubt has already been growing in your thoughts, the wall may seem insurmountable, and you simply give up. Just another failure to think about next time you have an idea.

Or – you can take another route – one that doesn’t ensure success, but that at least gives you a chance. Rather than giving in to self doubt, trust yourself and try it again. You’ve likely practiced this scenario many times before in your life.

Some attempts may have failed, but you’ve probably succeeded many more times. Bring a new attitude into the mix and think positively rather than giving in to the hauntings of past failures. Also, bring in positive people to surround you who encourage, rather than discourage you.

Don’t compare yourself to others whose successes may be greater or more profitable than yours. You may even learn from their stories of success. They’re bound to have had failures along the way – and overcame them rather than feeling defeated.

When you find yourself become mired in self doubt about your future success, mute the negative voices by focusing on the positive and living in the present moment rather than projecting yourself into a future of unknowns.

Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and being able to reframe failure is a small part of that. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 🙂

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3 Negative Beliefs That Hold Entrepreneurs Back

3 Negative Beliefs That Hold Entrepreneurs Back

3 Negative Beliefs That Hold Entrepreneurs Back

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”

–  J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Our lives are a reflection of our beliefs. Most of us know this, and yet, we cling on to old negative beliefs – even when they hold us back.

Discarding them and creating new beliefs seems to be a Herculean task.

These beliefs (which are usually assumptions and misconceptions) color our world views and justify our actions.

Yet, if we stopped to think about it and ask ourselves, “Where did we get these beliefs from?” … we’d realize that most of them were ingrained in us by our parents, teachers and other ‘well-meaning and sensible’ adults when we were young.

In most cases, these self-limiting and defeatist beliefs will impede your progress when you decide to become an entrepreneur. You’ll be setting yourself up for failure from the get-go.

Let’s look at some of the most common beliefs that are injurious to your goals…

Money Makes Money

This is probably the biggest fallacy of the lot. This misconception creates a catch-22 situation. You want to get into business to improve your financial standing… but you need money to get into business – and that’s money you don’t currently have.

So you’re doomed.

But is this reasoning valid? Do you really need money to start?

A quick look at some of the biggest business successes on the planet will show you that most of them invariably began from humble beginnings. They started off small and slowly built their way up.

In the same vein, nothing is stopping you from starting off small and climbing the ladder of business success. It’s resourcefulness and not resources that you need.

Do not count yourself out just because you lack the finances. Rest assured that enthusiasm, confidence, passion and hard work will help you find the resources you need, and you’ll be able to employ them to forward your business.

And when you do start to see some financial reward, don’t take it and spend it! During the early stages of your business it pays to put it back into the business, whether that be with outsourcing the stuff you don’t like or can’t do, or investing in tools that can move your business forward quickly.

Following Instead Of Leading

The world loves a winner and tends to put them up on pedestals. The media gives them coverage. Books are written about them and so on.

Parents, teachers, etc. often tell us to model successful people and read biographies. The goal is to be like these larger-than-life people who define the epitome of success.

Millions of people dream of being the next Michael Jordan or the next Elon Musk. Or the next pop star… and so on.

And yet, if you asked Michael Jordan who he wanted to be, he’d most probably say that he wanted to be Michael Jordan.

Herein lies a contradiction – the leaders of the world (whichever field they may be in) are almost always trailblazers who march to the beat of their own drum.

They’re so focused on being the best they can be that they don’t have time to try and be like someone else.

Using a role model to inspire you is a start… but if you want to truly see success, you’ll need to lead rather than follow. You’ll need to put yourself in the limelight and be willing to be seen by the masses, rather than quietly skulking in the shadows.

You’ll get the accolades and recognition, but you’ll also get brickbats and hate. This is par for the course. Just remember, leaders lead. You must lead if you want massive success.

Now I know that many people reading this will not want to become leaders, but if you truly want to succeed at the highest level, you simply MUST step up and become a leader in your niche.

Expecting Overnight Success

A lack of patience has sounded the death knell on more goals/dreams than any other cause.

The current society we live in encourages impatience.

Instant notifications, text messaging, microwaves, instant meals, entire 22-episode seasons of Netflix shows presented all at once, etc. have made us believe that anything can be had fast.

We want results and we want them now. Preferably yesterday.

Life, however, has quite a different set up. Any worthy goal will take you time to achieve. Usually, it will take you longer than you believe. SO, you must have patience, lots of patience!

Like Jeff Bezos said, “All overnight success takes about 10 years.”

You can’t shrink the journey to fit into a 90-minute Hollywood movie. There is no rousing soundtrack to inspire you. Success is an ugly, dirty fight where you’ll have to claw your way to the top.

It has ALWAYS been that way.

So, if you start on an entrepreneurial journey and are expecting overnight riches without struggle, you’ll be in for a rude shock. It’s just a matter of time before you discover pitfalls, hurdles, pain, struggles and a myriad of other problems that you’ll need to constantly overcome.

You may wonder, “Why is this happening to me? Why is it so hard?”

The truth is that it doesn’t just happen to you. It happens to every entrepreneur who wishes to level up. This is the turbulence you need to get past until you reach cruising altitude.

And it will take you time. So, if you lack patience, it’s time to tell yourself that you’re in for the long haul.

Try breaking down what you want into smaller chunks. Not only does this make your chances of success much more achievable, it also allows you to have some quick wins along the way which can satiate the desire for instant gratification that plagues so many of us nowadays.

Now that you’re aware of these 3 negative beliefs, you can take steps to fix them and be on your way to success.

Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and overcoming negative thoughts and self doubt is a small part of this. So, if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂

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Learn How To Drown Out Your Negative Thoughts

Learn How To Drown Out Your Negative Thoughts

Learn How To Drown Out Your Negative Thoughts

Negative thoughts are the nemesis of creating a successful business – and life – for yourself. It’s difficult to drown out the thoughts that corrupt your thinking and prevent the flow of energy to make yourself better, but there are some ways to calm a racing mind and stop the flow of negativity that threatens to bring you down.

Perhaps you just need some quiet time – time for yourself to ruminate on the positive things you’ve accomplished. Meditation is one way to achieve the quiet time you need to get your thoughts under control.

Whether you meditate in the forest, next to a babbling brook or in a quiet place in your home with the television and other devices turned off, the quiet you’ve created can be a catalyst for more creative and positive thought patterns.

When you’re meditating, you may want to try positive affirmations as a way to quiet your brain and push out negative thoughts and feelings.

An affirmation can be as simple as repeating to yourself that you’re stronger than all of the negative thoughts that come your way and that you can and will overcome them.

Journaling is also a good way to get your negative thoughts out of your mind, onto pen and paper and see them for what they are.

Journaling lets you get and keep in touch with your deeper inner self and create an awareness that you haven’t experienced before.

It’s a fact that writing is an exercise that seems to reinforce and help you understand things better than typing or even speaking. Journaling helps you work out problems that may have cluttered your thinking in the past.

Reinforcing the positive messages you receive from yourself or others is an important and viable way to drown out negative thoughts.

The above methods of affirmations, meditation and journaling are valuable tools to ensure that negative thoughts and feelings don’t remain in your life and that you can continue progressing to a more positive inner state of mind.

When weeding negative thoughts out of your life, make sure you surround yourself with positive people whenever you can.

It’s easy to be influenced by people who always spout negativity and seem to want everyone around them to feel the same way.

Of course, it’s impossible to feel upbeat all the time. Life is sure to get you down once in a while. But find a way that works for you to silence the negativity and stop being so hard on yourself.

Free Yourself From The Exhausting Task Of Self Doubt

The fallout from self doubt can be devastating and render you incapable of continuing to make rational business decisions. It’s like flailing yourself with a whip day in and day out – a torture so blistering that all you can think of the pain it’s causing.

When you let the exhausting task of doubting yourself take over your life, you’ll be less likely to seize opportunities and have a more difficult time in beginning or finishing tasks that could bring you success.

Moving forward can be difficult as the voice of self doubt becomes louder and drowns out the reality of who you are and what you’re capable of.

Standing up to the chatter and telling the chaos and loudness to stop can help you break the destructive pattern of low self esteem.

It’s like turning the flame down under a pot of soup that’s about to boil over. You take over control of your thoughts rather than letting your mind overflow with doubt and take those thoughts where you want to go.

Remember past times that you’ve doubted yourself and your self worth or that fear that kept you from taking part in a venture that turned successful. You likely ignored your instinct and gave in to the negative voices in your mind that told you it wouldn’t work.

This time could be different if you don’t allow the voices to take control. Each time you leave your comfort zone and ignore the self doubt torture, you come closer to realizing a positive outcome to your efforts.

Self confidence will replace self doubt and you’ll finally be able to focus on your future success rather than past failures. Silencing the exhausting torture of self doubt will also boost your optimism about the future.

You’ll become more confident about your abilities and motivated and enthused about your ideas. Take action even though you don’t feel like it.

Freeing yourself from the loud and destructive self doubt voices – if only for a few minutes – can calm the voices and help your mind find clarity and creativity.

You can always tweak the immediate actions you take later on. The real task of the moment is to get feedback, knowledge and experience so you can build your self-esteem and empower yourself to success.

Conquering self doubt frees you to stay on the course and reach the goals you’ve planned for yourself. Don’t let the voices of self doubt exhaust you to the point of abandoning your future success.

Start Small To Take Away The Power Of Self Doubt

Beginning an Internet marketing business with a product launch that’s much less expensive than some of your successful colleagues (who love to post their earnings from one launch that would pay your bills for months) can help alleviate some of your self-doubt.

Starting on a small scale – perhaps a $7 product instead of a $97 one – can mean less work to get it off and running and a launch that can teach you a thing or two.

The feedback and knowledge you get from beginning with a small launch is invaluable to help you move up to higher ticket items.

You’ll likely build your list with each small launch, too – meaning that when you do get to the big ticket launches, you’ll have more marketers who will buy from you. With each small launch, your self-confidence will build and self doubt will begin to wane and destroy your lack of confidence; you will feel empowered.

Even the small launches may fail, but that’s a good thing, too – when you use the knowledge you gained to set your focus on something else or to use another strategy because the current one isn’t working.

You won’t have lost much time and energy if you discover these truths from a small launch. Self doubt is often made up from failures of the past, but your small successes can provide positive thoughts about the positive outcomes you’ve realized.

The positive feedback you receive from small successes may serve to set you up for huge success. There’s always something new to learn in Internet marketing.

Beginning your business or venturing out in a different direction in small increments helps you sharpen your skills and become more confident in future business situations.

You’ll soon discover if something works – or not – and can quickly tweak or discard it at your discretion. Little will be lost if you haven’t invested a great deal in something you lack knowledge about.

Correcting your course along the way is the same thing pilots do when they’re approaching a bit of unexpected bad weather before reaching their destination.

Look at the charts again, learn from the experience you’ve gathered during the small ventures and correct your course so that you’re firmly on a safe and steady path again.

Learn from other marketers. Follow the business path of others to possibly discover more ways you can promote yourself and become successful with your own enterprise.

It’s sometimes easy to get lost in your own little world of strategizing and promoting, but you may become stagnant if you don’t allot some time for learning from others.

Trust your instinct and values when making decisions about your business. There are many shady marketers out there who might turn your head with promises of fast money, but if you stay true to your own values, self-confidence will become the antidote to any self doubt you may have.

Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and overcoming negative thoughts and self doubt is a small part of this. So, if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂

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