Part Two: Six things to do when you feel doubt

Remember what doubt is.

Doubt is old protection, not prophecy. It is an ancient alarm system that cannot tell the difference between danger and possibility. It rings the same bell for a lion as it does for your first book, your promotion, your truth. Doubt is responding to a world that no longer exists. You can hear the alarm without obeying it.

Ask: “Who does this doubt serve?”

Sometimes doubt serves you. It says prepare more, ask for help, learn the skill. That is healthy, but much of our doubt serves someone else’s comfort. It keeps us small enough not to challenge expectations, predictable enough not to make others uncomfortable. Those are not your limits. They are inherited expectations.

Find the doubt in your body and talk to it.

Where do you feel it? Your chest, your throat, your stomach? Then ask yourself the honest question: is my desire to stay in this same emotional state this same place greater than my sincere desire? Most people are so afraid of failure or rejection that they will allow themselves to live with doubt. Do not make that trade without noticing you are making it.

Check whose voice you are hearing.

Can the outside world know you better than you know your true self? Sometimes people dissuade you simply because they do not know how to do the thing or how to help you do it. Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.

Take baby steps toward what you want.

Building a new pattern of behaviour rewires and activates your confidence muscle. Confidence is an outcome of action. Every awkward first attempt, every small promise you keep to yourself, becomes evidence and evidence slowly replaces imagination.

If the thing you care about is not your profession yet, if the job you have right now is the job that helps you survive that does not disqualify you. Volunteer. Find an organization or a person who needs the very work at which you are good. The muscle does not know the difference between paid and unpaid. It only knows whether it is working.

Feed your confidence, not your doubt.

Return to whatever gives you strength, faith, silence, community, meditation and affirmations, movement, the promises you keep to yourself.

Have patience and faith, not in what you can see, but what you feel from inside. Faith that you can learn, that you can begin again and that your life has purpose. Your formula may look different from mine, whatever it is, protect it. Return to it often. Especially on the days when doubt is loudest. Doubt requires a counterpoint and its counterpoint is action. Allow something new to grow in your inner world.

So let us return to where we began, to your question. “How do I know the difference between what I should doubt and what I should feel confident about?” I hope you can see what a profound question that is to ask oneself, because in between doubt and confidence lives the truth of what you care about.

I need you to know this: you are not one thing, and you are worthy. Your life force is there to expand it. The life you want will never be built inside your head. It will always be built with your hands. So do not wait until you feel confident, become willing, and today, make a commitment. Stop feeding your doubt. Keep feeding your confidence.

Confidence has an extraordinary habit of catching up with people who are already moving.

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