A Stronger Me:
How I Deal with Self-Doubt
I have been wanting to write a post on dealing with self-doubt for while now and I feel I am finally able to write it. After a few days of me allowing someone else make me feel inadequate and me placing self-doubt on myself, I have come to the realization that DESPITE what others say or think I CAN do anything I set my sights on achieving!
For those of you who don’t know…I currently live in Salerno, Italy. In the mornings, I spend time studying and perfecting my Italian language, while working for the school’s marketing department afterward. This morning, when I arrived to class early, I was met with my teacher who kept asking me in Italian “Are you in this class? You do know this class is very advanced!” Later after numerous times of being reinforced how advanced this class was and me second guessing my abilities, I came to the realization that for weeks I have been allowing others to place their doubts on me and me making them my own self-doubts.
Those nights spent going home frustrated wasn’t because I wasn’t capable, it was because I let other people’s doubts become doubts of myself. I was consumed with fighting with myself on whether or not I was good enough. I permitted the negative thoughts to convince me that I was inadequate, even though I knew the material and I did have the words to speak. My poor thinking lead to my plummeted confidence, thus making me not want to and scared to speak in Italian even when I had the correct answers written right in front of me.
Self-doubt no matter where it comes from can be very persuasive and can easily hold you back from conquering your goals and opportunities. It makes getting started and finishing many things seem impossible. Nothing is impossible and the first thing I learned was that I must stop those negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. I believe that if I look at them as little monsters (like from the movie Monsters Inc.) that come to scare me and hinder me from accomplishing my goals, that I will not let them come in.
I learned that it’s important to always be confident in myself and my abilities and remember some people don’t care that much of what I say and I shouldn’t worry about their responses. One of my classmates actually told me they don’t care what I say in class since they are more concerned with what they say themselves. Me not speaking in class is nothing more than a minor setback that I will overcome as I have two more months here. Each and every day I will continue to sharpen my skills as it will allow me to feel more comfortable and relaxed in class. I will not beat myself up when I make mistakes in my speech and I will remember that when learning a language (or in life in general) that mistakes and mishaps will happen but I can’t let that transpire into self-doubt. Instead, I must let them be my encouragement to move on and course-correct my actions and thoughts into positivity and optimism.
This situation has allowed me to realize that subconsciously I was letting others words and actions dictate my abilities. I allotted others doubts about my abilities become doubts of myself. Moving forward it is important for me and for everyone to remember “We know ourselves better than anyone and if we truly believe we can do something, then we can do it.” From this moment on, I am taking the control back and vowing to never give it back to anyone & I hope you learn from me and never let it happen to you. In class, I will have more confidence in my speaking and to not worry what others think.
“Be Confident, Stay Fearless, and Continue to Believe in Yourself.”
– Danielle
How do you tackle self-doubt? I would love to read about it below
