In this episode, April Shprintz, an award-winning author and business accelerator, talks about the subject of self-doubt, which can be tricky for anyone who is a confident person. She explains that everyone encounters self-doubt at some point, whether it is because they are pushing themselves outside their comfort zone or are in a completely new area. April shares how self-doubt can be a time and energy suck, making it difficult to move forward and be decisive. She offers two tips for getting out of self-doubt quickly: seeking advice from someone you trust and paying attention to your gut feelings. She encourages listeners to remember that they can trust themselves and that they do know what the right decision is. April also advises listeners to differentiate between their gut feelings and their ego-driven fears, which can lead to overthinking and indecisiveness. By mastering self-doubt, listeners can overcome indecisiveness and move forward towards their goals.
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Self-Doubt Stopping You In Your Tracks? Do This To Get Your Momentum Back!
Thank you for tuning in. Self-doubt is a super tricky subject. I say it’s tricky because if you’re a confident person and you believe in your abilities, you think, “I probably don’t suffer from self-doubt. I shouldn’t suffer from self-doubt,” when the truth is we all do. We encounter it, whether because we are pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone, or we’re in a completely new area. We may have had tons of success before, but we’ve never had success in this area. Maybe we are worn down by different things that are going on in our life, whether it’s relationships or health challenges, or challenges in the workplace that have us second-guessing ourselves.
When you get into that place where you are feeling self-doubt more and more, it can be a time and energy suck because you can’t move forward. You’re not certain what decision you should make, and you’re frozen in indecisiveness. This can be incredibly difficult for someone who’s not normally indecisive. Not only are they experiencing the doubt and all of that unease that comes with not being able to make a decision but you’re also dealing with that self-talk, “You shouldn’t feel like this. You’re a decisive person. You should be doing this better.”
We all suffer from self-doubt. We encounter it, whether we are pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone or we’re in a completely new area.
There are ways that we can get ourselves out of that self-doubt quickly. Those are vitally important because once you understand that everyone goes through this multiple times in their life, and I don’t think we’re ever immune from it. It’s a very human thing to feel. You can then address it at the moment when you’re feeling it and move through it as quickly as possible.
The first thing that I want you to do when you’re experiencing self-doubt is if you have access a person that you trust that is great at giving advice, being a sounding board, or listening to you, I want you to talk to them about the thing that you find yourself doubting. It can be a mentor or a friend. It doesn’t matter. What you will find more often than not is when you go talk to that person, and you tell them what you’re thinking you should do, they’re going to tell you that you had the right answer.
When you talk to a trusted person and tell them what you’re thinking you should do, they’re either going to tell you that you had the right answer or give you different advice, and you’ll take that advice and be happy for it.
Either they’re going to give you advice that’s different, and you’ll take that advice and be happy for it, or you’re going to find out that the way you wanted to go was right. I want you to pay attention to how often that happens in various scenarios. That’ll help you remind yourself that you can trust yourself and that you do know what you’re doing and what the right decision is.
The second thing I want you to pay attention to is if they give you advice and you don’t want to do that. That is going to do one of two things. It is either going to indicate to you that you already knew what to do and when they gave you advice in the opposite way, it made you very certain about what you wanted to do. If the person you normally go to is maybe a parent, a best friend, or a spouse, and you do this a lot, they’re going to be very annoyed with you. They’re going to say, “You never take my advice.” There are definitely times that that advice, giving you a visceral reaction of no, helps you solidify where you are.
The other thing that could happen is you are going to notice how often you already knew what to do, but you had doubts or tried to talk yourself out of it. That’s why you were seeking that opinion. That’s a great thing to remember if you cannot access that person, for example. I then want you to think back to all the things you’ve doubted yourself on and how often people have said, “You were going to do the right thing.” How often you had to make that decision on your own and you did do the right thing.
The other side of this is if you have that visceral reaction of no, also take a moment to ask yourself if that is really how you feel or if that is your fear talking. Don’t forget, fear is driven by the ego, and the ego is crafty. It will come up with great reasons. Dig into that because you’re going to know. If it comes up as a visceral reaction that it’s a no, you’re going to feel certain. You’re going to feel calm and that you want to do something different. When it’s your ego, you’re going to feel like no, but you’re not going to get that same relief in your body.
Fear is driven by the ego, and the ego is crafty. Share on XI say that because we tend to overthink these kinds of things. Sometimes we have to pay attention to all of the little indicators that our emotions and our nervous system are giving us about whether or not we are aligned with what we want to do. If you don’t have the option to do either one of these things or you did one or both of them and it didn’t work for you, there is one other thing that you can do. You can pull in your unpaid assistant, your subconscious mind, and I want you to tell yourself, “I will come up with this answer over the next 24 hours.”
That’s not going to work if you have to know within the next hour. In that case, you’ve got to go with number 1 or number 2. When you have the time, let yourself marinate on a decision and not focus on it. When you feel indecisive and you doubt your ability to make that decision or your ability to do that thing, let yourself marinate on it. Tell your subconscious that you’re going to come up with a solution in the next 24 hours, and then focus on other things.
When you feel indecisive and doubt your ability to make a decision or do something, let yourself marinate on it. Tell your subconscious that you’re going to come up with a solution in the next 24 hours, and then focus on other things.
What’s amazing is a thought, an idea, an opportunity, and a coincidence of someone bringing up something that helps you is going to happen in the next 24 hours. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used this. In the beginning, I thought that there was no way that this would work. What a useful tool it has been ever since. I’d love for you to try this. Reach out to me. Let me know how it works.
Don’t forget, you can always go to the Winning Mindset Mastery podcast website. It is WinningMindsetMasteryPodcast.com. All the way down at the bottom, there’s the Ask April section. You and I can have a private conversation between the two of us. Send me a message and let me know how this is going. Ask me a question, and tell me something you’d like me to talk about in an upcoming episode. I’d love to hear it. Here’s to your success.
