DON'T BE ROBBED BY SELF DOUBT
Generally, self doubt denotes lack of confidence in oneself and one's ability. Honore de Balzac said about self doubt;
"when you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt"
However, self doubt has many way of getting under ones skin, sometimes one begins to feel an uprising of the thought _"I can't do it, can I do it and lastly I'm not good enough to do it"_.
Self doubt has nothing good to offer than to rob ones power. Hence, one shouldn't allow self doubt to rob ones power and what one is supposed to be, everyone is destined to be something, those thoughts of self hate, self doubt and self-destruction only obscures ones mind and block ones vision once we give chance for it to let hold of one. Self-doubt is a special kind of hell. Sometimes, a small failure makes you question yourself and your abilities to do things beyond your imagination and next thing you know, you feel like you aren’t good enough or smart enough to do thing which in real sense you can even do beyond and that’s about the time you stop trying.
Nevertheless, self doubt sometimes is come across by the fear one have for something, the fear that we are inadequate, incapable and so on. However, the deepest fear killer should be that you are powerful beyond measure.
I will like to relate a story of a once lived young genius who, despite having every reason to be crippled by self-doubt, he learned to share his talents with the world:
A four year old boy sits at home, playing with his toys. He’s hungry, but he doesn’t tell anyone. He’s tired, but only his posture reveals it. Four years old and he can’t (or won’t) speak. Every day, his family wonders, “What’s wrong with this boy? Is he mentally disable?” they always asked themselves all these sort of questions.
When he began schooling, his tutors and mates think him a dunce. They try to teach him art and languages, but he doesn’t assimilate like the other kids. He’s only learned enough German to get by. In high school, he repeats his sentences to himself. Everyone thinks he’s slow. He applies to college, but fails the entrance
exams. Eventually, he earns his degree, but can’t get the
teaching job he wants, so he spends his days working in a boring patent office. But, through the many years growing up and thought of as a nobody capable of nothing, the young man told himself a different story. He knew he was good at something, and that something was science. The young man was Albert Einstein and, in 1905, he shared four ideas that became the foundation of modern physics. He was a genius. We all know that today, but it couldn’t have been further from obvious in his formative years. Did he make the impact on the world he did just because he was smart? Does intelligence shine through despite the odds?
Probably not. Lots brilliant people never overcome the hurdles of feeling they like they don’t belong.
Brilliance was one critical ingredient in the Einstein formula, but an equally important element was his ability to overcome his self doubt and keep working.
Today, there’s convincing evidence that how well you perform in life depends a lot on how much you believe you can improve (it is not how far but how well)when it seems like you’re not achieving anything.
It is therefore good to note that self doubt is part and parcel of the human life experience. As it should be. As sometime we don't have to look too far to see that little self doubt can be so destructive. Yet left unchecked, the fear that fuels our doubt can drive us to be over cautious and keep us from taking the very actions that would help us and serve others. I see far too many capable and talented people (particularly women) selling themselves short because they fear they don't know what it takes to succeed.
Further more, It's my speculation that self doubt has been a large factor behind why so many especially of the women and men who've come forward in recent
months to call out perpetrators of sexual harassment
and assault from. It's always good to know Harvey Weinstein to Matt Lauer despite having challenges they didn't do so earlier. They doubted their voice wouldbe heard, they doubted they do be taken seriously but today everybody knows them. Some probably even doubted whether they were part to blame. Beyond imagination, self-doubt has much to answer for.
Yet while none of us are immune to self-doubt (with
the exception of some serial narcissists that come to
mind), we all have the ability to keep it from directing our decisions, continuing our silence and shaping our lives. So how do we banish the doubt? We don’t. What we do is learn how to reclaim the power it has held over us.
There are so many ways however to control or to get over been pull down by self doubt, some of which are:
Believe so much in your self, in such a way that when doubt comes, you will easily give a control to your mind, hence, be mind set of yourself. Doubt your doubt aswell, when you arrived at a junction saying you can't do it, or maybe, counter such thought with a maybe thought thought aswell, just be so positive about decision. Morealso, believe that self doubt is part of humanism.
Lastly, I'll conclude with these:
Van Gogh is reported to have said this: "If you hear
a voice within you say ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all
means paint, and that voice will be silenced."