What to Do When Self Doubt Creeps In
Posted on March 03, 2020 by Alison Robertson, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
What do you do when that critic in your head pops up and says "You Can't". Here's how I learned how to get out of my own way and keep going.
People often ask me what was my motivation for writing my book? As a personal development coach, I wanted to branch out into public speaking. I was told the best way to make that happen was to write a book. To say that put a giant pit in my stomach would be an understatement. I’d never written more than an essay and now I needed a book?!
When I started my coaching practice in 2010, I was riddled with self-doubt.
“Why would anyone want to listen to me?” I’ve always been one who was able to help people get what they wanted out of life and when asked, more than happy to share my opinion, but for some reason, when it was seen as a career choice I suddenly had lost all faith in myself. Thankfully the results I was seeing with my clients let me know I was on the right track.
Once I found my footing in that arena; I jumped into writing the book. And to my ultimate surprise all those same self-doubts came flooding back. This time they were stronger. I wasn’t just going to be speaking and the words then fading; I was putting my thoughts and feelings in black and white and they weren’t going to disappear. Sure one on one I was great. I knew how to handle that. But what was going to happen when people read my book? Would they understand or would they just see me as the fraud I had already told myself I was? With all my training and evidence to the latter, I just didn’t believe in myself and had already decided that no one else would believe in me either.
So what do you do when that critic in your head is beating your self-esteem black and blue? Even though I was scared and unsure, I had to jump and trust the net would appear, coaching I’ve given more times than I can count. I had to get it all down and just let go. Keeping in mind, “What others think of me (or my writing) is none of my business.” So I did just that. I put my thoughts down and let myself just tell my story.
A positive to being a first time writer, is that I wasn’t bogged down by any rules of how I needed to write my book. Because I am a Public Speaker, I would use talk to text software that let me just get my thoughts out. I could then go back later and clean things up or expand on thoughts if needed. Finding your process is important and it’s good to know that there really isn’t a “right” way to write a book.
I can’t just end with, I found my process and all was smooth sailing from there. Roadblocks did continue to show up along the way; I was still dealing with children and my personal life. I found the writing of the book to be very therapeutic. I found myself writing through my sorrow and self doubt and was able to find happiness and ultimate confidence in myself.
After going through this insane journey what I’ve learned is that listening to your inner voice is the best thing you can do. It will take you down roads you never thought possible, so trust it. It truly wants what is best for you.
