How To Silence Your Self-Doubt

I remember when me and my friends were in middle school we used to go to the mall to talk to girls. We’d be there for a couple of hours and we’d have a competition to see who could get the most phone numbers.

I remember how it felt every time I was about to walk up to a girl and talk to her.

The fast-paced heart beat.

The nervousness.

The anxious anticipation of what was going to happen.

About half of the time I would chicken-out. The times I did muster up the courage to talk to a girl, one of the following scenarios would play out:

We’d have an awkward and abrupt conversation.
For some odd reason she’d actually want to talk to me.

The times where things worked out made the failed attempts worth it.

I still feel the same way now when I approach a woman. I felt the same way when I approached my current girlfriend.

My mind would be filled with “what ifs” — What if she doesn’t like me? What if I say something stupid? What if I embarrass myself?

I don’t even know this girl but I’m projecting all of these thoughts onto her. “She probably thinks she’s out of my league.” “She’s going to call me stupid to my face.””She will call my ugly and I will have to crawl into a hole — and die.”

All sorts of illogical thoughts.

And 9 times out of 10 if you’re not totally creepy and weird a girl will give you the time of day to have a conversation with you.

I bring up these stories because it parallels the way many of us think about success. Success is like the pretty girl across the room — It’s the thing we want most but fear most.

We go through the same cycles of “what ifs”

What if I fail?
What if I get rejected?
What if it doesn’t work out the way I planned?

We project our insecurities onto the things we want to accomplish.

“It’s too hard.”
“I don’t have the right connections, enough time, enough money, ect.”
“People like me just don’t get that type of result.”

So how do you silence that voice of self-doubt and anxiety?

You don’t.

It never goes away. You have to face it each time you try something new.

You can meditate 12 hours a day, watch “The Secret” on repeat, and do your “Miracle Mornings,” but you’ll never be able to eradicate your self-doubt.

So what do you do?

You walk through the fire.

Let’s go back to the example of me talking to girls. When I was twelve I was horrible at talking to girls. I’m 26 now and I’m approaching being mediocre at it…

The fear never disappears, but with repetition it becomes easier to move forward.

You write a blog post and no one likes it? Write another one.

Your business fails? Start another one.

The pretty girl across the room rejects you? Talk to another one.

When you step outside of your comfort zone and try something that isn’t certain to work one of two things will happen:

It will bomb completely – What you do after this happens will make or break you. 95 percent of people who go through this will never try anything new again. They’re stuck forever. The 5 percent who try again end up living the lives of their dreams.
It will work out (kind of) – You’ll get some results. Your blog post might not go viral, but you get a decent amount of views. You’re not a millionaire, but you’re starting to gain new clients and make some money. You realize that walking through the fire of self-doubt pays off.

The one thing holding you back from living the life of your dreams if you. Steven Pressfield calls it “the resistance.”

I love the irony of it. You want things to change so badly, yet you are the one inhibiting the change.

I wish I could tell you that walking through the fire of self-doubt is easy. I wish I could tell you that your self-doubt will go away completely. But I can’t.

What I can tell you is that each time you walk through the fire and get some results, it will be worth it.

I remember the first time I asked someone to be my girlfriend. It was in the seventh grade. Her name was Brittany. And she was five inches taller than me. It definitely took some “courage,” to ask her out.

I remember the first time we kissed –my first kiss. It was the best day of my life up to that point.

At that moment I knew the value of walking through the fire.