“Self-doubt kills talent.”- Edie McClurg
Self-doubt is a feeling of uncertainty or lack of confidence in yourself or your abilities. Long term self-doubt will lead to anxiety, avoidance, procrastination, depression, low-self-esteem and potentially an extreme difficulty in making decisions.
How could we begin to doubt our self-doubt, which appears to be on the rise in society. We are constantly reminded by the powers of consumerism that we are not enough without this product or that product. Social media has become an anachronism that would be better personified as anti-social media. Our self-doubt is being supported and justified on a regular basis.
Anxiety-Avoidant Behaviour
Anxiety-avoidant behaviour is a maladaptive response to anxiety and fear that can lead to the maintenance of anxiety disorders. The Anxiety-Avoidance Cycle is outlined as: (1)
- Anxiety: You experience symptoms of anxiety — these may be physical feelings, such as increased heart rate, or mental symptoms, such as racing or intrusive thoughts.
- Avoidance: You feel uncomfortable and want to make these feelings stop, so you “avoid” the situation, person, or thing that’s causing them.
- Relief: By avoiding the situation that causes fear and anxiety, your symptoms disappear — but only for a short time, until they arise again in the same situation.
- Reinforcement: You’ve now taught your brain that you can’t handle this anxiety or fear, which decreases your self-confidence, increases your anxiety, and leads to more avoidance.
The constant reinforcement of this cycle of behaviour will sow the seeds of doubt in anyone. This reinforced belief in avoidance strategies leads to taking less risk and eventually seeing risk where there is little risk. Decisions become risks and the inability to make decisions creates more self-doubt.
Procrastinate Your Procrastination
When you are really good at procrastination could you procrastinate your procrastination? Could you put off putting things off? Self-doubt reinforces procrastination and the act of procrastinating will also reinforce self-doubt. Procrastination is just another form of avoidance, which is related to a lack of confidence and self-doubt.
“Self-doubt can eventually lead to justifying. These are my reasons for not writing that article today, or this week, or this year. One of the pitfalls procrastinators face on a regular basis is the pressure to act before they are ready. When impulsive actions backfire, because you acted before you were ready, there is now a justification to delay even more often. This double the trouble problem with justifying and impulsiveness perpetuates and reinforces self-doubt. Self-doubt then drives people to feel they must procrastinate because they are not ready. Self-doubt in turn then reinforces a state of self-questioning and avoiding action.” (2)
Fuelling Depression
“Self-doubt and poor self-esteem are particularly associated with depressive disorders. It’s common for those experiencing self-doubt to wonder if they have depression. Many of the signs of poor self-esteem and self-doubt overlap with the signs and symptoms of depression.” (3)
The lack of motivation due to self-doubt matches up with the overt signs of depressive behaviour. Changes in sleeping patterns, the ability to do routine tasks and feelings of unworthiness are all present in both self-doubting and depressed individuals.
Self-Esteem and Self-doubting
Self-esteem is more of a global evaluation of yourself, whereas self-doubt is more a perceived lack in some of your specific abilities to perform. However, self-doubt then becomes a foundational element in how you perceive yourself in totality. When we constantly reinforce our doubt in our inability to perform to our potential, this can escalate to a generalised evaluation of our identity as a whole.
“Indecision may or may not be my problem.”- Jimmy Buffett
Indecisiveness
Indecisiveness and self-doubt are closely linked, and can create a negative cycle that impacts Mental health and well-being. Fear of failure, paralysis by analysis, apprehensive action and experiencing guilt and shame can all pave the way to indecisiveness.
“Although the possibility of error remains present, our motivation will be the best antidote to paralysis by analysis and apprehensive action. When we are driven by a clear mission and vision, information becomes a tool to act intelligently. And by being responsible, we rid ourselves of the crippling yoke of guilt and shame.” (4)
Procrastination Essential Reads
Doubt Your Self-Doubt
“Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom.”
Marilyn Ferguson
“When we have fear, we build walls to feel protected. These walls may protect us temporarily but they also limit our freedom and potential to be who we want to be. Removing the walls of fear will begin the process of unleashing our courage. Another positive outcome of being less fearful is that it will open the gates to new and challenging commitments. We are now moving in a direction that eliminates confinement and emulates freedom.” (5)
The procrastinator can procrastinate procrastination, so why can’t the self-doubter doubt their self-doubt? The payoffs are unlimited.
Most of the doubts about ourselves are past the used by date. They were learned in childhood from being bullied on the playground. Or, they were taken on board through how we were judged by parents or siblings that never took the time to know us.
Doubting ourselves kept us safe from risky situations that ruled our behaviour through fear. Many of these experiences are so distant from who we are now that they do not relate to us in the slightest.
Why do we still adhere to all these self-doubts as if they still apply? The answer is reinforcement. We are keeping the self-doubt alive through constant reinforcement. Self-doubt has become self-inflicted. Which means it can also be self-limited!
