How To Eliminate Self Doubt

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. I put out episodes four times a week for you to learn and grow and improve yourself. And also, if you're out there and you love this podcast and you want to get inspirational text messages from me directly on your cell phone, and you live in the United States or Canada, text me right now, 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about how to eliminate self-doubt. And as part of that, we're going to talk about the power of your unconscious mind and rewriting the programs that are in there.

0:46And I want you to understand that if you have self-doubt, you are human. Every single human has self-doubt in some sort of way. It is a byproduct of going and growing up in our society. And it can show up anywhere, everywhere, many different places. It can show up as the imposter syndrome, where you don't think you're good enough to go and follow your dream. Who am I to do this? I had the imposter syndrome before starting this podcast nine years ago. Who would want to listen to me when they can listen to Tony Robbins? I always think that type of stuff to myself. It could pop up if you're a parent thinking that you're not doing a good job.

1:23It could pop up where you're constantly questioning your abilities. You don't think that you're smart enough or good enough. And I want you to understand that self-doubt can really create huge barriers to your happiness in life, your overall bringing your potential out to the world and just more than anything else, the success and the money that you create, the business you create, everything that you do. And it's more than just like the feeling of insecurity or nervousness. It is this internal voice that holds us back from going and actually finding our potential. And so it's really important for us to understand just the nature of self-doubt.

1:56It's important to recognize that self-doubt is not something that we're born with. Like I have a baby that's downstairs. He has no self-doubt. He's not sitting there and he's saying, oh, I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I can do this. It is not inherent in us. Self-doubt is something that is learned. And so we all learn to doubt ourselves in some sort of way. And these doubts stem from all of our past experiences, specifically childhood experiences. So the way that our parents were, the way that our parents spoke to us, the way that our parents spoke to each other, the way our parents spoke to our siblings, the way that our parents spoke to themselves.

2:33and we saw all of this happening, we ended up picking up self-doubt from them. When we watch our siblings talk to themselves or talk to our parents or the way our siblings would talk to us when we were younger, that instills self-doubt a lot of times. There's bullies that we grow up with. You know, you grow up in school and you fail a test and you see other kids who are smarter than you. You play sports where kids are better than you. You end up losing and failing and you just start developing this underlying feeling of like, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I'm good enough. And when we're young, your brain, it's highly plastic, which means it's very adaptable to its environment.

3:13And so if you grew up in a household where maybe your parents were just highly critical of you, of each other, of your siblings, then it's definitely going to create some form of self-doubt within yourself. If you grew up in a perfectionist household, or one of your parents was a perfectionist, you're going to be able to start seeing within yourself some self-doubt. And you might have internalized this idea that anything short of perfect isn't good enough. On the other side of that, you might have received very little praise from your parents. Maybe they weren't really good at words of affirmation.

3:48Maybe they weren't really good at validating you when you did something well, which made you just in turn like question your abilities. So in many cases, even if you have like really great parents, they can unintentionally create self-doubt by maybe what they did was they got really excited when you achieved and they celebrated when you won a basketball game. And then they didn't say a whole lot on the ride home when you lost. And so it makes you think like, oh, I'm only good when I succeed. I'm only good when I win. And then we start comparing ourselves to other children. And it can be, what's really interesting is all of this can start like within one moment.

4:26I remember I was talking with my wife about this and she has this, you know, she had this, uh, this underlining paradigm, this, this feeling within her of like, I'm not smart enough. I'm not smart enough. And for years I was like, where do you think it came from? Where do you think it came from? She's like, I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure. And then one day she had this, this moment that she remembered when she was four years old and she was in the back seat with another boy who was in her school and he was four years old as well. And her mom was driving the car and the little boy's four years old and he is reading the signs that are going by as they're driving in their car.

4:59And she remembers her mom being like, oh my God, Johnny, you're so smart. I can't believe that you can read. And even though her mom had no intention of making her feel like she was stupid, she looked at it and she's like, oh my gosh, this little boy, he's four years old. He can read. I'm the same age. I can't read. I must be stupid. It could be a moment there. It's just clicked into our brain. You know, for me, I remember, I remember the moment when I was in second grade, I went to one school all the way up to second grade and it wasn't in a really good part of town. So I'll just be honest with you.

5:32The education was not great. And then I moved into third grade. And in third grade, I remember I was in school and there were children reading and stuff. And I remember seeing children that were in second grade who could read better than I could in third grade. And I remember feeling stupid. I remember like the exact location that I was in the room of the classroom when that happened. And so these types of things can leave like really big impressions in our mind of like, maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I'm not smart enough. On top of that, our brain has this thing called the negativity bias, which is where our brains are wired to focus on potential threats or dangers rather than positive outcomes.

6:11And because of the fact that we don't have dangers, we don't have really big threats that we have to worry about when we leave the house, our brain is always searching for what is wrong. And when we search for what is wrong, usually, because we're the only one that's with ourselves all day long, we start finding what's wrong within ourselves. And so today we just find faults in ourselves instead of successes. And so when you look at trying to eliminate self-doubt, it requires us to address these learned behaviors and trying to rewire our brain's patterns of thinking. And we will be right back.

6:45And now back to the show. And so I'm going to give you five different tips to really go through and help you with this. The first one is to confront and reframe your limiting beliefs. So if you have this limiting belief of I'm not good enough, or I'm not smart enough, or I'm too old to change. These beliefs are reinforced over time. They often begin in our childhood or our teenage years and then you develop it as this overall paradigm of the entire way that we see the world. And they stick because your brain is more comfortable holding on to familiar patterns of thinking even if they're harmful.

7:23Which is why a lot of times like you can consciously want to be different, but you've been the same for so long, it's hard to break familiar patterns. And so the ways that you start to really reframe your limiting beliefs, the first thing is you have to identify your beliefs. You have to become aware of them. You can't change anything that you're unaware of. And so what you want to do is start observing your thoughts. Start observing when you feel self-doubt kick in. For example, like what runs through your mind when you're about to tackle like a really difficult task. You might hear something in your head like, oh, I'm going to mess this up.

7:59Write down those thoughts. Write them down without judgment, without any guilt, without any shame. But it's like, I'm about to do this thing and it's like, I don't know if I'm smart enough to do this. Oh, I hope I don't mess this up. Just write it down so that you know you're starting to identify these unconscious, the kind of subconscious, under the conscious mind, these subconscious patterns of thinking that we have. The next thing that you want to do with that is you want to challenge the validity of these thoughts. And so you want to really start to think about it. Like when you say, I'm going to mess this up, I'm not smart enough.

8:32Are these beliefs based on facts or are they assumptions? And one way to challenge them is by asking yourself two questions. Okay. First question is, so if I'm sitting there and it says, okay, I'm going to mess this up. The first question you want to ask yourself is what evidence do I have to support that thought? So what evidence do I have to support the thought of I'm going to mess this up? Okay. If I'm going to see one side of the table, though, I'm going to need to see the other side of the table, which is what's evidence that I have against that thought? So what's the evidence that I have that supports that thought?

9:02And what is the evidence that I have that's against that thought? So for example, like if you believe I'm not good at public speaking, then list all the times that you've spoken in front of people and focus on the moments where you performed well, where you received positive feedback, So that you're not just focusing on the one time in a 45-minute presentation where you said the wrong word or you pronounced it incorrectly. So you want to challenge the validity of that thought. The next thing is you want to try to reframe the thought. So after you've challenged that belief, it's time to reframe it.

9:34And so you turn something like, I'm going to mess this up, into I've succeeded before and I have the tools to succeed again. and it's not about like blind positivity. It's about creating a realistic and supportive narrative so that you're not just always coming at it with self-doubt. So it's like, I don't want to believe what I've been believing with a self-doubt. If I'm going to see that self-doubt, well, I might as well start to also see the other side of the coin, which is self-belief. You know, if you've struggled with something before, you can say something like, I'm learning and I can improve versus like, I'm not smart enough to figure this out.

10:11The reason why this works is because in cognitive behavioral therapy, there's this principle that it's built upon, which is challenging and then reframing your thoughts. So by consciously reframing thoughts over time, what you do is you start to train your brain to think differently. Like you could train a dog to be different. You could train yourself to be different. And so the more that you do it over and over and over and over and over again, you start to think differently and repattern yourself. these neural pathways strengthen with the repetition. And the more that you have practice, the more automatic that these healthier thought patterns become.

10:43So that's the first thing that you need to make sure that you do is you need to confront and reframe these limiting beliefs. The second thing you need to do, we all need to do, I talk with so many people and this is so key, is you need to work on self-compassion instead of this harsh self-criticism. And so like many people think, if I'm hard on myself, then I'll perform better. But studies have shown over and over again, the exact opposite. When someone has harsh self-criticism, usually it tends to reduce their motivation, it increases their stress levels, and it worsens their self-doubt. And so often, the harsh self-criticism that they have is something that they learned in childhood.

11:23Somebody spoke to you when you were a child the same way that you're speaking to yourself with that self-criticism. And that's how you learned it. And so self-compassion is a more effective way to handle your self-doubt because it encourages you to grow through kindness and understanding. And so what you have to do is you have to first just acknowledge your humanity. Like, you're a human. You're going to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody fails. Everybody falls at some time. And perfection is fully unattainable. I just did an episode on it not long ago. And so it's okay to have setbacks because setbacks are really when you learn the most about yourself.

12:00When you mess up, recognize this part about being a human rather than just a reflection of your self-worth. The next thing I want you to do is start to learn to talk to yourself like you would talk to a friend. Like when your self-doubt kicks in and you ask yourself, what would I say to a friend in this situation? Most people wouldn't tell their friends that they're a failure or that they're incapable of improvement. And so however you would speak to your friend is how you need to start practicing speaking to yourself. Why would you not be your best friend? Why would you not be your biggest fan?

12:33And so usually what happens is we learn to talk to ourselves the same way that our parents talk to us at some point in time. And so if you're really harsh on yourself, you're really a harsh self-critic, well, that's not the way to help yourself. You're not going to be that way with a friend. So what I want you to do is I want you to stop talking to yourself like somebody else in the past talked to you at one point in time. And I want you to learn to start talking to yourself the same way that you would talk to a friend that you love. You know, if you are at work and you have a project that doesn't go well, instead of thinking something like, I'm a failure, just tell yourself like, man, that was a tough situation, but I did my best.

13:07I learned a lot and I'm going to do better next time. And that's just a key to really help you. The reason why this works is because there's a research by Dr. Neff and she had shown that self-compassion reduces your anxiety. It boosts your resilience and makes you want to keep moving. It increases your motivation in turn. So by practicing this self-compassion, you reduce the emotional toll of the self-doubt, then all of that and what it does to you and improves your ability to recover from mistakes that you have. So that's number two. Number three is to really start to get good at disarming your inner critic with evidence.

13:44Bring in evidence to prove your self-critic wrong. So the inner critic is that negative voice that's inside your head. I like to call it the little bitch that's inside of your head. That's constantly feeding you self-doubt. It tells you you're not good enough, not smart enough, not talented enough. You're going to fail. You're not lovable, whatever it is for you. Everyone has a different flavor. And so children usually take on the narrative as their primary caregiver. And that's the voice that we have in our heads as adults. And so if you sit there and you're like, why do I speak to myself this way?

14:12See if maybe one of your primary caregivers, your parents, mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, if they took care of you, see if they might have spoken to you in this way. And that's, you just learn to talk to yourself the way that they talk to you. So to eliminate your self-doubt, you need to take the power away from the inner critic by disarming it with evidence. And so the first thing I want you to do is I want you to name the inner critic. It sounds silly. It sounds ridiculous to give it a name, but it really allows you to separate that inner critic from your identity. So you don't take it on. so you could call it the doubter negative nancy and when you name it you take a step back from it and you don't associate yourself with it which is really important the next thing i want you to do is because you've been finding all of your flaws for so long in your life i want you to create i like to call it a greatness list and i want you to write down every single thing come up with at 50 every little teeny tiny accomplishment that you've had and no matter how small it is it could be like you got third place in a second grade spelling bee and just write it all down.

15:13Create this list to show you where you have accomplished things in your life. And, you know, I have been teaching people this for a long time. And then it was, it was real crazy. A couple of years ago, I saw David Goggins, who's considered like the toughest man on earth, talks about when he goes and runs like 200 miles in one, 200, 250 miles in just one run. And he runs for a day, two days straight. He starts to have his inner critic pop up and like the toughest man alive as he's been coined even has his inner critic pop up. And so what he says is he has what he calls his quote unquote his cookie jar, which is like this cookie jar is where all of his accomplishments are the way that the things that he's done, the things that he's overcome.

15:50And he says, when I start to doubt myself, I reach my hand mentally in that cookie jar and I pull out those things that show me how good I am. And I remind myself of how good I am. And the reason why this works is because the brain's negativity bias makes it difficult to remember some of your positive achievements. And so when you're in this feeling of self-doubt, I don't know if I can do this, it's really important to break that pattern that you're in and go, you know what, but I did succeed at this before and I did succeed and I did succeed at this and I did do this. And by keeping these tangible reminders of your successes, you interrupt this thought pattern, which allows you to start repatterning yourself.

16:27And over time, if you do this enough and it takes a long time, this practice will help reshape your internal narrative from one of like, oh, I'm not good enough to one that's a little bit more of, hey, I believe in myself. Okay. The next one is to start visualizing the success that you want. So for me, I'm huge on visualization. I wrote about it in my book, Level Up. There's an entire chapter on visualization, but instead of sitting there and thinking how you're not good enough, not smart enough, I want you to visualize what you want to achieve, what it would look like, what it would feel like, how proud of yourself that you would be.

16:59And the more that you do it, instead of being afraid of taking action, you become more excited to take action. And the reason why it works is because studies have shown over and over and over and over and over again in neuroscience that when you vividly imagine something, your brain activates similar neuropathways as if you were actually experiencing it. And so that means that by sitting there and visualizing the success that you want, you're preparing your brain to feel more confident in those real life situations. but because of the fact that your brain doesn't know the difference between something that you're imagining and something that you're actually experiencing in real life, if you're imagining the success that you want, your brain thinks that you've already done it before.

17:39And so instead of not believing in yourself, you actually believe it's already happened. And so you're actually kind of brainwashing yourself to believe that it's possible because your mind thinks that it's already happened. And so you start to visualize what do you want? What does it look like? What does it taste like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? If you want to be worth, wow, whatever it is,$50 million. And when you do, you'll buy a Lamborghini. Well, then go test drive a Lamborghini. Go stay at an Airbnb that's the perfect house for you. Start experiencing the life that you want.

18:08And when you do that, you start to go, you know what? I've really enjoyed that car so much. I'm going to start working harder to go get there. I really enjoyed staying at that house so much. I'm going to work even harder to get that house. So that's number four. And the last one is just learn to take decisive action regardless of how you feel. One of the most powerful ways to eliminate your self-doubt is just to take action, even when you don't feel ready. Self-doubt thrives in an action. And so the longer that you delay, the more that your brain has time to sit around and ruminate and to think of all the things that could go wrong.

18:37But when you just take action just immediately and just go towards your goals, you break the cycle of overthinking so that you can actually start building momentum in your life. And so what you want to do is just figure out a small, little teeny tiny step, and you just immediately do that thing. So when you feel overwhelmed by self-doubt, you just decide, what's the next step I could take? The smallest step, this achievable task that's going to get me closer to my goal. And it could be as easy as just like sending an email, scheduling a meeting, writing a paragraph for a report. Just start on that thing, and you'll start to find momentum once you get that thing done.

19:12I always say inaction breeds more inaction. Action breeds more action. So if you're in this cycle of inaction, you have to just move and do something. So the goal is to shift from thinking to doing. And so it's really important that you just take this action and just focus on building on these small wins. Life is not about having these huge, massive accomplishments. When someone has created an amazing life, it's usually not one big accomplishment. It's usually a bunch of little teeny tiny accomplishments over years and years and years. that got them to where they want to be. And so really that's what it comes down to is that self-doubt is something that you can fully overcome.

19:47Is it easy? No. Does it take time? Yes. Does it take consistent action of working on yourself day in, day out, multiple times a day? Absolutely. But if you do this and you use these five steps to help you over time, if you fast forward, if you do it every single day for the next year, you'll notice a year, you're a completely different person than you are today. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a massive favor. The only way this show grows is from you guys sharing it. Please share this. Put it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R, so that you can give back and just, you know, hopefully spread the news and hopefully we can impact more people's lives.

20:28Also, if you love this podcast, you will definitely love something I have called Mindset Mentor Plus. It is this podcast, but on steroids with a whole lot extra stuff with worksheets, with journaling, with Q &A sessions, live with me, a whole bunch of other stuff. If you want to learn more about it, there's a whole video that explains it at mindsetmentor.com. Once again, just go to mindsetmentor.com and check it out. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.