Tag: self-doubt

6 Ways to Get Rid of Self-Doubt

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Many targets of bullying are filled with self-doubt. However, it isn’t only targets of bullying that suffer this malady. Self-doubt ranks right up there with fear. It’s a close second to it as it kills your dreams and causes you to live in mediocrity. Therefore, fear and self-doubt are the catalysts to life-failure. I don’t want this to happen to you.

So, how do we get rid of self-doubt? And how do we bravely work on our goals and dreams and ultimately, achieve success?

It starts in the mind.

1. Remember how far you’ve come.

2. Remember the battles you’ve fought and won.

3. Remember the fears you’ve faced and overcome.

4. Remember all the bullies and mean people you’ve overcome.

5. Remember all the hurts you’ve come back from.

6. Remember all the things you’ve accomplished- even the tiniest of wins you’ve scored.

Understand that we all come to roadblocks and hit brick walls. We all have our down times and, sadly, sometimes those bumps in the road can cause us to doubt ourselves.

Hey! I just hit mine in the last month and had to take a rest! Yes! Me- the blogger my friend Kym Moore and a few other bloggers like to call “The Energizer Bunny!” But even the Energizer Bunny needs to stop and recharge every now and then.

Again, we all- even the best of us, have periods when we doubt ourselves. The trick is to get up, dust yourself off, and keep pushing on. Rest when you must. And when you rest, take all the time you need to recover. But don’t you dare give into self-doubt and quit.

As mentioned earlier, we all have times when we self-doubt. The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is whether they give up or keep going.

With knowledge comes empowerment!

How Many People Go to Their Graves Never Realizing Their Confidence and Potential

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There are many people in the world who are broken children and never realized their true potential or their value. Perhaps they were abused at home or bullied in school. Maybe some jealous bully in their lives made it their mission to bring these people down because their confidence was a threat to the bully’s overinflated ego. Whatever the case may be, other people attacked their confidence and goodness at some point during their childhoods and gave them an evil gag gift of insecurity. And they carried this heavy gag gift into adulthood.

These people were wounded so deeply that they were never again the same. Many became bullies because they felt that the only way they could feel good about themselves was to make someone else feel inferior. Sadly, feeling good by these types of means is only temporary and it wears off quickly.

And once it wears off, these people must deliver another put down to get back that ego boost. Because their spirits were crushed, they now have an insatiable need to crush the spirits of others to feel whole again.

It takes a miserable and broken person to go through life putting others down to feel good about themselves. It takes a person who lacks confidence and doesn’t realize their own potential to attack the confidence, goals, and dreams of another. Instead of working toward their goals, practicing self-care, and using their intelligence and merit to achieve confidence and self-actualization, they take the easy way out and achieve it through such superficial means as tearing some poor soul down.

Again, understand that these superficial means are only a temporary fix.  But legitimate means, such as working on and cultivating your dreams can last a lifetime.

With that said, I have to wonder just how many people have wasted their entire lives taking this toxic path. How many people have died while weighed down with a mountain of insecurity? How many people have carried their anger, bitterness, and hatred to their graves? And how many people have gone to their graves without realizing confidence and their true potential?

Honestly, this is something that I don’t want to know because the answer just might be that it’s a vast majority of the people who are lying in the cemeteries around the world. There are millions upon millions of tombstones engraved with the names of people who had great ideas and dreams but never worked toward them because they allowed another person to cause them to underestimate and undervalue themselves. And sadly, their ideas and dreams, which could’ve made a positive difference not only in their lives, but in the lives of others and in the world, died on the deathbeds with them.

Any sane person should shutter at the thought that this could be them one day. It certainly scares me to death just knowing that I could’ve died never knowing my worth nor potential. It would have been a complete waste!

Understand that life is only a one-shot deal. There are no do-overs. If you are a bully who must use superficial means to feel whole or a target of bullying who feels useless, you must realize that as long as you’re still breathing, you still have a chance to change your ways and to realize the value you bring to this world. You still have a chance to find confidence and reach your potential. You still have a chance at reaching your higher self.

It won’t happen overnight and neither will it come easy. Nothing positive ever does. In fact, it may take years or decades and there will be forces in this life that will fight against you in the forms of toxic people and adverse circumstances- the devil doesn’t like positive change. But better late than never. And better hard-won than never. Don’t wait until it’s too late. And don’t put it off until tomorrow because tomorrow may never come for you.

Find a way to turn your pain into power- legitimate power- the type of power that isn’t harmful to another person. Find the will to turn your trauma into triumph. Began doing the inner work needed to better your spirit. Most importantly, do it while you still can. Make the rest of your life the best of your life.

The time is now.

With knowledge come empowerment!

Mental health – Self doubt

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I’ve been a victim of severe bullying from age 4-16. I’ve often heard I did things wrong, I wasn’t this enough or I didn’t do that well enough. It make me often doubt myself and my abilities to do things. Even to points where I’d just not do it because I thought I would mess […]

Mental health – Self doubt

This is the testimonial of a target of bullying with PTSD. I can tell you that when I read her post, I was heartbroken for her.  Here’s her story above- in her own words.

5 Reasons Why Self-Doubt is a Trap!

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Many targets of bullying have been bullied so long that they become full of self-doubt. Abuse has a way of resetting your default mode from self-assured to self-doubt and once that default has been changed, it’s hard as hell to change it back. This is one of the reasons why bullying is so devastating for a target. Once you’re bullied, it changes you- it either turns you into a scared, helpless victim, an angry and bitter monster, or an empty shell.

Once you are bullied for an extended amount of time, you’re never the person you once were. Even if you do the inner work, get to know yourself again, win back your confidence, and manager to heal, you’ll still never be the same again. You’re stronger, yes. You’re a winner, yes. But I’ll say again, you’re still never the same as you were before you were bullied and there will be times when you’ll feel self-doubt creep back in and have to fight it.

I can tell you this because it happens to me too and I have to fight. You don’t just conquer bullying, get confident again and say, “Whew! I won! I’m glad I don’t have to worry about self-doubt or bullying again!” Because you will at some point. There will be times when that unwelcome and uninvited guest, Mr. or Ms. Self-Doubt will quietly try to slither their way back. Situations in life will trigger it and you will have to fight it.

It’s an ongoing battle. You might experience lulls, where you feel so self-assured that you don’t believe you could ever doubt yourself again. These feel-good periods may last days, weeks, months, even years…but! Circumstance will arise and unsavory people will come into your life to bring that old devil back again. And, once again, you will have to fight with everything you have to kick that pesky, uninvited guest out.

Self-doubt comes with many symptoms- lack of confidence in yourself, your appearance, your abilities, and your potential. Lack of self-belief, in general, which breeds lack of self-determination or, Learned Helplessness. It also comes with anger, sadness, depression, feeling of jealousy, and later, regret.

Giving into self-doubt is dangerous because it has a negative affect on your life- a huge negative effect. And it can absolutely destroy your future. So, how does self-doubt effect your life? In several ways:

1. It zaps your motivation and inspiration. When you think you can do nothing right or can’t be very effective, you won’t want to try at anything because you’ll be so fearful of failing. Without motivation nor inspiration, you’ll either never do anything at all or you’ll do just enough to get by and that’s it. Instead of living, you’ll only end up existing. Instead of being successful at life, you’ll only squeeze through it by the skin of your teeth. You end up in toxic relationships that don’t fulfill you. You’ll bust your tail in dead-in job after dead-end job, and, in the end, you’ll have nothing to show for it.

2. It causes you to miss opportunities. When you have self-doubt, you’ll be blind to your chance opportunities, and you’ll let them pass you by. This will only lead to a mountain of regret later.

3. It gives you a defeatist attitude. Self-doubt can morph into the acceptance of failure, and it can cause you to give up. You’ll see no point in even trying at anything anymore, which will only bring about more failure and defeatism. Finally, you’ll end up with the attitude that you can never reach success, that nothing meaningful or positive can ever come your way. You’ll fill as if God has cursed you, is punishing you and that His will is for you to suffer without ceasing.

4. It stunts your growth, and you’ll feel stuck. You don’t believe in yourself; therefore, you can’t grow as a person. You feel like a victim of circumstance and, as a result, you feel helpless to change any of the things you don’t like about your life. You feel that no matter how hard you try, you can never accomplish anything nor succeed.

5. It causes you to procrastinate. Because you think you’re going to fail anyway, you dread even trying. So, you put off everything, and keep putting off the things you know you need to do. As a result, you let it all pile up until the problem becomes so big it overwhelms you.

But I want you to know that no matter what bullies or anyone else tells you, no matter how many times you’ve screwed up, and no matter how many times adversity has happened in your life, overcoming self-doubt is something that is and always will be doable. It may take a while to get there, and you may fight many battles and need to work hard. But you can overcome it.

Know that you have the power to change your belief in yourself. If there have been people who grew up in extreme poverty or abusive homes and later went on to become doctors, lawyers, famous writers and inventors, then that power is within anyone and everyone- including you!

And I promise you that, if you put in the work and endure the discomfort to change your self-belief and eschew self-doubt, it will completely change your life!

With knowledge comes empowerment!