Doubt Will Keep You Stuck

Doubt can feel like you are driving through life with your hand break on. It can be difficult to move forward when you are caught in doubt because you question what step to take or even if you should take a step. Your inner dialogue may be loud and can lead to analysis paralysis or over thinking and not doing.

When I feel doubt, I will often claim confusion or say that I lack clarity, when in fact I’m simply not making a commitment to move forward into action. My excuse of feeling confusion is more often my lack of confidence because I’m stuck in my fear of making a mistake. Fear of making mistakes is also another manifestation of doubt.

Some simple steps to get unstuck from doubt:

Doubt is not procrastination or resistance. It is more mentally constructed from a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction. If you over think a decision or analyze the situation to the point of paralysis, you will feel stuck.

1. Fear of mistakes will lead to doubt. Tip: The paradox is open up and allow the mistakes to happen. You are not going to get better until you get into the game and start to play. You need a starting place to grow from. The growth mindset person can embrace mistakes as opportunity to learn so you can gain confidence and get more masterful. Growing from mistakes is an empowering act of courage that comes from self-acceptance. The bigger the mistake, the bigger the learning. Self-acceptance is when you give yourself the grace or self-compassion to integrate mistakes as a lesson to grow from and not as a reflection of a flaw in your character.
2. Action beats inaction: Take a step, one step into action. No step is too small. The beauty of taking one simple step is that at that point you are no longer stuck but are moving forward. You can always pivot later if there is a different step to get on course. The first step sets you up for the next step. Break it down into small doable steps.
3. Taking responsibility for your choices and actions is an act of empowerment. Stay out of blame or expecting someone else to be responsible. Own what is yours to do so you can manifest what you desire. Expectations that someone else will solve your dilemma will lead to hesitation, waiting and no action (aka stuckness).
4. Doubt may show up when you are ready to step out of your comfort zone. Even though the devil you know may feel intolerable or uninspiring, it is amazing how much harder it can be to step out of your box and into the unknown. Feel more courage and less fear about stepping into the unknown when you gain knowledge to make the unknown arena known. Gaining more knowledge also qualifies as an action that will lead to getting unstuck.
5. Trust your gut, listen to your intuition. There is a little, soft voice inside that says “Yes! Let’s do this!” There is another voice that can feel louder that is full of pretense and future oriented gloom and doom. This is the voice of the “lower self” or ego that wants you to stay safe and not take risks. You can turn up the volume of the voice of your “higher self” or the softer voice, when you can breathe into your lower belly, below your naval and listen to the voice of your inner river of wisdom, not the voice from your busy analytical brain.
6. Call a trusted friend, share your fears and doubt, lean in for support from the other person. This will reduce your fear and increase courage through the oxytocin hormone release when you connect with another for support. Kelly McGonigal calls this the “tend and befriend” stress response. It is your natural stress resilience mechanism that kicks in through connection.
7. The final tip is that you can simply “give-away” your doubt. To decisively cut away from your doubt so you can trust your decision-making capacity, you can go outside and find a tree to give your negative doubt energy away to. It can be liberating to release your doubt with the support of nature. Your negative doubt energy will be like fertilizer for the tree to grow and flourish. Simply stand in front of a tree that you feel drawn to and say in a voice of power in first person, present tense “I give-away my doubt!” and release your doubt to the tree. Give-away any other fears or negative thoughts or feelings associated with the doubt. This can be very cathartic to clear the decks of your doubt for an energetic reboot. Thank the tree and offer it a hug for supporting you in this ritual.