Fear and self-doubt are debilitating. The beauty of our dreams and aspirations can quickly cloud with stormy skies the moment we start to contemplate how to move forward.
The soul-crushing what-if monster is the enemy of progress. What will other people think? What if I’m not good enough? What if I fail? It’s the thing standing in between where you are now and what you want most in life. So why is it so hard to just let go and move past it?
Self-deprecation and negativity are ways that many people bond. Sound strange? Consider this: how often have you bonded with someone over a mutual disdain for something or someone, like an obnoxious coworker? Why do we feel such a strong urge to commiserate? It’s often viewed as braggy to talk about your successes and what’s going well. That’s such a bummer! By contrast, a lot of humor is focused on negativity. Think about how frequently you hear someone try to make others more comfortable by making themselves smaller.
Think about what stories you tell about yourself. Maybe your inner voice says things like:
I’m not enough as I am. I’ll never be as good as them. I don’t deserve that life.
The scripts we’ve written for ourselves become our truth and influence what life experiences we are willing to have.
The fear of failing is often enough to halt progress before it even begins. One thing that causes procrastination is perfectionism. Procrastination is just another form of perfectionism – putting things off is common when you lack confidence in your ability to achieve the outcomes you want.
First, we need to build up a strategy to face these fear monsters head on. Here’s a plan of attack I learned from my amazing professor, Dr. Lori Rose:
- Write out all of the discouraging what-ifs that come to mind throughout a day
- Answer these questions: What if it happens? How likely is that? What is really the worst case scenario and how bad would that really be? How long would that impact your life? Can you do anything to prevent it, or is it out of your hands? Oftentimes, analyzing the worst case scenario shows that our dilemmas aren’t as perilous as our anxiety builds them up to be.
- Shift your perspective by training your brain to imagine positive outcomes. What if things go really well? What is the best case? Allow your mind to imagine these possibilities. It would be so freeing to automatically have an optimistic view instead of staying stagnant and dwelling in fear of bad things that may never happen. Aside from planning for success, hyper-focusing on potential struggles serves no purpose but making us needlessly miserable.
Next, we need to rewrite the script about ourselves. It’s probably not going to be easy at first. Try writing out all the things you feel like you’re good at or that you love about yourself. To make it easy, start by creating a note on your phone and add one new bullet each morning. Starting the day with self-love will boost your confidence and help you start the day right. As a bonus, you’ll be able to read your previous entries and have a growing list of why you are awesome!
A friend of mine suggested taking a photo of the best part of each day. This makes you proactively look for the best around you, and sometimes you’ll find yourself taking more than one photo! Share this practice with someone close to you and observe how you feel bonding over joy instead of suffering. Your days are likely going better than you’re giving them credit for!
Create a safe environment for your self-confidence. Start surrounding yourself with people who are working towards growth and building each other up. Tell the people you care about what you’re working on and ask them to help by focusing conversations on what’s going well versus all the things that aren’t.
I’m not under some illusion that life will magically become all rainbows and unicorns by implementing these practices. Pain and suffering are real, valid parts of the human experience, and they should be expressed and worked through in a healthy way. However, the way many of us function in our daily lives creates an illusion that life is much bleaker than it really is. Actively trying to seek out the good in each day will profoundly impact the way you see yourself and your potential in the world.
We have the power to build the reality that we want to live in. This is about rewiring our brain for a better life. In a future post, I’ll deep dive into how your mindset plays a large role in overall health outcomes. Get excited, y’all! This is interesting stuff.
In all honesty, I chose this as my first blog post because the fear of beginning is always something that I’ve battled with. My goal for 2023? Emphasize positive thinking when the what-if monster has me doubting myself.
What things have you been able to accomplish by flipping the script towards positivity? I’d love to hear your story in the comments below!
Cheers to you and living better each day,
