You know what is right for you, don’t you? Yet many of us don’t trust our own instincts. Guided by fear, judgement, constant peer pressure, pressure to succeed, pressure to portray a certain image to society many of us base our decisions on the norms of what is considered right in society.
Self doubt spawns out of lack of confidence in ones own abilities mostly due self inflicted reasons. Lack of trust in self is directly related to end number of promises that you have not kept to yourself, until you gave up and said it’s not possible, I can’t do it. How many times have you said to your self, I am going to stick to this workout and diet routine and then actually done it? How many times have you said to yourself no more drinking during the week and the gone out with friends or open a beer at home? How many times have said to your self I am going to read more, and then just given up on it?
How many commitments will you break that you make to yourself before realising that what you really lack is discipline. All those broken commitments to yourself are eating up on your self esteem and creating doubt in your mind about your own abilities to make sound decisions even when your instincts say otherwise.
Oh my friends doing it so I’ll just go along, even though I really don’t want too, but I don’t want to upset them or have them think of me otherwise. Oh I really don’t want to voice my opinion on this subject matter even though I know I am right, but every one in this room has a contrary point of view.
Stop the self doubt and start rebuilding trust with yourself. Start small with promises that you know you can keep and gradually increase the bar. Don’t set yourself up for failure by setting the bar too high in the first go. Olympic high jump medalist also started somewhere! Ask for help, but first look for it within! Talk to your self! Yes, it’s normal and who better to give you answers about your behaviour than you your self! Probe and be honest! Write down your thoughts and why you feel a certain way. Changes are 99% of the times it is out of fear!
Seek help, but not from friends or family, but first from reading about people’s stories who have been in similar situations or worse and how they have over come their challenges. In the end go to some one you know who has been through Tough times and come out on top. What is required is objective opinions that stem from experience & not subjective judgements based on the type of relationship you have with a concerned individual.
Finally trusting yourself & basing decisions on this trust is the most liberating thing one can do. When you make your own decisions and take full accountability for them, there is no one to blame for the out come but you.
So let’s start keeping promises we make to our selves, let’s start trusting our instincts and decision making and let’s start taking accountability for the decisions that have made us who we are and where we are in life, so that we can stop focusing on the symptoms and start tackling the cause. The trust deficit we have with ourselves!