Self-doubt: 6 tips to find yourself again

Jan. 24, 2017

Have you ever lost something when you were sure you knew where you put it? Have you ever felt like you weren't sure whether you were meeting someone at 1 or 2? Have you also had an argument with your friends about whether the dress was blue or white? And did those events make you doubt yourself? Doubting your mental state and whether your vision of the world is still correct?

To find out if that doubt is justified and to stop doubting yourself, I give you tips and knowledge in this article.

Then I can tell you right now that if you haven't been diagnosed with psychosis or Alzheimer's you don't have to doubt yourself. Of course you can be wrong from time to time, but this does not have to mean that you have to doubt yourself.

After all, doubting yourself is not healthy and can greatly affect relationships around you.

Ultimately, you make certain observations on which you base behavior. If someone turns out to be a gossipmonger you don't tell them your deepest secrets.

Doubting yourself and your relationship

If you doubt yourself, chances are you also doubt your partner's love for you. Research shows that people who doubt themselves are more likely to feel that they are in an inferior relationship even though their partner clearly loves them( 1).

This also makes you doubt that you have a nice future with your partner, when that doubt does not belong in your life at all.

Researchers also indicate that a kind of dependency situation arises when you doubt yourself in a relationship. People who doubt themselves need a partner to be very reactive, and they need many moments that show that the partner loves them. The belief in oneself therefore becomes dependent on the behavior of the partner.

This is a great shame, because if you are not convinced of yourself your partner can say he/she loves you just as many times, but it still does not have the desired effect.

Fortunately, you can also overcome self-doubt on your own. Ultimately, that’s better for you and for your relationship.

Doubting yourself and your work

Doubting yourself at work also has consequences. When you doubt yourself, you tend to try to lower expectations in advance. It’s as if you want to warn people beforehand that what you’re doing might also fail.

Or that you may even do something to yourself that makes you unable to perform the task and therefore not be seen as responsible for performing the task. You can hit yourself on your thumb, so to speak, which will prevent you from carpentry( 2).

In addition, doubting yourself at work also leads to pessimism and negative thoughts about yourself, which undermine your self-confidence and self-assurance.

Cause of doubting yourself

Self-doubt is not often something that arises spontaneously. You may have experienced things that caused you to doubt yourself. For example, you thought you could do something, but then things still went wrong.

For example, research shows that people in Asia often doubt themselves more than Europeans despite their good performance. The difference is in forgiveness. In fact, Asian culture is less forgiving than European culture. The idea that making mistakes is unforgivable can therefore be a source of self-doubt when it is not necessary at all( 3).

There are even people who can manipulate you, making you doubt yourself. This is also known as gaslighting. This term comes from a movie in which a man keeps turning back the light of gas lamps slightly. His wife notices this, but then denies that he did so and accuses her of going a little crazy.

This causes her to start doubting herself tremendously, causing all sorts of other problems.

Finding yourself after emotional neglect

To find yourself again and have a solid foundation on which to build, it is important to identify your cause for doubting yourself.

For example, if you doubt yourself because someone has convinced you that you’re incapable of anything, it’s important to change those beliefs.

Fortunately, beliefs that someone else has placed on you can easily be replaced with hypnosis and self-hypnosis.

With hypnotherapy, a hypnotherapist can easily replace the beliefs you hold about yourself by the other person. The illogic of the beliefs is revealed. In fact, you uncover them yourself with the help of a few questions from the hypnotherapist.

Because you are susceptible to adopting suggestions, the hypnotherapist can also rebuild faith in yourself with hypnotic suggestions. These may include:

You're smart.

You are handsome.

You are strong.

You are looking to the future.

To enhance the effects of hypnotherapy, you can also practice self-hypnosis at home. For example, you then repeat the suggestions that further reinforce beliefs that make you stronger.

Tip #1: Use self-hypnosis

By using self-hypnosis, you can influence your subconscious so that you are more confident in your own abilities and doubt yourself less.

Tip 2: Find out the cause of doubting yourself

If you are not manipulated, chances are that an event in your past has caused you to doubt yourself. If you can figure out that event, you can see if you can look at it in a different way than you have done so far.

Just because you’ve failed once doesn’t mean it has to lead to a fear of failure.

Instead, you can determine what you actually learned from that moment and how to prevent it in the future.

If you find it difficult to identify the cause on your own, a hypnotherapist can help. This can include regression therapy, but there are other options as well.

Trust In Yourself

Trusting in yourself is sometimes easier said than done. Initially, you can reinforce the beliefs you have about yourself with the first tip.

In addition, you can reinforce the feeling that you can actually trust in yourself with visualizations. I have heard on occasion that people only start doing something when people can imagine it. To do something, it is important that you first "see" how to do it.

Tip 3: Visualize what you want to trust in

Fortunately, self-hypnosis also allows you to visualize very well. If you have doubts about giving a presentation or delivering a good job, you can remove those doubts by visualizing how to do it.

During self-hypnosis, you first focus on your breathing. For example, you sit or lie down in a comfortable place. Then you breathe calmly through your belly. If this goes well you close your eyes and, in the case of a presentation, first visualize the place where you are going to do it.

Next, visualize yourself preparing. You may need to set up a projector or lay out notebooks for people coming to view the presentation.

You visualize how you greet everyone when they come in. How when they are seated you introduce yourself and start presenting. How to stay calm when asked questions and what you do when you don't know the answer: "I'll come back to that later and if not, I'll email it to the whole group.".

Tip 4: Use mindfulness

If you doubt yourself, you may notice this through demotivating thoughts that hold you back from doing what you’re good at. By practicing mindfulness, you can identify when you have those kinds of thoughts and determine whether you’re constantly plagued by the same types of thoughts.

By becoming aware of this, you can do something about it.

Another benefit of mindfulness is that you perform a task with more focus. This also makes you less likely to make mistakes, improving confidence in yourself through experience.

Tip 5: Don't be too hard on yourself

Currently, we live in a world of criticism and you have to be able to stand it. As a result, you can also become very strict with yourself that you have to be able to do certain unrealistic things. For example, I can tell myself that I have to be able to run a marathon in 2 hours. Unfortunately, most professionals can't even do that so how realistic is it that I can do that? If that makes me doubt myself it doesn't actually make sense at all.

That’s why it’s important to practice self-compassion. It’s okay for things to go wrong, and when you do something right, that’s definitely worth celebrating. Doing something right might be “normal,” but if you doubt yourself, doing something right is definitely a reason to celebrate!

Tip 6: Relax

When you work hard, whether at work or just in your personal life, sometimes things go wrong. If you put too much pressure on yourself, this can create self-doubt. Therefore, relax from time to time. Take yourself away from the situation that makes you doubt yourself and go do something fun. Walk, paint, exercise as long as it is relaxing me-time.

Would you like to learn more about mental techniques to reduce doubt and enjoy life more? Then join a free online masterclass on hypnosis or check out the workshops and training programs offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:

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