Understanding The Source of Your Self-Doubt and Halting It in Its Tracks

Even the most confident person you can think of has an occasional bout of self-doubt. The trick is to recognize it for what it is, understand how it is crippling you, and then get on with the business of being successful.

That's how successful entrepreneurs beat the self-doubt plague. Consistent self-doubt is as crippling as clinical depression and you may soon find yourself in a rut that's difficult to extract yourself from.

As a fledgling - or seasoned entrepreneur, you have a lot riding on your ability to stay focused. Your ultimate level of success and satisfaction with your chosen career depends on it.

It's imperative that you develop the resilience to overcome self-doubt you're sure to experience and replace that negativity with other thoughts designed to build your confidence rather than bringing it down.

Self-doubt can cause indecision and procrastination - both lethal detriments to your ultimate success. Yet, every challenge you face in your quest as an online entrepreneur brings with it old hauntings from your mind that may prevent you from overcoming the challenges and achieving your goals unless you can get a grip on them and see them for what they are - lies.

The higher you climb on the ladder of success, the more self-doubt you're likely to have. What can you do to alleviate some of these obstacles and direct your energy in a more productive manner? 

It begins in your mind and progresses to taking action as you learn you really are capable of facing and overcoming any challenges that come your way. First, you should know and be comforted that you're not the only person (successful or not) who has suffered from self-doubt along the way.

Acknowledging that others have felt as you do and became successful in spite of self-doubt can alleviate your worries and help you get past the feelings more quickly. If you haven't already set some personal and business goals for yourself, do it immediately.

It's part of the plan that you'll use as the map to the magic kingdom of success. It's perfectly okay to set lofty, long-term goals. Just make sure you set attainable, short-term goals, too - so you can experience success in small increments along the way.

Short term goals are important because they provide continuous realization that you are moving along quite nicely and are well on your way to meeting those long-term goals. It lets you bask in the sunshine of the smaller wins, while waiting for the big payoff at the end.

Some things will happen along the road to success which is beyond your control. It's important that you recognize this and keep from blaming yourself. In all lives, a little rain must fall. Be prepared in every way you can and press onward to your goals.

How Much Time Do You Waste Listening to Your Self-doubt Shout?

Procrastination is one of the many weeds that can grow in the garden of self-doubt. And just as a beautiful garden can become overgrown with weeds that choke out the life of other plants, your business progress can come to a halt if you let self-doubt take root in your mind.

You can become your own worst enemy when you let the negative musings of self-doubt ruin your creativity and your ability to take action on an idea or goal you've set for yourself.

When your own self-doubt begins to shout you down and out from creativity and progress, it's time to shut it up so you can get back to work. Put it in time out just as you would a two-year old having a temper tantrum and teach negativity that it can't play an active role in your life.

When you know you're wasting time on giving in to self-doubt, it's easy to feel defeated and worthless. You may have deadlines to make such as an important launch. Your affiliates and list are waiting to see what you've created and you're paralyzed by those thoughts that you can't do it or are unworthy of doing it.

Self-doubt rants can discourage you to the point of losing all that you've been working for all these hours, days and months. The correct method of silencing the rantings of self-doubt works differently for everyone.

You may be able to suppress them by taking your own time out to meditate. For others, it may take surrounding yourself with positive people - others who experience the same problems you do - or family and friends who tend to build your self-esteem rather than tear it down.

Past failures or discouraging comments from others can make the negative voices inside grow louder and louder until you're sucked in to the realm of complete self-doubt and all of your efforts come to a halt.

It's a battle of the wills - will you give in and cry into your pillow about how incapable you are of success? Or will you do everything you can to start believing in yourself again, dust yourself off and take much needed action?

Don't let the rantings of self-doubt slow you down and render you helpless to realize your dreams of success. It may take several tries before you can mute the self-doubt monsters, but you can do it.

Realize that when self-doubt shouts, it's really an inner voice that's afraid and lost and needs help finding its way back. Taking action shines a light on the path and keeps you from wasting any more time on fear and lies.

Self-doubt Stems from a Lack of Belief in Your Abilities

If you don't believe in yourself, who will? Successful entrepreneurs have all experienced moments of self-doubt, but also have an amazing ability to move past the lack of confidence and force themselves to go on.

That ability comes from experience and knowledge that even failure provides an advantage of knowing that you tried. Newbies to online marketing can sometimes find themselves in a perpetual state of self-doubt.

They lack the experience to know they can overcome obstacles on the way to becoming a successful entrepreneur. That self-doubt can make or break even the most successful entrepreneur and paralyze him or her so that no action is taken and failure is imminent.

Remember your school days? You were required to sit at a desk, learn, turn in homework and take tests to see what you've learned. Now, you have to take that initiative on your own.

Learning, experimenting and brainstorming new ideas is a bit like learning to ride a bicycle. You'll likely fall several times, but eventually you'll get on that bike one day and move on down the path like a pro.

After you've ridden the bicycle a few times, you don't even think about how it works - you just do it. As an entrepreneur, you know there's always something new to try or think about.

You can either choose to give it all you've got - or leave an idea by the wayside and move on to something else. An idea may work for some, but it may not be for you. You'll learn to be discretionary in latching on to new ideas or different ways to do things.

Eventually, that ability will be so innate that you won't even have to think about it as you move forward to meet your goals. Sometimes, you'll try something that backfires or simply doesn't work out the way you thought it would.

Rather than doubting your ability and becoming paralyzed by the situation, take a step back and remember what got you where you are in the first place. Even newbies can think back and remember what decisions led them to take action and become a marketing entrepreneur.

It's likely a decision based on goals you've achieved in the past or a deep interest or appreciation you have for the possibility of making more money and having a business of your own.

And then forgive yourself for any mistakes you may have made. These mistakes give you the advantage of knowledge and you can now move ahead knowing you won't make that mistake ever again. Your ability to succeed has just increased.

Is Your Self-doubt Due to Previous Failures?

How many times do you think Thomas Edison failed in his attempt to bring light into our lives by inventing the lightbulb? Likely, he failed more times than we can count. Imagine how he felt when he worked so hard (during daylight hours or by candlelight) to find something that worked, came so close each time - and then failed with each attempt.

Then, finally it happened. One path Edison took led to the invention of the lightbulb and all other attempts were forgotten. We've been bathed in iridescence ever since. Edison and other successful entrepreneurs have all suffered from self-doubt, but trudged on through the lack of confidence to make their dream a reality.

Think about the times in the past (even as a child) that you've persevered through disabling doubts that you could do something, only to find out that it wasn't within your grasp even though you gave it your all.

Either you shrugged and went on to something else or withered away in self-pity that prevented you from possible future successes. Virtually every successful person in the world has failed many times before.

It's doubtful those failures are even remembered because the success is so bright that they aren't visible. Online entrepreneurs are highly susceptible to self-doubt. There's so much to learn and so many ways to go about each venture that it may seem overwhelming - especially to newbies.

Rather than wasting time stewing over each failure and making yourself miserable, make a firm decision to move on - and then do it. Begin on the new project immediately by setting short and long-term goals and really dig deep into how you're going to ensure it's a big success.

Each success will spur you on to the next project - and the next, until you have some firm accomplishments under your belt. Next time a failure happens, you can focus on the successes you've had to break the cycle of self-doubt and begin again.

Before you begin a project or new venture, think about all of the possible scenarios that can happen. Make sure you include the worst-case scenarios along with the rewards that will happen when you succeed.

After you face your fears of "what if," you can use those fears as challenges. Looking at fears as challenges rather than obstacles can only help boost your self-confidence and help you begin to see success in your future rather than failure.

Don't Confuse Self-doubt with Self Esteem

You may know for sure that you have the knowledge and experience to succeed, but there still may be nagging doubts that you can't or won't succeed online. These doubts can be confused with low self-esteem, but they're very different in how they factor in to results.

When you have high self-esteem, you feel good about yourself. You may be physically fit, very intelligent or are known for being a hard worker who gets the job done. Self-doubt may creep in when you're faced with something new or different such as an online marketing business.

Even those who have been in the business long enough to have gathered a reputation of success can have doubts about their abilities to bring their businesses to the next level of success.

There's always something new to learn and you have to be ready and willing to put the time and effort behind your ideas. Self-esteem comes from positive self-talk that brands you as a person you can believe in to achieve the outcome you want.

Self-doubt can crush all of that by focusing on past failures, comparing yourself to other marketers and giving in to fear. One way to fight self-doubt and let your self-esteem take over is to take action.

That's the only way you'll ever gain the experience you need to reach the business goals you've set for yourself. You'll gain confidence as you progress through the smaller goals to reach the larger ones and this will boost your self-esteem and push the self-doubt into the background.

Self-esteem is knowing your capabilities and self-doubt only sets up obstacles for you to overcome to reach your goals. A little bit of both (self-doubt and self-esteem) is natural and can be good for you if viewed in the right way.

Your self-esteem can push aside self-doubt when it threatens to paralyze you and ruin your plans for the future. After all, you've succeeded with many things in the past and can do it again.

Reach back into your mind and remember the successes you've had in the past. If you're new to Internet marketing, you may have to remember successes in other areas of your life, but as you overcome the self-doubts associated with marketing, you'll be able to feel good about yourself in that area, too.

Your self-esteem will carry you far in life. The self-doubt you may feel when starting a new business can be put to rest by taking action and gaining valuable experience that silences any questions about what you're capable of.