4 Ways to Overcome Self-Doubt

1. Don’t compare yourself to others.
The temptation to compare your business to others in
your industry is difficult to ignore. Try not to make
unrealistic or unfair comparisons that cause you to
doubt your own abilities. Worrying about what
competitors are doing wastes time and can leave you
anxious and exhausted.
Instead, try to network and learn from the success of
others. What did they do well? What challenges did they
overcome? A great way to exchange ideas and
encourage others is to join a mastermind group. Or hire
a business coach or a set up weekly calls with a mentor,
someone whom you trust and admire.
Related: How to Deal With the Fear of Being Unqualified
2. Acknowledge previous
accomplishments.
Any entrepreneur will tell you that starting a business is
one of the most difficult paths a person can choose. It
takes an extreme amount of work and dedication to take
any idea from inception to market.
There will be good days and bad days. Plus, at some
point, you’ll realize you can’t please everyone
100 percent of the time, no matter how hard you try.
If you feel like giving up, step back from the situation.
Acknowledge what you’ve already accomplished. Show
gratitude for having encountered exciting opportunities
and positive experiences. Keep an abundance journal to
record victories -- no matter how small. When you hit a
bump in the road, you’ll be able to look back and
remember why you chose your career in the first place.
Related: Easily Diagnose and Treat Impostor Syndrome
3. Make decisions in a timely manner.
Running a business entails making hundreds of
decisions. Every choice you make will have
consequences -- some positive and others negative.
When faced with a fork in the road, many entrepreneurs
suffer from analysis paralysis. The very feedback that
they solicited from clients, colleagues and mentors now
hinders their ability to make a final decision and move
forward. They may become overwhelmed by the various
opinions and frozen with self-doubt.
The success of a business is determined by the
culmination of many small choices over the long term.
Running a successful business is more like a marathon,
not a sprint. If at some point you make a wrong decision,
you can always try to fix it.
So commit to a course of action and make corrections
as you go along. The more proactive you are, the more
confident you’ll feel in your ability to lead the company.
Related: Confident Entrepreneurs Deftly Overcome
Impostor Syndrome
4. Accept your failures.
Anxiety is often rooted in fear. Mistakes are inevitable.
No matter how talented you are or how hard you work,
you will occasionally make errors. Some mistakes are
easy to correct whereas others take a considerable
amount of time and money to fix.
Either way, mistakes will make you a wiser, more
cautious businessperson. Successful people embrace
failure as part of the journey toward success. Rather
than obsess over problems, focus on solutions.
If you make a mistake, don’t cover up or misrepresent
what happened. Instead, admit it as soon as possible.
When you own up to your failures, you develop a
professional reputation of reliability and trustworthiness.
Rather than fixate on every misstep, simply take
responsibility, learn from it and find a way to correct the
issue. Then move on and let it go.