6 Tips for Getting a Grip on Self-Doubt

Did you know that a whopping 85 percent of people have low-esteem? This issue affects their personal and professional lives, including their careers, their health, and their salaries. In other words, self-doubt and low self-esteem can keep you from reaching your peak potential.

These personality traits appear to be more common among women. They develop in childhood and either exacerbate or diminish with time. If self-doubt plagues you, check out these tips to boost your confidence and trust yourself more:

Accept Yourself

Self-doubt is part of being human. Embrace it and turn it into a strength. When used correctly, this personality trait can help you make better decisions, instead of rushing things. Think of it as a tool that guides your actions and keeps you from making costly mistakes.

Just make sure you don’t overuse it though because self-doubt can also make you question your sanity and decision-making abilities.

Know You’re Not Alone

Even the most successful people have doubts. They often question their actions and wonder what the right thing to do is.

Focus on building your confidence and self-esteem. You might never get rid of doubts, but you can stop them from taking over your life.

Get the Facts

Your doubts don’t necessarily reflect the truth. Most times, they mirror your fears and emotional struggles. Think about your achievements and how hard you worked to get where you are today. Be proud of yourself and admire your capabilities.

Whenever you’re in doubt, get the facts straight. Research the problem in question, weigh the pros and cons and ask for a second opinion.

Acknowledge Your Strengths

Make a list of things you excel in. Write down your skills and accomplishments. Accept praise from others gracefully and acknowledge your talent.

Celebrate your strengths every single day. Make positive affirmations and remind yourself how much you’ve done so far. Stop thinking of what you could have done better.

Choose Your Friends Wisely

Negative people can drag you down and ruin your self-esteem. Nothing will ever be good enough for them. That’s why it’s so important to surround yourself with positive people who support you and listen to you instead of judging.

Define Your Values

Lastly, define your values and the values you live by daily. Once you establish those, you will have a more realistic perspective of the current situation. Focus on the things that drive your actions and are at the core of your beliefs.

Overcoming self-doubt is a lifelong process. Stop questioning your own decisions. Don’t waste time over-analyzing – trust your actions and put your plans in motion.

Declutter your mind!

Clutter – a collection of things lying about in an untidy state.

No matter how neat and tidy you naturally are, it’s all too easy for clutter to pile up in your home. There’s mail, books, school supplies, tax forms, and so many other odds and ends — plus, the items you use all the time that never seem to get put away. Fortunately, there are simple ways to stop clutter in its tracks.

One of the things you notice when you start decluttering is how so much of the clutter in your house reflects the clutter in your mind.

If you’re hanging onto to clothes that don’t fit, or the ugly vase your mother gave you for Christmas or the exercise bike you might get around to using, you don’t just have a problem with too much stuff.

You have a problem letting go.

Chances are you’re also hanging onto a whole bunch of bad feelings, ill-founded assumptions, old grievances and future worries.

If it feels good to declutter your house, it feels even better to declutter your mind.

Here are some useful expert tips to make some space in your mind.

Use some meditation techniques


You don’t have to do the full sitting on a cushion in a darkened room thing to benefit from meditation techniques. If you’re feeling overwound, some simple breathing techniques can help you calm down and focus. For a few minutes, focus only on your breathing and nothing else. If your mind wanders or gets back into the worrying groove, you must put that aside and come back to focus on your breath.

Write it down

It can help to write down anything that’s on your mind. Once all those worries are down on paper, you can prioritize them and work out a plan to deal with them. You can also assess them to identify what’s essential and what isn’t. When you can see what’s important, you can focus your energy and free up some of that mental space!

Stay in the present

Brooding over the past and worrying about the future take up a lot of space in your mind and achieve precisely nothing. Let go of regret over past mistakes or resentment of past slights and move on. Keep your focus on what you can influence right here, right now.

Do one thing at a time

Multitasking is not only overrated (it’s very inefficient), it also leads to greater anxiety, and you never do any one thing properly. Focus on doing things methodically and thoroughly. As you finish one task, move onto the next.

Control all the incoming data

We talk about being available 24/7 and the 24-hour news cycle, but there is only one person who can control that. You. You can choose to switch off your computer, smartphone, and tv and control the amount of data your brain is trying to process.

Summary

Decluttering your mind will pay off in all sorts of ways you hadn’t imagined. You will be more productive, less stressed and more motivated. Let me know if these ideas have helped you in any way.

Pick yourself up!

“Life is what happens while you’re making plans”

I’ve seen this quote attributed to John Lennon, amongst others. And it is true!

As we entered the new year I was really pushing hard. I updated my Book “Strange Things From Uranus” (find it on Amazon) and developed more of my understanding of Internet Marketing. I bought a franchise in a site in the UK called Days Out in Leeds, which offers information on Places to go for entertainment… but governments have sanctioned entertainment out of our lives.

I have been lucky over the last decade in that I have chosen to take my skills as a Maths and Science teacher around the world.

I have spent time in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Oman, China, Kazakhstan, Gran Canaria, Morocco and England. While based in those places I have also managed trips to Thailand, Cyprus, Crete, Hong Kong, Spain and more.

Then in March – well the rules of the game disappeared.

I kept this blog going until the end of June then moved house and went without internet for a month. Don’t get me wrong; I moved to a great house a few minutes walk to the beach in Dar Bouazza, just to the west of Casablanca. I have a south facing first floor terrace where I can sit in the sun and read all day (until I burn).

As we rolled into August I realised I had lost my motivation. Spending a couple of hours scheduling a weeks worth of blog post just seemed too much of a chore. Cycling and Hiking through Bouskoura Forest became more of a buzz; and great for my health. In the end I had to go back and teach myself some motivation and time management techniques by reviewing one of my own courses!

Just last week my teaching job ended as a result of changes due to Covid – people have lost businesses and can’t afford school fees. I was fine with that. I have just enough coming in to allow me to stay here for a few months while I work on business.

Life doesn’t sit still.

I got an offer to go and teach Physics in Baku, Azerbaijan! Not just teach Physics for students who want to enter University, also to teach teachers!

So in a few weeks I will be out of Morocco and starting a great new adventure on the banks of the Caspian Sea.

“Life is what happens while you’re making plans.”

Final Tips on Productivity

I hope you have enjoyed this series of articles and they have given rise to some improvement in the way you plan and organise your work.

Being disorganised may have many different connotations linked to it and finding out which ones are contributing to these negative behaviours can sometimes help to eradicate or at the very least control the urge to be disorganised.

People who are frustrated with their lives are often the ones who are also very much disorganised. Linking both these factors together has been proven to produce the expected results of negativity.

Not having the moral commitment which simply equates disrespect for others, their time and their commitments is another prevalent issue behind not wanting to be more organised in one’s own undertakings.

Look deep into your heart and be aware that generally, people who are selfish fail to develop this moral commitment trait and continue to assume everyone will be accommodating and forgiving of their follies.  

The popular saying that time waits for no man is so true and being disorganised is one way of ensuring failure at every turn. When the element of being disorganised is ever present there is little or no opportunity to be able to focus and identify needs and wants according to their priorities and thus allowing a lot of confusion into one’s daily existence.

https://phoenixeducation.thinkific.com/courses/improve-time-management

Count That Day Lost – George Eliot

If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went —
Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,
You’ve cheered no heart, by yea or nay —
If, through it all
You’ve nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face—
No act most small
That helped some soul and nothing cost —
Then count that day as worse than lost.

The Issues Behind Not Being Organised

Simple tasks like setting goals, making lists, creating processes that optimise productivity is almost a chore as the individual’s disorganised state will effectively cause the overwhelming feeling of being totally lost.

When this happens the likelihood of giving up any endeavour before it is completed becomes a norm, thus contributing to an extremely negative habit to indulge in. This will eventually have a direct impact on other people too, as the individual cannot be considered dependable thus affecting the relationships on many different levels.

Therefore, it would be prudent for the individual to take a step back and seriously consider how the lack of being organised is affecting the various aspects of his or her life, and that of those around.

Thanks for the feedback

I am really enjoying researching and sharing ideas on this blog.

My aim has always been to share my journey as I build an online business. I now have a few websites aimed at teaching and sharing ideas. I have been a teacher of some form or other for all of my life. I hope people are learning from my blog and I really appreciate the Likes and Follows.

If anyone has comments or more feedback then I will really appreciate it.

Thanks

Peter ‘Phoenix’

Adjust Your Timeline And Stick To It

Within the exercise of setting goal in various connective sections there is also a need to address the timeline issue and provide for a suitable one.

This will help to ensure all participants become aware of the time constraints and the requirements for each section allowed.

Letting a project run without any specific timeline firmly in place is very unwise and some would even say detrimental to the success of any project, therefore the following points are listed to help overcome this negative possibility:

Identifying one’s own most productive period cycles within a working day will help to optimize the amount of productive effort put into the endeavor.

This can then be coordinated with the others involved in the project, if any, as not everyone will have the same levels of productivity at the same times. The advantage of this will give those involved a chance to identify higher priority tasks to be done during these peak cycles and leaving the lesser demanding tasks to be done during the off-peak cycles. Thus, optimizing the timeline always.

Allotting time within the timeline to concentrate on the project without any outside communication or distractions will also contribute to the eventual completion of the project within the timeline frame.

As distractions can cause a person to lose temporary focus, this consideration is important if not vital to the overall timeline being kept.

Within each task there should be a specific time frame allotted and adhered to without exceptions. Ensuring all efforts are focused on getting the task completed before work is stopped, will help to keep the designed target in place.

These mini milestones will also act as a good motivating factor because the accomplishments become visible every step of the exercise.