#068 Eliminate Self Doubt

 In today’s blog, I address the subject of doubt.

Self-doubt, doubting in the possibility of creating the life that you want, doubting in the opportunities that come your way, doubting in people, doubting in Allah (swt).

The doubt in Allah (swt) is obviously one that we don’t do purposely, but it kind of creeps in. 

You don’t doubt the Creator but you doubt whether or not you’re being supported.

You doubt whether or not you’re going to get the results that you want. 

You doubt whether you get the answers to the DUA that you make. 

Doubt is such a common one in my work.

When I’m training my coaches, taking my clients, and my students through a process of transforming their lives, one of the biggest things that they all struggle with is doubt.

This is most people, not just my students and my trainee coaches. 

This is humanity at large.

Doubt destabilises us and zaps our energy. 

It has you forever overworking, overwhelmed, and in a state of fear and anxiety or negative feelings that overcome you at certain times in your life.

DOUBT DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE

Doubt is something that knocks your confidence.

Even if you’re a leader, someone who creates change in the world and puts the work out there that impacts the lives of others. 

Even if you’re that person, you’re going to be plagued with doubt. 

I find with most successful people, the people who create impact in their own lives and the lives of others around them, that as they grow, the higher you go, the more you have to deal with this subject.

You’re the one leading from the front and that means you have to deal with a certain amount of uncertainty as you go through life.

It’s almost like we’re plagued with these doubts. It’s like the more you strive for success and growth, the more doubt you may encounter.

We doubt ourselves and we have a lot of incessant thinking about what could possibly go wrong. 

And what could possibly go right? 

We even fear it going right, we fear a change that throws our life off track, because we’re used to the life that we’re in. And we keep on repeating the same process.

So if you want to see change, you’re going to almost always have to deal with the uncertainty and the doubt that comes around with the change, with growth, with development, with success.

Success is accompanied by doubt but not the type of doubt that destabilises you.

Because, many times we’re experiencing this sense of doubt and we almost have this internal feeling of being a fraud.

You feel like your perceived exterior isn’t congruent with your interior.

How you feel and what’s going on inside don’t quite match up. 

Everyone else is looking at you thinking what an amazing success, so confident, and whatever they think about you. 

But people see you as this successful person, this role model, yet on the inside, you’re doubtful if this is your place.

Your thoughts are, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, but I’ll do it anyway because I’m a hard worker, and I’m resourceful. I’ll make it work. But I feel like a fraud all the way there.’ 

And in creeps the doubt.

You’ll notice that you have this internal dialogue about the opportunities in front of you. 

Life presents you with a whole bunch of things that you can do every day. You can grow and develop every day but as soon as that happens, the doubts creep in.

We’ve been created for leadership in our lives. 

So, just in case you didn’t know that, the Prophet (saw) said: ‘All of you are shepherds.’

In other words, all of you are leaders. 

That’s what you’ve been created for. That’s an innate characteristic that you have to nurture.

It’s already within you. So we need to nurture that. 

But often what prevents that are these unnoticed doubts. We’re not even thinking it’s the doubt until it becomes so incessant that it plagues us. 

You know it plagues you because you’re falling into a constant state of emotional highs and lows.

And it’s when you hit those lows, that you realise you’re experiencing a level of fear, anxiety, overwhelm, or burnout.

Burnout is very normal in this situation. 

When you’re a doer, then you’ve got to do lots of stuff, just to cover up how you feel.

Just to cover up what you’re experiencing.

It’s almost like escaping yourself.

But what you’re trying to escape are the emotions that you’re experiencing.

We often don’t notice what caused it and we attribute it to external factors. Things that are going on around us. 

It’s very normal. We all experience it to a degree but it’s not normal when it becomes incessant.

It’s not normal when it destabilises every choice you make.

Every opportunity that presents itself to you, every time you’re about to decide on a direction in your life, it’s not normal that your doubts destabilise you or throw you into a state of mental paralysis. 

When we get into that state, even though we’re moving and taking action, we’re doing it from a place of fear, and anxiety or worry about what the possible outcomes are going to be.

Then we always downplay our lives. 

This is the glass ceiling that prevents you from creating the life that you could create if you tapped into your potential. 

HOW TO CATCH YOUR DOUBTS 

How do you know you’re doing it? How do you know it’s even happening? 

What if this is happening to you, but you don’t recognise it? 

Here are a couple of ways that you’re going to know. 

Many times when you’re feeling this and you’re feeling a bit, uneasy, let’s say, you cover it up with laughter or humour.

Maybe you’re a witty person and it’s the wit that comes out.

Maybe it’s a little banter that you cover up through conversation or social interaction.

That’s one of the ways we cover it up.

Another way that we cover it up is that we become really productive. We become achievement seekers. 

It helps us to redirect our focus away from what we’re not liking the experience of.

We cover it up quickly with achievement because the achievement makes you feel good. The more productive you are, the harder you work, and the better you feel.

So when you cover it up, it’s like being on the ground of your life, and there’s this huge hole in the ground. And you’re covering it up with your achievements. 

But those achievements are just things and things are like twigs.

So you cover up a big hole with a bunch of twigs. Eventually, it’s going to cave in. And when it caves in, that’s when you hit an all-time low.

That’s when you start to feel burnout. 

No amount of twigs you put there, no number of achievements you put there will enable you to escape the experience the overwhelm, the burnout, and the feeling of exhaustion.

Personally, I understand this 100%. But also, on a professional note.

I deal with high achievers and super-productive people.

People, out there creating amazing things in the world but they find themselves in this situation. 

No one else can see it except them.

If that’s you, you know exactly what I’m referring to. 

No one else can see it. Everyone thinks everything is amazing. 

On the face of it all, it looks amazing. But inside, you struggle with the silent discomfort and you feel like there’s no way out sometimes.

But there’s always a way out. 

You don’t have to be in that situation all the time. You can actually get out of it.

The uncomfortable feeling is present in your life. The further you run from it, the more you cover it up.

It’s a strange feeling, and there’s this awkward silence.

There’s no one else around but you don’t feel comfortable sitting by yourself. You want to escape that silence. 

Many of my students, my clients, and my coaches, when they first come in, as they’re going through life transformation, this is what they’re facing.

They don’t like downtime because downtime means they have to face these feelings, emotions, and experiences.

Downtime means they have to face themselves and they find it highly uncomfortable.

However, this constant self-avoidance can be destabilising.

A PRACTICAL PROGRAMME FOR EVERY DAY 

I train coaches and therapists, and as a part of the certification programme, there’s one thing I always say. 

It’s a conversation that I have with all of the people who come on this journey with us. 

As a part of your journey, you absolutely shouldn’t cover it up.

Don’t put a bunch of twigs over that gaping hole.

What you need to do is fill that hole and make it solid. 

Your solid ground is the ground that you will stand on, strong and tall.

When you can do that, then you transform your life.

Because you have a solid foundation. 

This is why no matter what we do, whether it’s in the Nafs Transformation programme or Certification, we’re always focused on actually resolving the issues, not avoiding them.

Resolving the issues doesn’t mean getting confrontational. 

It doesn’t mean messing things up or sabotaging ourselves.

It means dealing with what we can deal with most amicably, to get the best results. 

In the Science of the Nafs, that’s what we’re focused on.

All of this behaviour, as you can see leads to a kind of self-sabotage.

We’re sabotaging ourselves because we’re not dealing with it, and we’re running from it. 

When that happens, you’re just plagued with more and more doubt. 

And when you’re constantly plagued with all of these doubts, then you become disconnected from your spiritual connection.

Think about doubt.

If you’re reading this, I guess doubt is something that you’ve struggled with. 

And self-doubt, or doubting in others, whatever it is, that doubt, actually prevents you from creating connections. 

Whether it be with your spouse, your children, your boss, your employees, or whatever it is, doubt is something that impacts all your relationships.

And the most important relationship it impacts is that spiritual connection, your connection to Allah (swt).

Your spiritual health and your mental health are intertwined. 

When you’re not willing to deal with it, and you just want to cover it up, then all you’re doing is delaying the effects of it, but as the effects of it are delayed, so too is the gravity of the impact that it will have later. 

So I suggest that you just sit with it and feel that discomfort because it’s just a feeling. It’s not going to do anything to you. 

Recognise it and pinpoint the very thoughts and feelings that you’re having. 

Understand and make a disassociation between your thoughts and feelings, and everything external, because we tend to go to everything external, to try and sort out our thoughts and feelings.

But the problem with that is you’re apportioning the blame or the cause of it to everything outside of your control. 

I want you to focus on what your part in it is, and what you can do to help yourself.

Doubts are thoughts.

When you can understand what’s creating it, and sit with it in the discomfort, without running, then you’re going to learn a lot in that process. 

I’m not saying live with it forever, but you can live with it for long enough to find the cause.

This is what we work on with all the coaching that we do. We’re always looking for the causal factors. 

We want to deconstruct it, break it down, and delete it. 

When you can get to the core of it, then this is like a peak of awareness. You get to that level of awareness where you’re able to pinpoint exactly where it’s coming from.

Then you take the tools that I teach you through this process, through these blogs, podcasts, and through the training masterclasses that I do, and apply them to your life.

And you’re going to get rid of some of that doubt. You’re going to take control and instil certainty in you.

That spiritual connection is what you need to rejuvenate.

You need to work on that all the time because it serves as a source of your well-being.

We’re not talking about resilience because resilience is just getting by. We’re talking about your well-being and feeling good.

Being able to deal with life and anything that life presents you be it good or bad. You can deal with it, with the best results. 

Doing that means you can take your life to a different level.

Your relationships will go to a different level.

The way that you connect with Allah (swt), and the way that you live your life and show up in your daily life will change completely.

You’ve got to work on that. I’ve thrown in a lot of stuff here but it’s all intertwined.

If you need to, go back and read this again, and pay attention to the solutions.

The solution is always going to be your spiritual connection and your psychological state. 

These two are intertwined. If you try and deal with them separately then you go to a traditional approach. That’s the traditional psychology model. 

We don’t do that.

The Science of the Nafs is a holistic science.Human beings are holistic, a combination of spiritual, psychological, and physiological.

All three of it is your make up and that’s how you need to deal with yourself. 

That’s how you need to deal with all these issues. 

The doubts will be wiped out or they will be minimised and their effects will be totally minimised, if not changed completely. 

When you instil that certainty into your life, it brings about a calm mind. That calm gives you an emotional balance and awareness and feeling good in everything in your life. 

That’s what we want to do. 

I hope this makes sense. 

This blog is not just me rambling on. I aim to coach you through your life challenges and help you overcome all of these obstacles. 

So Insha’Allah, I’ll leave you with that thought. 

Jazakumullahu Khair.