5 Steps for Ambitious Women to Overcome Self-Doubt

Self-doubt is a thought, feeling, or belief that you are not good enough or that you did not do enough to deserve success or recognition. It’s a mental and emotional state that even the most ambitious and accomplished women experience throughout their life and career.

There are many reasons women doubt themselves even in the face of great success. One of those reasons is because of traumatic childhood experiences that made them feel less, unloved, unimportant, or undeserving of anything good in life. Self-doubt, once invited in, creates a cycle of destruction in both the personal and professional aspects of life.

With that said, if you allow it to dominate your thoughts and feelings, your actions will follow, too, if not immediately then eventually. The only way to not let that happen is to learn to overcome self-doubt.

How do you overcome self-doubt?

Here are 5 steps for ambitious women like you to overcome self-doubt and be more of what (or who) you want to be:

1. Place your awards where you can see them. This is a very simple but effective exercise. When the feeling of “not good enough” creeps in, look at those awards and tell yourself, “I am good enough! That’s why I won these awards! People saw what I can’t see in myself.”

2. Gather social proof and publish them on your website. If you are a business owner or entrepreneur, you probably use a website or social media to market your products and/or services. Use those platforms to showcase clients’ or customers’ positive reviews. When you start doubting your abilities, take comfort in the knowledge that your clients and/or customers are pleased with what you offered them; use their positive reviews as social proof but also to remind yourself to not doubt who you know you are and what you know you can do.

3. Write a gratitude journal. Make it a daily part of your routine. Find something to be grateful for even when you think you have none on a particular day. The effort of looking for even the smallest of blessings will teach your mind to think more positively. A gratitude journal can help overcome self-doubt.

4. Take a break from work or your business. You doubt yourself and your abilities if you are not performing well in your business or at work due to burnout. Burnout is a productivity and efficiency killer. Take a break and mean it! No work/business, just you and the people you love, doing things you love—or maybe just you, if you want total alone time with yourself. Take this time for self-care.

5. Learn new things or enhance your knowledge and skills. If you feel like you’re not good enough or that you lack the ability to succeed, then learning new things or even mastering existing knowledge and skills will give you a better perspective. Put your knowledge and skills to the test. Celebrate if you get results from using them; and if they don’t yield positive results, take it as another starting point of learning something new.

These are five steps you can take to overcome self-doubt and focus on what you’re good at so you can be a great asset to your team, your community, your family, and most of all, to yourself.