Hello, my friends. It’s such a great day, isn’t it! Even if things are not going exactly my way, I’m still going to choose to think it’s a great day! I want to make a shout out to all the responders of the people dealing with Hurricane Ian in Florida. Right now the damage is looking like $100 billion dollars to restore everything that was destroyed by this massive hurricane and reporters are claiming that the place looks so bad that it looks like it’s been bombed. Holy cow! When the news first hit about Ian reaching land and some of the people it was affecting, my heart went out to the first responders. The people in Florida had warning before it hit and were encouraged to evacuate. But what about all the people who were asked to stay behind for those who couldn’t or didn’t evacuate? These first responders are on another level. I’m in awe at their bravery and willingness to help out mankind.
What do you think caused them to choose those fields of service? I’m guessing that it’s because they wanted to help out. They wanted to contribute to the greater good. Now, if you read the title to my podcast today, you’re probably wondering how this has anything to do about self-doubt. It has everything to do with it! Stay with me okay?
Take someone who is thinking about becoming a doctor, a nurse, an EMT, a police officer. What if they didn’t believe in themselves to take that path? I’m sure there are some out there who didn’t and they took a different path. And maybe they are now wondering or regretting not going for it? It’s no small task to become a doctor and whatever their reason was, they needed to make that first step, that first big decision to go for it. And to see it all the way through, they needed to keep going when it got hard.
To all of you who have a dream out there, which I hope is all of you; the bigger your dream, the more you need to hear this. Self-doubt is the biggest killer of those dreams. Self-doubt keeps you in indecision. It keeps you stuck, spinning in circles and not moving anywhere. When you don’t believe in your decisions, you are telling yourself that you don’t believe in yourself. And maybe you don’t, but the first step to start building confidence in yourself, is to start making decisions and backing yourself up on those decisions. Believe in yourself that you have the answers of what is right for you.
If you have a decision to make or if you’re in the middle of making your dream a reality, the way how to move forward is to just make a choice and go from there. You do know what’s best for you. Maybe you’re thinking, but how do I know if this is the right decision for me? What if it’s the wrong one? You know what? It’s the right one because it’s the one you made. There’s no upside to thinking otherwise. There’s no upside to thinking what if? That thinking is what’s keeping you stuck. But Amber, what if there is a better way? Then you just tell yourself we’re going with this decision and if there’s a better way then I will find it, but for now this is what I’m going with.
When you finally make a decision you’ve just built a little bit of confidence in yourself. And the best news ever is you’ve gifted yourself all the authority back. You’re putting yourself back in the game and not waiting for someone else to do it for you. It’s always nice to have other people’s thoughts and other people backing you, but if you can’t ever back yourself, then you’ll always be looking outside of you to be making really important life decisions. Did you know that when you look outside yourself to make your final decision, you are giving your power away? It’s like you’re saying somebody else has more authority than you to make the right decision for you. I’m all for having a team or a group of people who you trust to bounce ideas off of, but when it comes to your life and how this decision will affect you personally, you need to be the main authority here. You need to be the one holding the majority of this power. No one else will have to live your life. There is no better authority to hold all the power for you, than you. You know what’s best for you.
When you’re stuck in self-doubt and start doing what other people suggest without having your own back, you make yourself vulnerable to the shame-blame trap.
First, you’ll feel like you’re not enough and you shame yourself for thinking that only if you were better, then this would work. But that feels horrible so you move to blame and say, well if so-and-so wouldn’t have told me to do this, then I wouldn’t be in this spot. Guess what you just did? You’ve just given up all of your power to feel. In this mindset, you are thinking that the way you feel, is out of your control and it’s someone else’s fault. Now on top of feeling horrible for the way it turned out, you’ve also just layered a feeling of powerless on top of that.
Now it’s definitely harder except all responsibility for your decisions, but then that takes us right back to the failing concept. So what if you failed! What are you making that mean about yourself? It doesn’t mean anything about your personal worth as a human soul on this earth. So what if you chose one path and it didn’t go right? You know, you could just decide that, “oh that path wasn’t for me, let’s try this path.” You don’t need to go down the rabbit hole of self-doubt just because a decision that you made didn’t work the way you thought it would.
I guarantee, there is something that you learned from the path that you took that you needed to know on your way to your higher-self. That’s all it is. I know I’m really simplifying it, but when you look at the facts, that really is all it is. Looking at the facts and what are your thoughts about it? What are you making it mean about yourself? That is why you are feeling the way you are. It’s not being caused by the facts.
So, get out of self-doubt by making a decision and you move forward knowing that that is the best decision for you at this time, where you are at in your life. Guess what you’ve just done? You’ve just freed up your mind to start looking towards the future because you are now literally moving towards your future.
Every time you make a decision for yourself, you are on your way to building your confidence about yourself. Your belief in yourself. Your belief in yourself is the most important thing. And, there is not just one right way. We get ourselves stuck in thinking that there’s just one way that’s going to get us to our best future, but I’m gonna tell you right now, you’re going to have a lot of detours and pitstops along the way. That is the refining process. That’s what this life is all about. It’s about slowly progressing in a direction to be a better version of ourselves. Not because it’s changing our worth as a human, but it’s changing our ability to show up in an already hard world as the person we want to be. I think we all want to change the world around us for the better. As soon as we start showing up better for ourselves, we start showing up better for others and it has this positive ripple effect.
So what are these pitstops and detours I was talking about? Pitstops equal stepping to the side and reevaluating a new choice that you have. This is not your original decision that you think you’re going back on. You’ve made your decision, you’re moving forward and then another choice comes up because new facts have been presented. So you decide OK do I need to look at tweaking my path and the direction I’m on or do I like the direction I’m on? If you decide that you’re going to continue on the path you’re on, you’re saying, “That was a great idea, but it’s not for me.” It’s OK for people to have opinions about what you should be doing with your life and you just deciding that those opinions are not for you. And you keep going on the same path you were on, still moving forward.
A detour is when you’ve decided that you’re going to tweak your decision a little bit and start on a new path. It doesn’t mean that your previous decision was wrong because you couldn’t have gotten to this detour if you weren’t moving forward to get there. Make sense? Besides, there is no upside to thinking your first decision was wrong. Change your thinking to, “I needed to make that first decision in order to move forward and get to this decision.”
And notice that when you’re driving on a road, and I’m talking about the real road outside right now, notice when you come to a detour sign, you usually have more than one way to go. Sometimes you don’t. But sometimes you can take other backroads instead of the path the department of transportation wanted you to go. Both ways get you to your destination and both will present different challenges. Always trust yourself, that whatever decision that you are making is the right decision.
No matter what happens, you will embrace all of yourself. All of your brilliant, amazing side and all of your messy side. You need both to find that balance and achieve that balance. If you never had a messy side that means you would never be learning. If you’re never learning, you’re never growing, you’re never evolving into a more refined more brilliant and amazing you.
One last thing. Start taking note how many times you tell yourself, “I don’t know.” “I don’t know.” “I don’t know.”
I don’t know is so definitive in your mind. It literally blocks your brain and keeps you at the pit stop. Of course you know! Every time you say that, redirect that brilliant brain of yours to thinking, “Oh no! I do know, and I will figure it out!” Instead of telling your brain that you are incapable, you will be putting your brain to work to figuring it out. Your brain will continue working, regardless of what you decide. Whatever you decide, that is what your brain will work on to prove to you you’re right.
It wants you to feel good, it wants you to be happy, so it thinks that all has to do is prove you right and then you will be happy. But what are you feeling when you are saying “I don’t know?” I know what I am feeling and it’s definitely not empowered. I am feeling indecisive and less then and not smart at all. When I tell myself, “I do know and I will figure it out,” I am feeling motivated and driven and capable. If you don’t believe in yourself to just flat out say, “I will figure this out,” then that’s when you change it to “I am learning to figure this out. I will work on figuring this out.”
When we stay in self-doubt, always questioning ourselves, we keep playing small. We don’t go for the doctor position we’ve always wanted. We don’t go for goals that some think are unreachable.
When you don’t have confidence in yourself you’re thinking in some way you are broken or not good enough to make the best decision for you, but there’s no one better than yourself to do that. You are amazing and don’t let anyone else tell you differently.
Thanks again to all those responding to Hurricane Ian and to all the responders helping us throughout the world. It would be a much harder place without your courage and determination to help us when we don’t have the skills needed to take care of ourselves.
Have a brilliant day and remember you are loved!
Bye!
