There was a time when self-doubt felt like my default setting. It was 2023, and I was a coach-in-training because I didn’t yet feel I’d earned the right to call myself a coach.
“I’ll feel confident using the title coach when I’m certified,” I reasoned. When that day came, I felt so proud, but still struggled to articulate the type of coaching I practice. “Not a sports coach, not a vehicle, not a life coach, but technically I could be…”.
As a new coach, I second-guessed decisions, held back from sharing my ideas and assumed others knew better, despite being capable, certified, and with testimonials to boot.
We all experience feelings of self-doubt at times, especially creatives, high achievers, and new business owners. It’s a universal human experience, but it’s not always helpful when it prevents us from taking action or achieving our goals.
So, if you’re experiencing self-doubt right now, rest assured, it happens to the best of us, and there are ways to overcome overwhelm; you just have to find the ones that work for you.
With my journalistic and marketing background, I was all too aware that I’d have a hard time finding clients if I could not clearly and confidently articulate what I do and who it’s for.
Taking a step back from all the overthinking, I reflected on where the self-doubt was coming from. What is causing this pattern to repeat, despite all that I had achieved?
I knew something had to change, so I explored ways to overcome self-doubt. I’m sharing what I tried and what worked for me in the hopes that it might help you.
As a writer, picking up a pen and paper notebook or journal works well for me. I write in the pages of my notebook every morning, and whenever I feel that my thoughts are overwhelming my brain (some days are more scribbly than others). I’m also a fan of morning pages, a process Julia Cameron describes in her bestselling book The Artist’s Way. In this process, you write three pages of your stream-of-consciousness, getting whatever is in your head onto the page to start your day. Buying new journals, notebooks and journaling pens is my guilty pleasure, but that’s just a turn of phrase. Guilt, in that capacity, is no longer welcome here. Writing in a journal or notebook (with a carefully selected pen that won’t bleed through the pages) has helped free up space in my brain to get creative in my business, birthing a personal brand that has experimented with its visual identity and developed a strong verbal brand identity.
Did you know that you can create new neural pathways in your brain over time and rewrite your inner narrative? I researched neuroplasticity and found ways to help me reframe negative thoughts and feelings fueling my self-doubt. I read books to continue learning, improved my nutrition by adding ‘brain’ foods (such as blueberries, walnuts, and avocado) to my diet, and practised EFT tapping — specifically, a 4-5 minute morning tapping I do while brewing my coffee each day (a process called habit stacking).
As a recovering perfectionist and people pleaser, I have to constantly remind myself that it is okay to take action before I feel ready. Waiting to feel ready never works for me (life is unpredictable), and I end up feeling disheartened when I look at my annual wall planner and see another month pass without doing the thing. When I first rewrote my website copy, I took ages to push it live. I still don’t know what I was scared of or worried about – that someone might actually see it? Of course, it was a complete anti-climax when it went live and nothing happened. Marketing in 2025 can take months to gain traction, so the longer I waited, the longer it took me to get new paying clients. That’s the cold, harsh truth. By waiting to feel ready, I was delaying getting paid. Do you have a similar story? Repeat after me: “I deserve paying clients”.
One of my favourite coaching questions is asking clients how they will celebrate achieving their goals. It’s a nice reminder to track the small wins, as well as the abundant months and milestone moments. If I don’t track the small achievements, I get to the end of the day wondering what on earth I have been doing with my time and feeling hopeless. By creating a simple chart, or handwritten list, to track what I’ve been working on and each small win, I wrap up on a much more positive and satisfied note.
During my coach training, I discovered the concept of a growth mindset (through the course and Dr. Carol Dweck’s book Mindset), which transformed my perception of failure. In the past, I had a fixed mindset, and failure would make me run in the opposite direction, never looking back. Now, I see failure as a lesson on the path to success. It is better for me to try, fail, reflect on what went wrong, and improve than to do nothing with my head buried in the sand. What if you reframed how you feel about failure? Could you see it as a learning experience?
I used to think self-care meant putting on a face mask and sinking into a warm bubble bath. I say that with kindness aimed at past me, who worked and partied hard. There is a sense of greater self-awareness and self-compassion that comes with getting older, magnified if you choose a path that guides you to look closely at your brain, emotions and behaviour. But you don’t have to wait to start listening to your body. Find the tools, methods, techniques, people or experiences that help you to move away from self-doubt and towards self-confidence. Here is a list of things I’ve tried: coaching (naturally), EFT tapping, meditation, journaling, mindfulness, breathwork, tea ceremonies, learning to read my natal chart, reading self-help books, going for a walk in nature, saying positive affirmations in a mirror and, the most recent addition, TCM acupuncture. Bathing still features, but is just a part of my toolkit as opposed to the only way to practice self-care.
Last, but not least, it was super helpful for me to work through feelings of self-doubt and resistance with my coach (yes, good coaches have coaching, too). A coach asks the right questions, suggests tools you may not have tried before, helps you identify your values, and provides accountability for moving forward. It’s a luxury to be able to pour your thoughts into a safe space and have them filtered, reframed, and returned to you in an orderly fashion, so you know exactly what to do, how you’re going to do it, and when (to give one example of how I have felt at the end of a session).
If you are feeling the throes of self-doubt, I hope you may find some ideas to try in this article. Just remember it’s okay to have self-doubt, but it shouldn’t hold you back. If you’d like to find out more about working with me as a coach, you can book a complimentary call here.
If this article resonated, save it for the days when doubt creeps back in — or share it with someone who needs to hear it.
