2: overcoming self-doubt

in this episode of the small steps to self-love podcast, shelby leigh talks about self-doubt, the negative impacts it can have on us, and steps to take to overcome self-doubt. 

each episode covers a different mental health-related topic and has a "small step" or action for you to take on your self-love journey. tune in for today's small step about reflecting on your past accomplishments and let me know in the comments what your answer is to today's question, if you feel comfortable sharing!

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Chapters

• 0:00 intro
• 0:25 reading the poem "to my mind"
• 1:05 how self-doubt feels
• 5:46 how to overcome self-doubt
• 10:54 today's small step
• 13:04 reading a final poem & closing

Transcript

Welcome to another episode of small steps to self-love. I’m shelby, a mental health poet. My goal with my poetry and this podcast is helping others feel less alone and giving you small steps each week to take on your self-love journey, and today’s topic is self-doubt. 

That good old voice in our head that makes us feel like we aren’t good enough. So I’m going to start by reading a poem I wrote about that voice in my head. If you’re watching I’m holding up my book changing with the tides, and I’m going to share page 2 with you, which is actually the very first poem in the book.

To my mind:

We are at war you and me. An everlasting exchange of insults and new wounds and apologies that always come just a little too late. By the time you say I’m sorry, I have already absorbed the blow. A new battlescar has risen on my skin. My body cannot defend itself from you anymore. And I’m scared a truce will never come. 

So that’s what we’re going to talk about today: being at war with ourselves. The back and forth, the insults we tell ourselves, the way that we can beat ourselves up over little mistakes, little flaws and insecurities. If you feel like you are at war with yourself, you are not alone. 

When I experience self-doubt, it makes me feel not good enough. It casts a shadow over the truth and the truth is that I am good enough, and you are good enough, but our minds are unsure. They don’t want to see us fail or embarrass ourselves. 

I asked my readers on instagram how self-doubt makes them feel, and I wanted to share some of the answers because they’re really powerful and they definitely made me feel less alone too.

So, how does self-doubt make you feel?

Like an imposter, it’s like two different people one who knows I’m great, & the imposter – two people said like an imposter actually, which I thought was really interesting, and it’s really fitting with the poem I read where we are battling with our mind. There’s how we want to feel about ourselves, and how we do feel about ourselves. 

Other people said frustrated, sad, like I have failed my younger self. Which is really fitting to what we talked about last week in the first episode, so be sure to listen to that if you missed it.

Someone said nothing but worthless. My confidence is already low but self-doubt brings it down more. stuck, deserted, alone, powerless, helpless, makes me feel lost. These are all such powerful words that I think we’ve all felt at one time or another. 

A lovely poet said self-doubt makes me feel like my writing is terrible and I should give up. yea, self-doubt can cast a shadow over who we’re meant to be, it can stop us from pursuing our passions and our talents because we think we’re not good enough. 

someone else said it makes me feel discouraged and forget all the things that matter to me. that one’s really powerful and stuck with me when I read it. how not trusting ourselves and not being confident in ourselves can make us forget the things we care about. self-doubt can make us question our relationships with people, it can make us question the things we love to do like writing. There have been many times where I’ve questioned whether I’m actually good at writing, or whether I could actually make it as a writer. 

The last one I’m going to read is this; it feels like I’m not able to make decisions on my own. and wow. When I read this one, I stopped and really had to think about it because I think it can be interpreted in different ways, but when I read this, I thought about the internal battle with myself. like when I go to make a decision, half my brain is saying yes I can do this, go for it, and the other part is saying no you can’t, you’re going to fail. So yea, it’s like you’re making decisions with someone else that you don’t want to be making decisions with. I don’t want to hear those negative thoughts, I want to fully believe in myself without this voice in my head saying no. 

So thank you to everyone who was vulnerable and shared about how self-doubt makes them feel and if you’re listening to what others are saying, I hope that it’s made you feel less alone. That everyone has times where they battle with self-doubt even when they don’t look like it. even when we think someone is so confident and they’re so amazing, how could they possibly experience self-doubt? They do.

I actually wrote a poem about the type of girl I want to be, and it appears in my 3rd book coming out in January, but the story behind this poem is that I was thinking about someone I know, someone who is super outgoing and kind and beautiful and everyone just seems to love her. And I was feeling extra insecure this particular day so I wrote a poem about the girl I want to be, which was basically what this person was like. I wish I was this, I wish I was that, this ideal girl in my head. this was over a year ago now, and I posted it on instagram. And the person who inspired the poem, commented and said oh my gosh I feel like this all the time. I want to be like this too. and I was shocked, I had to laugh, I was like no you are so confident there’s no way you feel like this too. 

But that was a really eye-opening moment for me, that everyone experiences self-doubt. 

I’ve found some things that have helped me that I’m going to share, I also asked my followers on instagram to share, so let’s talk about it. unfortunately, there’s no magic wand to wave to make it go away and even when we find things that work, we might not know immediately because self-doubt doesn’t fade quickly either. And just when you think it’s going away, it hits you again.

The thing with working on self-love, with many things related to mental health, is that we might not even realize when we’re improving. Until we look back months, years later and can see the growth we’ve had. So as we talk about things that can help, know that there is unfortunately no quick fix, it’s something we have to focus on and work on but it’s so important because as we’ve already talked about self-doubt can really have a negative impact on how we feel, the things we care about, what we pursue in life. 

There’s been a few things that have helped me. the first one is probably not shocking, it’s writing. Writing and journaling is really therapeutic. And it’s something I’ve always done. And it’s something tangible that you can look back on and see your progress. The times I’ve written about self-doubt, or journaled about something I wasn’t feeling confident with. I think there’s a misconception with journaling that it has to be positive and you have to write about what you’re grateful for and what’s going well in life, and that’s wonderful if you do that, but it can also be so helpful to let out the not so great parts of life too. talk about the bad days and what happened and why you’re feeling that way, and that can be something to look back on when you’re doing better. And say look how far I’ve come, or maybe you come back to it on another bad day and say okay I made it through this before, I can do it again. 

So writing is the first one. And a couple other people said similar things that if you’re watching this on youtube you’ll see on the screen here. Someone said writing out my feelings in my stories and poetry, and knowing this feeling is only the opinion from one. 

Yes, I love that. Thinking about self-doubt in this way. it is just one opinion, one part of me that thinks I can’t do this, and maybe there are other people in our lives we can look to for support. A partner, friend, family members. A response on instagram said talking to my friends who always encourage me and know what I need to hear. So having a support system that you feel comfortable sharing these doubts with is amazing. You don’t have to fight every battle on your own. 

Similarly to writing, a handful of other people said reading, writing and embracing what I was feeling rather than letting it control me. yes, when we let it fester inside and not let it out those feelings just grow stronger and they stay inside of us. Someone else said writing, expressing my thoughts and feelings, doing yoga/meditation and taking walks. A member of the poetry club which is my online poetry community said talking to my lovely poetry community and relating to their own issues with self doubt. Yes, it is so powerful to talk to other people who have similar interests as you that you can talk about tough moments with. So whether you find your community online or in person, and you join a group or build that community yourself, having other people to talk to and listen to can be so powerful. 

And the last one that I loved is patience, practice and perseverance. That is a mantra everyone should take with them from this episode so shoutout to lily for that response. 

Patience – knowing that it will take time to overcome self-doubt and having the patience with yourself to forgive yourself when you have those moments of doubt and the perseverance to push through it. to defy what your own mind is telling you and say I can do this, I am talented, I am good at what I do, I do deserve this amazing thing that happened to me. 

And practice. All of this takes practice. It takes stepping out of your comfort zone and being uncomfortable. This podcast is uncomfortable for me but I know it will get easier. When I started sharing my work online it was incredibly uncomfortable and now I don’t think twice about it. hearing my own voice when I started recording my poems and reading them aloud it took me a dozen or more tries each time because I kept deleting them, and saying this sounds horrible no one will ever want to listen to this. okay flash forward two years I don’t think twice. I have nearly 400,000 followers on tiktok who like my voice and my poems. I got to produce an audiobook an entire book of me reading my poems when I thought not one person would ever want to listen.

It’s amazing what can happen when we ignore that voice in our head and we say I’m going to prove myself wrong. The doubt in my head is telling me to stop but I’m doing it anyway and look what happens. 

And that’s exactly what another reader of mine said, they said “looking at the things I’ve accomplished that I thought would never happen.” 

So as we near the end of today’s episode I have a small step for you. an action to take this week to carry with you, and remember as you might be facing doubts today or this week or with something coming up.

I want you to think about or write down a moment in your life when you were sure you couldn’t do something and you succeeded. I don’t care how small it is or how big it is. Take a few moments to focus on something you accomplished that you thought would never be possible. 

And then once you have something in mind, or you’ve written that something down, why was it possible? What was it about what you did, to make that something happen that you didn’t think was possible?

The first thing that comes to mind for me is any public speaking or presentation I’ve had to give in the past. There were years where I went into total panic mode when I had to speak in front of a group or an audience and every time my brain would be saying you’re going to fail, you’re going to forget everything you’ve planned to say, you’re going to make a fool of yourself, you’re going to trip and fall on your way up to the front of the room, just everything that could go wrong is going to go wrong.

And then I would do it and it would be fine. Every time. sure sometimes it went better than others, and I maybe tripped over a word or two but did anyone else notice or care? No. so eventually, after doing it enough, I got to a point where I was like nothing horribly wrong has ever happened. I know I can do it because I’ve done it before. I know I can do it because I’ve practiced, I’ve put in the work, and now I’m going to crush it. 

And now public speaking isn’t even something I would say is a fear of mine anymore. When if you asked me 5 years ago I would have said it was my biggest fear.

So. Tell me, what is something you have accomplished that you never thought was possible, and why did you succeed? Brag a little. If you’re watching this episode on youtube, I’d love to hear your response in the comments, or tag me on instagram, and don’t be afraid to brag a little. Kick that self-doubt to the curb this week and remember what you’ve accomplished in spite of your self-doubt. 

And I’m going to leave you with a poem from page 111 of my book changing with the tides about being that positive voice for yourself that reminds you are worthy. 

That is all from me today. Thanks for listening to small steps to self love. If you have any questions for me or topic requests, please leave a comment or review, or send me a message on instagram, I’d love to hear from you.  have a great week.