***BLOG

Have you ever watched a baby and really observed how it behaves when it attempts to walk or talk? Do you think that if it falls down after taking a step that it thinks to itself, “bloody hell that’s it, I’m useless, I’m never going to try and walk again”? Do you think that if it can’t pronounce a word that it thinks the same thing? Ok sure, babies become frustrated when they can’t do what they want to do, but that is not negativity or self doubt. That is just a natural reaction when the baby finds something difficult. Self doubt is not even in a baby’s thought process....yet! It takes years of input from parents and other people for self doubt to be cultivated into something truly debilitating.
Of course, all emotions and their resulting behaviours are natural defence mechanisms, but it’s when that behaviour actually stops us from trying anything new, or living a fulfilled life that we can see it has become distorted from its original intention...which is to protect us. Well, it hasn’t actually moved away from its original intention, all that has happened is that a sense of danger has been imprinted onto the totally harmless experience we call “failure”. This is also one of the processes that causes phobias.

So what does self doubt protect us from?

Self doubt can be caused by many different things. If a child isn’t supported or encouraged enough, it will not develop a healthy confidence in its abilities. Conversely, if a child is put under too much pressure to succeed and perform, this could become internalised in the subconscious as “failure is bad, I mustn’t try this in case I fail”. Another way we can develop self doubt is if we are told or made to feel that we are useless, so in this case we genuinely do not believe in our abilities. Our self talk in this case could be “I can’t do this so I’m not even going to try because I will fail”. All of these causes will produce the same end results...an unwillingness and fear of trying anything new. So self doubt is largely protecting us from failure, humiliation and rejection.

There are many ways to heal these damaging beliefs. During hypnotherapy we can change those beliefs at the root, helping the subconscious to let go of them whilst replacing them with more beneficial ones. One way you can start to overcome them right now is to always remember the baby’s mentality if you begin to feel doubts of fear. Really try and get into the way it sees the world. It does not see failure, all it sees is something it wants to do and it will keep trying until it succeeds, it sees wonder and awe in everything. You see, failure is just a word, it is judgement that we have placed on something that we experience. It is neither good nor bad and babies prove this point beautifully. It really is up to you how you experience “failure”.
Think about it this way, what will actually happen if you try something and it doesn’t work? Absolutely NOTHING!! Ok so you may feel bad for a while, but you haven’t died, or been rejected by all your friends. If it’s something you really want to do just keep trying until you do it, one thing is for sure is that if you do keep trying, your skills will improve so much that success will be highly probable. And if you don’t succeed, so what... because by trying this new thing you have enriched your life beyond anything that went before it, your mind has been expanded, you have learnt new skills.

So...be like a baby and do it!