So many of us professional women who have succeeded at multiple levels of school, and may even be in powerful or respected positions, are still trying to follow all the rules and the meet expectations. We’re always ready for some external authority to look at our life, and highlight with a red pen everything that we are doing wrong. We talk to ourselves about where we fall short of who and what we want to be.
Is that true for you as well?
At this time of writing, my own self doubt starts:
How do I say what I want to say? Will I find the words? Will I engage the audience in something that matters to them?
Does this line of self questioning sound familiar to you?
I learned a helpful trick for handling the anxiety jumping around in my stomach during my “slow year.” Overstressed from multiple factors, my body shut down and could barely move. I tired easily. Everything felt heavy and extremely difficult. I had to slow down my reality to match body. Eckhart Tolle teaches that we can always handle the moment that we are in. This became my guiding principle. Instead of anticipating the intense fatigue or pain that would come with the entirety of the activity, or face the pain and fatigue worrying that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, I focused on exactly what I was doing in that very moment. I learned to handle each micro moment as it evolved.
Too often, you get stuck in a negativity loop, questioning, doubting, feeling the anxiety which escalates your doubt. Negativity narrows your focus, you see only a narrow path ahead of you.
So, how do you open the path to wider possibilities?
You can learn to trust yourself in this moment and to have faith in your future self. You have to believe that who you are in the next moment, hour, day, year, decade, will be someone who can handle each thing as it comes.
So, I respond to myself, “Trust yourself. Keep writing, keep engaging with the thoughts and the words, and it will come. Give it the time and attention, and something will emerge. Keep going, just keep writing, and something will connect. You’ve done it before, and you will do it again.”
Now that I am fast again like everyone else, I remember these tips when the self questioning starts:
It takes time to develop new strategies and habits of thinking. Be patient. It’s always okay to start over again exactly where you are right now.
Coaching customizes a conversation for you that engages you in having your own insights your own process for believing in yourself. Get in touch with me for a complimentary session.