A lack of faith in oneself is otherwise known as self-doubt. It is one of the most dangerous things that make people get rid of many opportunities, both in personal and professional lives. While you are in a race toward achieving professional goals, self-doubt is often seen chasing you. According to surveys, adult professionals experience self-doubt every day up to 6 times. At least 14% of adults working in various fields are doubting themselves and concerned about their abilities to succeed. The feeling of self-doubt is not at all uncommon, and it cripples people's abilities to dream big. It also makes you not celebrate big wins, making you feel like they are normal. This is especially hard for managers as it creates a barrier on their paths to being confident and assertive in their roles.
So, why does self-doubt occur? Let’s get to the bottom of it.
Moments of Self-doubt and the Reasons Behind:
Imagine this, you have been a contributor in your professional space for a long time. One day your senior shows up and tells you that you will be managing a team from now on. It is exciting and makes you happy, but at the same time, something lingers at the back of your mind. What is that? That is what we identify as self-doubt.
- One of the most popular questions that people who experience self-doubt often ask themselves is whether they are good enough to lead others. Now, this can be a legitimate question to ask yourself if you lack experience. Although in most cases it is not the situation, it just points out your lack of confidence in your abilities and skills.
- Another popular thing that underconfident people often go through is imposter syndrome. This is a psychological experience where you start to doubt your skills, intellect, and accomplishments, etc. when you are in a room with high-achieving individuals. This will often lead you to think that you are just pretending to be a manager, or you can never be as good as others.
- People who experience self-doubt often have a fear of messing things up. Imagine a scenario where you have to hire someone for your team. But you are fearing for what if that is the wrong person. Because the risk is too high, it increases doubt in your mind, making you shy away from taking charge.
Conclusively, self-doubt is a feeling about not being good enough for anything. As a manager, this can create some serious problems in your professional life because your confidence in how you lead your team is directly related to its success as well. Now, let's figure out how you can omit self-doubt as a manager.
Removing Self-doubt as a Manager:
As managers deal with a lot more responsibilities, there are plenty of opportunities where self-doubt can be lurking in the corner. Here are ways you can stop them:
- Locus of control refers to the perception of an individual about the underlying primary causes of the events in his or her life. If you have that, you are most likely to blame yourself for everything that goes wrong. So, a balance is required. You need to understand when the problem is you and when the problem is related to the world revolving around you.
- If you think that you are the cause of every problem, it also means you can be the solution too. This starts with being sure about yourself and instead of internalizing the moments, start treating them as gaps that you can easily fill.
You can crush self-doubt only when you realize that you are not a superhero who can do everything. So, consider your limits and boundaries whenever you are taking up a new task.
