Living with self-doubt and fears is part of life. The strength of your self-doubt will rise and fall and bringing fears under reasonable control is not always straightforward. Rubbing along, living with your self-doubt and fears is a fact of life, but sometimes you can contain and even befriend your fears. If you are to step up successfully it is important that you recognise and understand your doubts and fears. Sometimes you just have to learn to live with them. Your fears may well diminish over time and it is possible to reach an equilibrium where your fears do not get in the way of whatever success is important to you.
If you do not understand your self-doubt and fears, your behaviour can be distorted. You can reach a road block to your progress that stops you getting anywhere near achieving your full potential. Understanding your self-doubt and fears can be a painful process as it means being utterly honest with yourself and facing up to the action you need to take.
Self-doubt is something many of us just have to live with, but it can give us useful messages and can diminish its impact over time. Finlay Scott, chief executive of the General Medical Council, talks about the combination of self-doubt and self-belief. He says:
Self-doubt can haunt you. You need the confidence to lead in difficult situations and the recognition that most of what you do is right. But self-doubt does have the benefit of leading you to drive to do better and to take precautions against things going wrong. It means you can see the weaknesses and the risks, and are aware of needing to see the consequences of decisions. Self-doubt does not need to paralyse, it can be a valuable tool.
The fear of failure can be a powerful force for good or for ill. It can drain you of energy and whittle away your enthusiasm and optimism. It can drive you to solve problems and ensure that you take the steps that are necessary to ensure success.
There can often be a difference between your outer world of confidence and your inner world of doubt or vulnerability. Being honest about your vulnerabilities provides an essential starting point for moving on. What practical steps can you take to get your fears and vulnerabilities into proportion? These might include:
Talking to close family members.
Sharing your fears with close friends.
Doing something different like walking, swimming or reading a novel.
Moving completely away from the context that causes the fear.
Being deliberately in the place that causes the fear and seeing how you best control it.
Thinking of those whose fear is far more acute than your own.
Fear can be a good thing, up to a point! Fear can create a rush of adrenalin, which gives you the energy to get out of a difficult situation. If there were no fear you could end up making rash decisions, insensitive to the likely reactions of others. On the other hand, fear can also produce a damaging paralysis that inhibits progress into a more secure position.
It can be helpful to be frank about the fears that worry you most. Write them down and then score them on a scale of one to ten, where one is illusory and ten is highly likely. Then you can ask yourself:
When is each fear at its worst?
What are the warning signs that this fear might burst out?
What in the past has reduced the size of the fear?
Addressing your fears is not about ignoring them, it is about defining them and understanding them. Looking at fear from a variety of angles can help you to understand it and contain it.
If you wake up afraid at 4 a.m.:
Be explicit about what the fear is.
Perhaps write it down, with three reasons for the fear being there.
Note down three ways in which the fear could be addressed.
Identify three reasons it is not as acute as it might at first appear.
Later in the day, take another look at the notes you made:
Are the reasons for the fear still there?
Has the fear increased or diminished throughout the day?
Have you been able to apply any of the ways to address the fear?
Are there practical steps you can take to reduce the fear further?
Fear can be seriously overrated. Most of our worst fears never happen. In his book The Gathering Storm (Penguin, 2005), Winston Churchill wrote about the early days of the Second World War:
When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his death bed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.
Henry has a tendency to imagine dire consequences arising out of problems, real or perceived, in his working life. This imagining of dire consequences causes mental anguish, meaning it is harder to concentrate on other things. He sometimes 'catastrophises', whereby small incidents can be built up into potential major crises. For example, a document that has been mislaid is immediately regarded as likely to be in the hands of a critical journalist, when it is most likely to have got mixed up with other papers. In Henry's office a comment to a colleague becomes viewed as a remark that could be misconstrued and likely to lead to a breakdown in their relationship. The one small mistake is pictured as likely to lead to the end of a career.
Practical steps that work for Henry in these circumstances include:
Writing out the line to take if he is challenged.
Sharing the problem and talking it through with a third party.
Getting the timetable clear about next steps and trying to control it.
Focusing on what he needs to do now and not being distracted.
Henry talks about the increased level of self-awareness that comes from acknowledging his emotional reactions; even if he cannot stop 'catastrophising', it helps to know that this is what he is doing. His strategy is a combination of observing himself and being conscious of when the trigger point might happen, coupled with going for long walks at the weekend and taking regular exercise. When there is a growing sense of making a mountain out of a molehill, Henry has learned the art of deep breathing, whether sitting still or standing upright. His key questions to himself are:
Am I doing the things I can control?
Am I pacing things right, involving people who can help but resisting the temptation to tell everyone near me what I am worrying about?
Is there a mantra I can use, such as 'Do what you can and then park the issue and focus hard on the next thing'?
During challenging times, it can be hard to admit what you cannot do; this can feel like an admission of failure. However, the ability to be honest with yourself is a considerable leadership strength. Central to this is recognising when you may be about to 'lose it'. Powerful emotions like disappointment, resentment, exhaustion, anger or fear can fundamentally affect your ability to do things logically or to act rationally. If fears lead you to feel you are closing down, lacking confidence or blaming others, then remember these key steps:
Acknowledge your problem: be honest with yourself that you are in danger of becoming emotionally over-whelmed and accept that it is affecting your judgement and behaviour.
Evaluate the impact: assess the importance of the situation and how your reaction is affecting your work and the people around you.
Step away: take a break from the situation, however short. This can mean walking around the block and having a coffee, or deciding to delegate a task to someone else.
Deal with reality and face the issues. Blanking your fears may mean that you have tunnel vision. While a clear focus is crucial, tunnel vision can mean that you do not understand where colleagues and stakeholders are coming from and do not reflect enough on who you should be talking to and listening to. You achieve clarity by getting a balance between articulating, listening and being available. Remember to give yourself space and time to reflect. Whatever your self-doubts or fears in a particular situation, you must strive to remain objective and try to make sure that your information is good enough to support the decisions you make. Triangulating your perspective with the views of trusted others is one of the most effective ways of keeping your fears in reasonable proportion.
Living with your fears may mean having a clear mantra such as 'Face the week and make the most of it' or 'I do not do failures: I am not going to fail'. Another approach is to befriend your fears and regard them as an ally. When the gremlin on your left shoulder whispers that you are inadequate or doomed to failure, maybe you can thank it for providing a warning of potential problems or box it in so that its undermining effect can be restrained. Humouring the gremlin and trying to laugh at its ridiculous suggestions can create an inner dialogue that is much less damaging than you might have feared.
There is a fascinating inter-relationship between love and fear. The Apostle John wrote, 'There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear.' Perhaps the best antidote to fear is a combination of the bonds of love shared with family and friends, companionship with trusted colleagues and the support that comes through mentoring or coaching relationships.
A key step in raising your game is to reach equilibrium with your self-doubts and your fears. This is not about dismissing them completely, it is about recognising that they exist and living with them. It is having practical steps to take when a situation feels scary. Box 9, on the following page sets out some illustrative steps to take when a problem feels scary.
