Five Affirmations to Help You Overcome Self-Doubt

How often have you found yourself feeling like you are not quite right in a situation? Maybe you are suffering from some kind of imposter syndrome.

Imposter syndrome is something that is considerably more common for women to experience than men, and when they do, it is easy to become clouded in self-doubt.

You may find yourself questioning your abilities and worth.

Or you may find yourself questioning whether you deserve the place that you hold – which may be in the workplace or your professional industry. Maybe you feel like you’re not quite good enough to be a part of an extra-curricular activity like a sports team, club or group that you belong to. Maybe you’re a new mother and you find that you are questioning your abilities as a parent and your instincts when you are around other mothers.

Whether you have tried to incorporate affirmations into your daily life or not, I would seriously urge you to start. Your self-talk has a huge impact on how you see yourself, and if you are telling yourself that you may not be “the one” in certain areas of your life, then that is probably impacting the level of self-doubt that you have.

Words are powerful, and when your self-talk is positive, it can help you move past any doubt that you have in yourself. Here are 5 affirmations that you can use to help you overcome your self-doubt and put imposter syndrome behind you.

1. Your ideas matter

One of the saddest burdens of imposter syndrome and self-doubt is that you feel like the things that you say don’t matter. You feel like they don’t matter because you have doubts about how important or relevant they are. Or you may feel like they don’t matter because you can’t explain them as clearly as other people can.

Regardless of whether any of those things are actually true,  your ideas DO matter.

Remind yourself that they matter. Whatever ideas you bring to the table are yours, and the way you back them up or discuss them with people gives you the chance to help them grow. Everybody has a unique perspective of life. Your perspective is important and should be treated as such, and your ideas help to communicate the perspective that you have.

So remember: your ideas matter because your perspective matters!

2. Your voice is worth listening to

This one is a biggie! Self-doubt can make you feel like you need to keep your mouth shut because nothing you have to say is actually worth listening to.

That could not be further from the truth.

It is important to remind yourself that your voice is worth listening to because there are likely to be a lot of situations where you feel like you are being silenced. You may feel like your voice isn’t worth listening to in a corporate or academic setting (something that commonly happens to young people and women). You may have people in your life that ignore your unique perspective, making you feel like the things you say aren’t worth hearing. That is not a reflection of you, and you should not allow that experience to affect the worth that you see in yourself!

3. You are smart

“Smart” can take many forms. You may consider being “smart” as making sound choices or well thought out decisions. You may immediately hear the phrasing “smart” and associate it with intelligence, knowledge, and instinct. However you interpret the word “smart,” you should remember that there is no one way to think or be, and your self-doubt doesn’t determine how smart you are.

4. Your knowledge is valuable

I am of the firm belief that everybody has valuable knowledge, no matter who they are. We all have unique experiences, perspectives, and insight into the world we live in. Nobody has the same experiences, perspectives and insights into the world as you. Even people who grow up in the same household have completely different perspectives of the world that they live in. All of that knowledge is valuable.

Your self-doubt may challenge the idea that the knowledge you possess had value. Your individual understanding of the world has significant value, as does the knowledge that you bring to the table. When you do doubt yourself, it is important to remember that nobody else knows quite the same things that you do. That is what makes your knowledge so valuable. It is uniquely yours!

5. You are confident and competent

Self-doubt has a major impact on how cofident you are in yourself. This means that you lose confidence in all of the things that make you special. It isn’t just a matter of taking a few punches to the ego – you begin to doubt every aspect of your self worth as your confidence deteriorates.

When self-doubt sets in, you begin to feel incompetent, and your confidence deteriorates, causing your feelings of incompetence to grow, and your confidence to dimish further, and so on. The cycle becomes vicious and before you know it, you are trapped believing that you have no worth.

This affirmation helps to vocalise that you are in fact confident and competent.

When you first begin to use it, you may not feel entirely convinced. It is important to remember that your confidence doesn’t need to be 100% for it to still be there! A spark is enough to start a fire, and reminding yourself that you are in fact confident and competent and help both grow.

Words have such a significant impact on us, and the way we talk to ourselves matters immensely.

Often when you say something out loud you are more likely to believe it, which is why incorporating affirmations into your day can be a powerful tool of self-care. You don’t have to chant these things to yourself, or meditate on a single phrase for long periods of time if that is not your thing.

The way you use these affirmations can be as simple or complex as you see fit. If you haven’t tried affirmations in your day yet, start by repeating them to yourself in front of the mirror.

Treat them like reminders that you are telling yourself.

You may do them only once a day, or you may do them whenever you have a spare moment to yourself.

However you do choose to use tese affirmations, let them serve as reminders that your self-doubt has no real power over you!