I can’t tell you how many dreams and adventures I’ve turned a cold shoulder to, because of doubting myself. Having self-doubt was part of my daily routine at one point in my life.

Self-doubt can make taking chances and conquering milestones in life fearful. Especially when you don’t have a support group around you.

FEAR paralyzed me for so many years, because of what I thought I knew people would say or think of me if I failed. The reality is, people, don’t care half as much about you as you think they do. 

So how did I get over these gloomy days? Journaling! Believe it or not, I was safe in my self-doubt, it was my constant. But journaling, it made me accountable for the way I was treating myself.

When I wrote in my journals I started to notice a few things that begin to change my way of thinking.  So, let me share with you the 5 Incredible Ways Journaling helps Self-Doubt and helped me to move forward in my life.

Not winning

Of course, we all have downfalls and every time we don’t win, and we all respond to them differently. With journaling, I began to use my failures as momentum, versus labeling myself as a failure. Using my lows as my learning experience.  It’s like take what you need from this lesson and keep moving forward.

No Pretending 

It gives a real record of how life is going. In a way, you can say it’s like a record keeper. Keeping chronological time stamps of all things positive and negative that’s happened in my life. This was great for me because it would disrupt my habit of only remembering things with a negative twist and playing the blame game and acting like a victim when I wasn’t.

Clarity

I found myself often times writing out my worse case scenarios in my journal, and quite frankly they didn’t make sense, realistically. In the moment I’m sure we all have had this and it makes sense at that time. Going back and re-reading journals I could clearly see a solution to most of the problems I was having. 

Work

No, I’m not talking about working as in staying busy, I mean working on self. As journaling became a daily routine in my life I knew I had to carve time out to work on me in areas that needed improvement one trait at a time. For example, speaking over people when I was having an anxiety attack. Journaling gave me clarity over time to spot this problem study it, and change how I respond in those situations.

Give Thanks and Celebrate

I know what you’re thinking, you can celebrate self-doubt? Yes, you can. For every small victory I had, or every time there was a circumstance and I did not immediately think the worst or have an anxiety attack, I celebrated. Sometimes it was picking up my favorite ice cream.

Other times I celebrated by getting a facial over the weekend. If there was progress, even at the smallest level, it deserved praise. 

What do you think about these? Have you tried these before? I’d love to know your thoughts and maybe some things you have tried.

To brighter futures,