Building self-belief and the gift of experiments
When you’re contemplating making a change in your business, career or life, it’s natural to slip into cycles of procrastination, passiveness or perfectionism.
Your self-doubt alarm lets you know of all the things that could go wrong. That alarm triggers discomfort and the easiest ways to alleviate it can seem to be waiting for the conditions to be perfect, distracting yourself with ‘busy work’ or doing nothing at all.
Telling yourself that one day you will have the confidence to change your career path, quit your job or start your own business can feel reassuring. It allows you to skip past the discomfort and into a pattern which feels more comfortable, familiar and satisfying even.
But the reality is that all the time you’re waiting, you’re experiencing the very sense of failure, disappointment or judgement you’re trying to protect yourself from.
So, what if instead of trying to take a giant leap, you could create smaller, more doable experiments and build your self-trust and confidence along the way?
It’s easy to think that courage is a condition for taking action – “when I feel courageous, I’ll begin” – but the reality is that you’re more likely to create confidence by taking action.
Waiting to know enough or feel ready before you start can mean breaking the self-doubt loop is harder. By not beginning, you can persuade yourself that you’re lacking the bravery or brilliance you need to bring your goals to life.
So, what to do instead?
Embracing experiments can be a helpful step in building self-belief and self-trust. They can help you challenge your perceptions of yourself, gather evidence of what you’re capable of and build new, altogether more helpful, beliefs.
If you’re waiting to start something new or do something different, try an experiment instead.
Design an experiment.
Come up with an experiment of your own, something to play with and learn from. It should feel small and low-risk enough for you to get started and just big enough to feel meaningful.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
If your self-doubt says, “I’m not good enough,” your protective pattern will likely be perfectionism or working hard to prove yourself.
Consider what intentional imperfection might look like. Be open to making mistakes or getting things wrong.
Practice being realistic about how much time you want to spend carrying out a task and only allow yourself to spend that amount of time. If you really want to run 5 miles but only have 30 minutes, run for that length of time instead.
If your self-doubt says, “my needs are not as important as those of the people around me,” you might recognise a pattern of people-pleasing and putting others first.
Consider what putting your needs first could look like.
Practice saying no when you don’t want to do something. Or say yes to something just for you, like 30 minutes curled up in a chair with a cuppa and a favourite magazine.
If you’re prone to overthinking and your self-doubt says, “I don’t have enough information,” you might be familiar with an inner-voice which tells you to wait.
Consider starting before you have all the information.
Practice committing to a date or time for sharing your work. Say it out loud and ask someone else to help keep you accountable.
Remember, the conditions for an experiment don’t need to be perfect. Just get started!
2. Expect some resistance
Experimenting with new behaviours and rewriting old beliefs can be a wild ride. It seems a little unlikely you’ll go full throttle with your first experiment – however small or carefully formed – so knowing you can expect some resistance is a good idea.
When it happens, notice the discomfort and name the emotions and bodily sensations – perhaps a heaviness, a tightening or a jittering – you experience.
Don’t rush beyond the discomfort but receive the intelligence of it. What is the risk you’re facing? What is your inner-protector trying to keep you safe from?
Then soothe yourself. Settle your nervous system in whatever way works best for you and let it pass. This can be tender work so go gently.
3. Notice what happens
Once the experiment is underway, notice what happens – not if it works or necessarily what the outcome is but what you learn in the process.
Stay in curiosity here rather than judgement. Your inner-protector may offer a whole heap of perspectives on what went wrong or how you could have done things better. That’s OK and entirely human but come back to the reason you started the experiment in the first place – to see what could be possible if you dared to try.
What did you do (or not do)?
What do you notice?
How does it feel?
What did you find out about yourself or the world around you?
What did you learn about your ability to tolerate risk?
How did you support yourself to stay calm and grounded as you moved into action?
What small experiments can you create today to build more self-belief and nudge you one step closer to your goal?
The gift of experiments is that they aren’t about what you achieve (though you may be pleasantly surprised!), they are about what happens when you try new things and how you grow along the way.
