There’s a voice inside your head doubting your own greatness that is lying to you. It’s telling you that you’re not good enough, it compares you to other people in a way that gives you anxiety. And when you believe this voice as the truth, you doubt the greatness that you really have inside. In fact, self-doubt not only limits your true greatness, it impacts your success because of how it reflects in your relationships, how you cope with challenges, and especially, how and what you actually listen for (more of this later.)
What is Your Greatness?
Your greatness is the gifts you have that people love about you. It’s the things you’re naturally gifted at and enjoy doing. It’s your feeling of inner strength and confidence that helps you be in persistent pursuit of meaningful goals. Your greatness is your most authentic self, an alter-ego, the superhero that you have inside you. It’s the best version of yourself as a human being, friend, family member, neighbor, and leader.
When you’re living in your greatness, you don’t let that inner voice that says you’re not enough to control you. You still have that voice inside, but you develop the skills to turn the volume down, overcome the anxiety that voice brings you, and live in a world that, although is slightly uncomfortable, is extremely rewarding. Your greatness is just knowing and owning the gifts you have and the leader that you are and not believing the voice that says you’re not enough.
For example,
- If you’re a leader – your gifts are influencing and caring for people and finding satisfaction in helping them with their problems.
- If you’re a salesperson – your gifts are most likely that you are really great at building relationships.
- If you’re a writer – you are excellent at communicating good ideas on paper.
Impacts of Doubting Your Greatness
What causes us to not achieve what we care about is that we don’t own our greatness. The greatest impact of that is that we don’t listen to the feedback that would contribute to us owning and living in our greatness.
It gets worse when we’re stressed or feel anxiety because we doubt our ability even more. When we doubt our ability, it cripples the potential actions that we could take that impacts not only us, but the relationships we have. Additionally, it impacts our independence and ability to do things we typically could do with ease (and better then other people). We also withhold our true self which impacts how we contribute to our work, to our families and to our society. Withholding our greatness affects our awareness of the needs of people around us that we have the ability to contribute to. We’re stuck in feelings that hold us back versus owning our greatness to help the needs of other people and reach our own true potential.
The Problem: You Just Don’t Listen to Feedback
When we doubt our greatness, the most important thing we need to remember is that we don’t listen. We don’t listen because we don’t appreciate the gifts we’ve been given. If we really appreciated the gifts we have, then we would be open to feedback. Feedback is what makes us great, it’s the information we need the most to enhance our greatness. We would see our greatness as a gift that we would want to take care of and instead of personalizing feedback, we would openly and warmly welcome it.
What Holds Us Back- Denial
What holds us back from our greatness, is denial. We deny what we have and we stop playing. We stop creating, and we feel like we have to have more control. Everything has to go the way we want it to go. And if you’re denying your greatness, then you’re not appreciating it. If you appreciated what you have you wouldn’t be so controlling. You would feel more relaxed.
How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness in 3 Steps
Realize that you’re already there. People who are confident (because the own the gifts they have) are artists. When creating things, they know they have something that is a gift and they aren’t afraid to keep playing despite struggles, despite mistakes, despite uncomfortable feedback.
To stop doubting your greatness, you need to
- Identify & Own the Greatness You Already Have. Appreciate that you’re already there. Once you truly own your greatness you’ll see a shift in yourself, you’ll be less controlling, more artistic, and more flexible. Your flexibility and creativity has been buried underneath the self doubt. That’s when creativity kicks in. That’s the confidence you need to play in life a little bit more. Be fun and bold and know you already have everything it takes to be successful, you just gotta own it and know that it’s there inside.
- RELAX & GET CLEAR Celebrate yourself more, cut yourself some slack. Wake up every day to understand what it is you have to bring. Get clear on what strengths and gifts you have, what you care about and what you want.
- Experiment. Stay creative, and keep trying new things. Understand that people want the best for you. Listen for their feedback. Find ways to dive into your greatness by getting on film or start writing and get it out there.
Doubting your greatness is an area in emotional intelligence called self-perception. It’s how you regard yourself. How you respect your own strengths and listen to your inner voice. High self-regard is what gives you feelings of strength and inner confidence. Low self-regard leads you to ask yourself questions like “am I good/smart/strong enough (to take this new action on)?” and will impact the actions that you will take or not take towards a future goal or achievement. Healthy self-regard coupled with a growth mindset will help you overcome the level of uncomfortableness you need to take on a new challenge.
