Doubt.

Good ol’ doubt.

How many of you can identify with either struggling with doubt or actually identify with “being a doubter”??

HERE’S A THOUGHT: Did you know doubt is a learned, survival technique?

You weren’t actually born with the skill.

You’ve learned it.

And you’ve really only mastered it by choice. So ultimately,

DOUBT IS A CHOICE.

You unconsciously learned it. Then you subconsciously mastered it. And you’ve progressed from having doubts to actually considering yourself “a doubter”. You begin walking around as a doubter. You remind your friends that you’re a doubter. And ultimately, you “feed the monster”.

Here’s the hard part… once you identify with being a doubter, it becomes difficult to do anything different. You’re so routined and versed in worst case scenarios and a bit of a pessimistic approach that when the time comes to dream, draw outside the lines of life, try something new, embrace change or anything outside the norm, you’ll freeze and begin to push back because it doesn’t fit in the “doubt box” you’ve created. You’ve taught yourself how to be an internal doubter and therefor you execute from a place of doubt.

Lemme ask you this: How is your doubt serving you? Like, what is it actually giving you? How is it making you better? How is it enhancing the lives of those around you?

Exactly. It’s not.

So how do you stop doubting?

Well, STEP ONE: you first have to acknowledge and accept the fact that it is learned. It is not your identity. It is not your lot in life. It is learned. Which means, you can unlearn it.

STEP TWO: once you give yourself permission to unlearn it, you have to ask yourself, what do I WANT to learn instead. What do you WANT to learn? You’ve got to give yourself something real enough and important enough to grab onto? You’ve learned a decent amount about doubt, but now you get to consider learning something else that will actually benefit you. Dreaming. Trusting. Faith. Creativity. Problem solving. It doesn’t necessarily matter what it is as long as it’s not doubt. That way when the doubt tries to creep back in (because it will), you consciously remind the doubt (your own mind and thoughts) that you no longer choose doubt but rather trust. Or dreaming. Or faith.

STEP THREE: Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over again. The only way you begin to trust more is to do it, more. The only way you begin to dream more is to do it, again and again, and again. The only way to be more creative or better at solving problems is to. Do. It. More. So every time doubt pops up, consider it a blessing in disguise because it’s only there to help you get better at choosing something else other than doubt itself. I’m a firm believer that God and the universe opens up an opportunity for us to consciously choose a better life. We pray to “doubt less” and then he gives us the opportunities to learn how to do that. And the only way to learn something new is to repeatedly do it over and over and over again until you become better and better and better at it. In those moments, as long as you don’t resist it or push it away but rather offer up gratitude and can embrace it, then you can literally forge new habits and routines and a mindset that serves a progressive better.

It is a choice. Pick your hard.

(More truth bombs and permission to think a different way at our Women’s “(get) OVER it” event: Sept 12-15. CHECK IT OUT and find your path to losing doubt)

#doyou #livepurposed #livetrust #getOVERit #rethink #onethoughtaway #pickyourhard