Doubt is and it is insidious. We all face it… or try and run from it, but it’s always hovering if it isn’t present in some form of strength. What do we do with doubt? Actually… what IS doubt? Webster says that doubt is: “uncertainty of belief or opinion that often interferes with decision-making.” A simpler way of stating it is that doubt is “a lack of confidence”. And this ‘lack’ makes it difficult to act – that’s the primary problem: doubt handling us rather than us handling doubt.
For some people doubt is totally incapacitating, interfering with rational decision making. Because doubt does not necessarily have any relationship to logic or even fact, a kind of crippling condition that can consume. But if we ignore or deny or attempt to avoid/evade doubt – it grows. And the growth of doubt makes it doubly hard to deal with. The close mate of doubt is worry. Are you a worrier? Does your doubt lead you to worry… or does your worry lead you to doubt?
Facing doubt head on typically is the only way to disperse it. The issue is one of control – you, leading to resolution or doubt leading to panic. So how do you meet it? You take a good hard look at the ‘why‘ of your doubt. What is the foundation for the doubt? Perhaps something IS happening that is warning you not to continue or to take a different avenue. If you change how you react to doubt you may have discovered a new way to respond to changes in your environment.
Doubt actually does have positive benefits as long as you aren’t reacting with panic or fear to your doubts.Panic or fear only leads to chaos and accomplishes nothing. By contrast, when you discover the ‘why’ the doubt exists then you can take corrective steps based on the best possible resolution. In this latter scenario – it is you who is handling rather than being handled by doubt.
…but what do you think?
