Episode #156

Self Doubt & CBT

Self-doubt can be a cruel and crippling spiral of thoughts that can deeply affect your daily life.

How can CBT help with the plague of self-doubt?

What specific tools can you start using today to find relief from self-doubt?

Join me, Dr Julie, as I share with you the powerful ways Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help you challenge and change your self-doubt.

Click to listen now!

 
 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So I hope you're all doing well. I appreciate you being here. And I wanted to talk today about self-doubt, which sucks, huh? It sucks doubting yourself. And a lot of my clients bring this issue to session. And I thought this would be a good thing to talk about because I think it shows itself in many different forms, in how you doubt yourself regarding relationships, your ability to cope in the world, reaching your goals, many things that you might question instead of just going for it. What if this happens? What if that happens? A lot of anxiety can get it in the way that can create you to feel the self-doubt that's causing problems for you. So I thought, I always tell you guys I'm really big on words because I think just a word, sometimes I'll pick out from something a client shares and they'll be like, Oh, you heard that, huh? And I'm like, Yeah, what did you mean by that?

Can you define? That's a tool in itself with CBT is defining the words that you're using. What does that actually mean? And what's the underlying thought regarding that? What are the other hot thoughts we're going to find out? Because self-doubts is a common issue that can really undermine your confidence, decision-making, and again, your overall well-being, your everyday life stuff. And it's not surprising, I should say. Cbt is really effective, highly effective in managing and reducing your self-doubts by, as always, addressing your negative thought patterns, and reinforcing more balanced rational alternative thoughts. So it's always going back to the same tools, but maybe looking at it a little differently. So CBT can address self-doubt by first, obviously, identifying your negative thought patterns, right? So it comes from all of your automatic thoughts, which I've talked about many times. And some hot thoughts that are related to your self-doubt could be that, I'm not good enough. I'll fail anyway, others are better than me. Right? These are your hot thoughts. These are your thoughts that are not 100% true. So remember, all of our thoughts are automatic thoughts, and your thoughts are either facts, they're 100% true, or they're half thoughts, which are like the ones I just mentioned.

And being able to first recognize, Oh, that's a hot thought. Because when you practice enough, you're going to get really good at this. I'll have clients say something out loud and they're like, oh, I know that's a hot thought. And I'm like, good for you. You're seeing it, you're picking it out fast. The quicker we can identify our hot thoughts, the quicker we can challenge the self-doubts we have about ourselves and make some differences. Now, another part of this with your automatic thoughts, and I've talked about this before also on another podcast, is recognizing your cognitive distortions. So the thoughts I already shared, like I'm not good enough, I'll fail anyway, others are better than me. That would be an over generalization, right? It's just everything. Others are better than me, right? Catastrophic thinking, super common. Mind reading, right? What others are going to think. Fortune telling, right? I'm already determining that I'm going to fail anyway, right? Mental filters when you focus on the negative. All or nothing thinking, right? Very black and white. You're judging yourself. You're labeling yourself that you're going to be a failure, that you're not good enough. That's all.

There's so many cognitive distortions that get in the way of having better thinking, and we want to be able to identify those as well, right? So when you can say, I know I'm over generalizing, that's going to be helpful for you to be able to change the way you're thinking. If I'm over generalizing, I need to get a little more specific. If I'm having catastrophic thoughts, then I need to really address these hot thoughts so I can have more balanced thinking. I don't want to do mind reading. I don't want to do fortune telling because that's just going to feed my anxiety because I'm just making these huge assumptions about how things are going to turn out, and I have no idea until it happens. But I can prepare myself for the moment. I can prepare myself for the event so that I can do my best, which increases my self-confidence and will decrease your self-doubt. So that's where the thought record is. Thought record forever, as I say. I use them every day. I remind my clients all the time. Remember, I use these every day. What I'm teaching you, I have as many negative thoughts.

I have as many automatic thoughts as all of you guys do. And I have to be on top of them as well and identify my hot thoughts and come up with better thoughts. So it's not like, Oh, I got it now. I'm good. This is just the way I want your your brain to be. I want your brain to be a thought record. My brain is a thought record. And it just takes practice and really setting some time aside every day to really practice these tools so they become automatic. I tell a lot of my clients, I think they get overwhelmed sometimes when they get the workbook and they start working on things. Everybody's got things going on. I work with a lot of people that are students or full-time employees, running businesses, full-time parents. Whatever you're doing in your life, you're a busy person, probably. You got a lot going on, a lot of other stressors. And then you're thinking, Oh, my God, I have to do this homework. So I tell my clients, If you can do 30 minutes a day, which I think most of us can find 30 minutes, if we make it important to do the homework, to practice the exercises, you will get this down and it will not take long.

I promise you that. So I wouldn't ask you anything I wouldn't be willing to do myself. So taking time to learn how to do the thought record, which helps you identify your moods, your thoughts, your hot thoughts, and create better thinking, it will make all the difference in the world for you. And I want you to be self-confident, and I don't want self-doubt to get in the way. So once you identify what your hot thoughts are, you want to say, What evidence do I have that supports this doubt? And what evidence do I have that contradicts it? You want to replace these irrational beliefs with more realistic, balanced thoughts. An example might be like, I might not be perfect, but I am capable and have succeeded before. Another one regarding others are better than me, right? That there are others that may do certain things better or more skilled than me, and there's things that I can do better than others, and I need to focus on what I want to do well and what's important to me. So that's looking for the evidence that it's like, Well, yeah, of course, there's people that are better than me regarding certain things that they can do.

And obviously, I am better other than others. We're regarding certain things I can do. That's looking for the evidence and having more of those balanced thoughts. That's what really changes how we're feeling and really changes that brain chemistries as well. And you always want to do some behavioral experiments. Remember, C, B, T. I tell people, I know we talk about thoughts all the time, but B is the behavior part, and it's really important. And you want to create some experiments, being very intentional about how can I test my new thoughts so that I can believe them even more? And testing doubts in real life. What would that look like? That would look like taking on a challenge despite feeling inadequate. This is going to help disprove the rational fears and build the confidence. Taking a challenge despite feeling inadequate. What would that look like to you regarding what would be a challenge that would help me feel more confident and not doubt myself? If I think I'm not capable of, say, doing a 5K run, right? You want to start working out, you like running, we're not signing up for a marathon yet, right? But a 5K, you probably could handle that, right?

That would be a challenge. I'm going to find one in my neighborhood, find one in my city. I'm going to sign up, I'm going to start running every day, pacing myself, building up my endurance, and then be able to do that 5K, not even worry about the time, just can I finish? That would be a challenge. Another challenge, if you have social anxiety, might be, I'm going to say hi to 10 people today. I'm going to have good eye contact. Am I going to have a conversation? I'm just going to say hi. I'm going to be friendly. I'm going to smile and see how people respond back to me. Most likely, they'll smile back. They'll say, Hello, how are you? That's the challenge you can take even though you're feeling inadequate. Like, I I don't know how to have conversations with strangers, or I don't know how to keep the conversation going when I'm in a group. That's a big concern. A lot of people doubt themselves regarding their ability to do that, right? Or I can't handle the anxiety I'm going to feel when I have to get on that airplane because I don't like to fly, right?

There's a challenge. What can I do before I get on the plane? Doing a thaw record, coming up with balanced thoughts, creating a comfortable space. Wear comfortable clothing, download a movie, bring a book, whatever you want to do. If you want to take a nap while you're on the plane, bring a blanket for yourself, maybe even a little travel pillow. What can I do to succeed in the situation to be most comfortable? And then the challenge is I'm going to go on the plane and I'm going to get to where I want to go and go visit the people I want to see, right? And enjoy that time. That would be a challenge. So I'm just throwing out different ideas. That's a big one going on a plane. But a smaller one might be to say hi to 10 people today, or sign up for that 5K, or going to an exercise class and being in a group with other people instead of just going to the gym, having your headphones on and never looking up at anybody. The challenge in an exercise class might be that I'll say to high to three people in the class, or I'll go up to the instructor after and just say, Thank you for a good class.

I appreciate that, or can ask you a question about this one thing we were doing. So Just be creative and say, What am I doing, or what am I not doing, I'm sorry, in my life? Where is my self-doubts getting in the way? And what would I like to do? And how can I create an experiment so I can test my doubts in real life, real time, and say, I'm okay. I can handle this. I can keep growing. I can keep building on this and feel better about myself. You also always want to have some self-compassion. It's always good to have some positive affirmations, which is different than positive thinking because I tell you that doesn't work. But the self-compassion is learning to treat yourself with kindness rather than with criticism. And this can strengthen your self-worth. And an affirmation might be like, I'm learning and I'm growing every day. And this can gradually reshape your self-perception. So that would be a new thought to yourself, right? That would be an alternative thought to that I can't do anything. The affirmation/alternative thought would be, I am learning and growing every day. And that's something to say to yourself on a daily basis.

I recommend all the time when we want to repeat new thoughts that are more balanced for ourselves to get better is write it on one of those small or whatever size you want post-it note. Stick it on your bathroom mirror so every time you brush your teeth, morning, night, you're going to it. Put it on your little visor in your car. Put it maybe on your pantry and your kitchen so when you open up the door, you're going to see it. We really need visual reminders when we're trying to make changes about how we're thinking. We can't just say it once and say, Oh, yeah, that's a good new thought. You're not going to remember it. What was that that I wanted to say to myself? How did it sound? I can't remember now. Now I'm stressed. I'm feeling anxious. I can't get back to that thought, right? That's what's going to happen. So we want to write it down and have visual reminders of the things that we want to say to ourselves to create more confidence in ourselves and feel better about ourselves, and that's something you can do. Mindfulness and acceptance, also some great CBT tools that you can always use.

Being able to accept uncertainty, which I know is hard, instead of trying to eliminate all self doubt, can reduce its power. The power more of the self doubt is what I'm talking about. Accepting that uncertainty is part of life. Life is messy. I can't change that for you guys. I can't change that for myself. But what am I going to do to deal with the messiness? How am I going to feel more confident so when things do come my way, I can handle them? And being mindful and using mindfulness practices help separate emotions from facts. So being mindful is also being very present. I share something with you guys recently on another podcast, but it's worth repeating, is I heard someone say, When you see clouds in the sky, and you watch them, and they just pass by. That's a mindfulness practice. Like, Oh, That's like my thoughts. My thoughts are the clouds. They just come and they go, and they come and they go, and I don't have to get attached to them. And I heard someone else say, too, that, Yeah, there's clouds in the sky, and it might change the way the sky looks, but the foundation of the sky has not changed.

And that's how I wanted you guys to see yourselves, that your foundation, your worthiness, your lovability, your capableness, I think that's a word, all the wonderful things about you are still there, even when things get in the way, even when life gets messy, even when you have a difficult day to deal with stuff, being mindful that says, this isn't changing who I am. It's just making me use my tools. Sometimes I got to dig deep. Sometimes I got to take that deep breath and just go to that place and say, Okay, what tools do I have? I really need to use them now. When we need to use our tools the most, it's usually the toughest times. It's easy to use them when it's just a little thing in the day or I'm going to do my affirmation or right? But when I'm having to deal with someone difficult in my life, right? Or I'm having to somehow make amends and find something in common with someone because the relationship is that important, and maybe I know that person isn't going to be the person reaching out. So what am I going to do to be able to reach out enough to at least have some relationship at this time?

I got to dig deep. I got to go deep. What are the tools that I've learned through CBT that I'm going to use right now to really help? So using your mindfulness practice keeps you, again, being present. What's most important to me right now? What are the tools? Let me go open up my mind over mood book. Let me go listen to one of my, me, me, my, my CBT podcast, all podcasts. I know Dr. Julie did one on setting boundaries, letting go of unhealthy relationships, good communication, understanding understanding anxiety? What are my core beliefs? So many things that you can use for you to be more confident in yourself in dealing with life in general so you have less self-doubts. And you want to have gradual exposure to your challenges, right? So you don't want to just, as they say, jump in the deep end and not know how to swim. That's not going to work, right? I like you to sometimes jump in the deep end as long as you know how to swim so that when I'm in that discomfort, I know how to handle it, right? So having gradual exposure is going to help with that.

And when you avoid situations, it just reinforces your self Taking small steps toward feared situations builds your resilience and your self-trust. Let me say that one more time. Avoidance reinforces your self-doubt, and taking small steps toward feared situations, builds resilience and self-trust. And that's some of the goals that we're working on here, is building your resilience, and trusting yourself more, which will build up your confidence. So when you avoid things, it just reinforces that, I can't handle this. It's not going to go well. I'm going to make a fool of myself. I'm going to be embarrassed. Just feeds and feeds that self-doubts. I'm not saying avoidance is not always something to do. There are some situations that it's best to avoid. But overall, when you're looking at your own personal growth, your emotional health, you want to address the situations in your life, but taking small steps. When you take small steps, you're more likely to have success because you won't get so overwhelmed as easy. Another CBT tool that you can use here that I do love is reframing your thoughts. I have a podcast on that, and that's where we want to come up with a more balanced or neutral thought.

I'll give you an example here. Sometimes I make mistakes, but that doesn't mean I'm not capable. I've learned from past challenges and I have skills that help me succeed. That would be reframing your thought, right? That would be a new thought regarding questioning yourself with your doubt. So I'm going to say one more time, just an example, you can make this more personal for yourself. But sometimes I make mistakes, but that doesn't mean I'm not capable. I've learned from past challenges and I have skills that help me succeed. That would be a way to reframe your thought. And then, of course, you always want to take action, right? As I spoke before about taking small steps What is one small action you can take to reinforce a new belief in yourself? So I'll give you an example of that, too, right? So maybe I'll review my past successes and remind myself on my abilities before starting my next task. So I think this is really important because it's important to review your past successes. When my clients come in and they're like, Oh, my depression or my anxiety is less this week. So I say to them, Well, what's working?

And a lot of times they laugh for a because they're like, Well, I didn't think about that. I was just happy. I was feeling better, right? Which I'm happy about that, too. But we want to say, something changed. You did something to make your depression, anxiety, anger, whatever is going on with you, less. And we want to say, What worked? Because we want to keep repeating that, right? And you want to look at your past successes as building blocks to build up that confidence and decrease that self-doubt. So when you remind yourself like, Oh, I have the ability to do this. I can do that. I've done this in the past. Hey, I ran a mile. I think I can do a mile and a half today. Before I start my next task, I want to say, What am I doing well? What is working? Because I want to keep repeating. It's not about like, Oh, that's one and done, and now I got to find some new tools. No, I'm going to use the tools that work for me. And after that, you also want to reflect on your experience, right? So I want you to ask yourself, after you have your new thought, how do you feel?

Do you Do you feel more confident? Do you feel more empowered? Do you feel more motivated to do things because I'm not doubting myself as much? Over time, when you track the changes and the patterns in your own self-doubts and your ability to challenge them, you're going to see that you're getting better because of the things that you're doing. And also adding to using the mindfulness and acceptance that I spoke about a few minutes ago. I just wanted to say that part of the mindfulness also is is learning to tolerate doubt without excessive worry or the avoidance. And this is that key part of managing the uncertainty. So the uncertainty is the mother of anxiety. People with anxiety want to know. I want to know the outcome. I need to know it's going to be okay. I want to make sure I'm not going to make a bad mistake here because I just can't handle if things go wrong. So part of CBT, and and acceptance and working with mindfulness tools, it's going to help you tolerate the doubt, that self-doubt, that voice you have in yourself. I can tolerate this and still go forward and not have excessive worry and not avoid.

Because we're all going to have uncertainty in our lives. That is something I cannot help you eliminate because life is uncertain. That's just the reality. We can plan for the future, we can for the future, but there is uncertainty because we never know what's going to happen. But we have to be able to tolerate that. When you can't tolerate that, you're going to be riddled with anxiety. If there's things in your life that you're uncertain about, it probably creates a lot of self-doubts. I don't know if I can handle that. I can't make that happen because I'm uncertain how it's going to look. So I don't even want to try. You see where this goes, right? Self doubt. It goes right back to that self doubt, what we're talking about today. So that's why I have to say, I need to stop all this self doubt. I need to stop trying to figure out the future. I need to stop to try to control the future. Even if I think I'm controlling everything in my life, things are still going to happen, right? Because You can't control the world. You can't control other people. You can only have control over the choices that you're making.

You can have some control over how you decide to think about something, the behaviors that you're going to act on, living by values, your morals, those things you can make choices about. Those things don't have to be uncertain. If you have self-doubts, where is that coming from? Why am I doubting myself? I'm guessing you've probably been through a lot of things in your life up to this point already. And a lot of times, we just pooh-pooh away those successes. And I want you to not do that. I want you to sit down and I want you to write down all the things you've accomplished, all the difficult things in life you have gone through that have helped you get to this point. So where is this self-doubts coming? Is it because of this one situation you're looking at? I share with you guys often that when you are struggling with anxiety and fears, that you tend to look at the particular situation as that situation. This is the one that's just going to blow up in my face. And again, you're not looking at your past successes. This is going to be hard. Maybe it is harder than other ones.

But whatever I did before that got me through other difficult things, I'm going to at least at least use those tools. I'm going to at least remember that I did get through it because I am here and I am grateful. And it is part of my journey, part of my story that I have made it this far. Every birthday is something to celebrate. I know some people are like, Oh, I don't want to celebrate my birthday. I don't want to tell you how old I am. If you can change how you're thinking about that and be like, Maybe it's a little spooky that you're getting older, right? But I'm grateful, and it shows that I've done what I had to do to get to this point, and I have a lot of strength. Even if I don't think it's very pretty or it doesn't look that nice or it's not where I want to be, you are still here, and you've probably had some self doubt along the way. And somehow, someway, You push through it and you've thrived and you've succeeded, but you just didn't take the time to really assess that. And that's what I want you to do, because that will also help change how you're thinking about yourself.

It'll help change how you're thinking about situation. It will create more confidence in yourself so that you can have less self-doubt. So again, I'm not here to erase all of your negative feelings. All of our feelings are a part of who we are. Good, bad, and different, right? It's all of us. And we want to be able to manage the negative feelings, the negative beliefs we have about ourselves we want to change. So we're going to have some self-doubt, but we wanted to just maybe come and go or be like, Yeah, I'm doubting myself, but I'm going to go for it anyways because you know what? I have a lot of tools. I know what to do if things go the wrong way. I know how to stop myself from thinking a certain way. I know what behaviors I can use to help get more self-centered, more balanced. I know how to set boundaries. I'm starting to learn who are the people in my life I want to be surrounded with, and maybe the other ones I want to put some distance. And I can feel confident in that and not Am I doing something wrong?

Because I don't want to be involved with everybody in my life that wants to be involved with me or that is a part of maybe the family. Some people, I'm not going to spend as much time with as others. That's what's best for me. I don't have to doubt that. If I'm making a decision based on what's best for me, not how I feel, you will be making good decisions, and you don't have to have that self-doubt. But you first need to say, Let me take a minute and do I have some self-doubt in some areas of my life? Whether they're big, small, medium size. Even at the small ones, I want you guys to use it as an opportunity to work on being more confident in yourself, making some decisions on how you want to change your life so that you'll be happier and have more of that confidence. And again, decreasing that self-doubts in using your CBT tools. It's such a gift that we get to spend this time together. I see it as a gift to myself. I get back just as much from you guys as you give to me. And being able to teach you all these tools reinforces it for me.

So it's all good, and it helps me think. Of course, I have self-doubt, too, at times, but I want to nip it in the bud. Like, Okay, why am I doubting myself? What are my thoughts? What are my past experiences? What am I afraid it's going to happen going forward? What's an experiment I can create? Or maybe what's an opportunity in my life that I can use to build up that self-confidence and to go forward and to feel better about myself. So next time it pops up, I'm like, I don't need to go there because I've already dealt with this. And I know that I can deal with whatever comes my way. And I know that I'm making decisions based on what's best for me, not how I feel. And as long as I do that, I can have that self-confidence instead of self-doubt, that I'm going to make a good decision. And if I need support, I can reach out, I can talk to my loved ones, I can talk to my colleagues, I can talk to my friends. What do you think? I think this is the way I want to handle this.

Do you think that's a good idea? Do you see anything I'm missing? I am doubting myself a little bit. Can you help give me a little reassurance by maybe challenging my thoughts with me? When you hang out with people that have the same language and know how to use the Cognitive behavior Therapy, it's really helpful because they can use it with you to help get to your thoughts really quick. If the people in your life don't know CBT, you can teach them because when you get good at this, you can master it, and then you can teach people and say, That's a hot thought. I just want to share something a patient recently shared with me, which I really loved. She had done a lot of behavioral therapy, some really good stuff. That helped her, but they didn't address the cognitive, which I thought was interesting. So we're really focusing on that, and then we're going to incorporate more behavior because she's dealing with anxiety. But she's really understanding now that all of her feelings are being created by the way that she thinks. So she went to her mom, who's been very involved in the therapy and understands everything she's gone through, and said, Mom, can you believe all of our feelings are generated by the way that we're thinking?

And the mom's like, What? And my client's like, Why aren't more people talking about this? Why don't more people know this? Once people learn this, it's like, Oh, my gosh, this makes so much sense. And she's like, I'm so frustrated. I didn't learn this earlier. I can see how if I had the cognitive power with the behavioral, I would have done so much better. And now she's doing it now and she's doing good, and it's all going to be fine. But I laughed with her because I understand her saying, Why aren't more people talking about this because it makes so much sense because we all have to address these thoughts we have. So again, self-doubts, I'd say, is part of life, but it doesn't have to be a big part. And maybe if we can reframe our self-doubts as well, maybe that will motivate us to change and challenge ourselves and put ourselves in those uncomfortable situations to see that you're going to be okay and I can handle it. So how can I use my self doubt also in a positive way? Instead of it holding me back, I'm going to say, Screw you self doubt.

I'm going to go do this and I'm going to show you and show myself like I can do things. And I've had a lot of successes already and I'm going to remind myself. And I'm always going to be aware about what am I thinking that's making me have this self doubt and making me feel anxious or insecure, overwhelmed or scared or fearful, and create my new thoughts that will help me move forward. So I hope this was helpful. I hope it got you thinking. Please share with anyone that you would find it helpful as well.

You guys know where you can find me at my website at mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

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