DOUBT

Gail Oliver Cambridge | August 2024

We’ve all experienced feelings of doubt. While a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted at times—think of that phone call claiming someone’s holding our relative or that we’ve received an offer sounding too good to be true—we shouldn’t allow negative doubts to take root in our lives.

I can be doubtful of positive outcomes…sigh. For example, many a New Year I’ve resolved that this will be the year I will learn to meditate “correctly.” No longer will I allow distracting thoughts to take me off course. Then, when I sit down to meditate, I begin with doubts that once again, I won’t get it right and those pesky thoughts will get the best of me and, of course, I’ve set myself up to fail even before I’ve begun.

Dr. Jay Michaelson, meditation teacher and CNN journalist, has stated that there’s nothing wrong with healthy, skeptical doubt. But the kind of doubt that is clearly not accurate, undermines our confidence, and keeps us from growing. We may be hesitant to accept an opportunity or go on an adventure, both of which could be beneficial to us because we’re unsure of ourselves and our abilities. We allow doubts to cloud our vision, and we stay stuck.

Sometimes these seeds of doubt have been planted by those around us. A teacher may have said, “You won’t amount to much,” an interviewer stated, “You’re not right for this job,” or, sadly, a parent declared, “You’ll fail in life,” and we believed them. Ever heard of a Negative Nancy or a Debbie Downer? Some people don’t hesitate to dump their negative opinions on others and make them second-guess themselves.

When confronted with doubting Thomases about my skillset, I have sometimes played into their disbelieving expectations by acting dumb. This was not the best tactic and certainly not one that served me. While I didn’t have to justify anything to these individuals, it would have been better for me to have simply ignored them and not let them negatively influence my actions.

When faced with doubt, whether internal or external, rather than let it paralyze us into inaction, there are things we can try to overcome it: discuss our hesitations with our peeps—just airing our thoughts will be helpful; pump up ourselves by recalling our previous accomplishments and battles won; turn doubt into motivation imagining how wonderful it’ll be to prove the naysayers wrong; care for ourselves and allow ourselves to take some time and learn from, rather than dwell on, any mistakes as we pursue our goals; pay a compliment to someone, it’ll make both them and us feel good; and, finally, don’t compare ourselves to others and instead remember and celebrate our uniqueness. The key is to keep our gaze on the prize, as wherever we look is where we’ll end up.

We’re witnessing amazing feats at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games. With the eyes of the world on the athletes, I’m sure they’ve had their share of self-doubts, but they push through because they believe in themselves—as should we! The fact is we will all have self-doubts and encounter doubters from time to time, but we cannot allow them to be the boss of us and prevent us from living our best lives.

As for me and my meditation practice—now whenever distracting thoughts pop up, I acknowledge them and even smile as I refocus, not doubting I’ll eventually reach my sweet spot. So, let’s unfurrow our brows, unclench our fists, take a deep breath, and say, “Okay, I’m going to do this. I’ve got this!”