Doubts: Good Or Bad?

The word doubt often carries a negative connotation, a bad vibe, in the forms of confusion, inaction and possibly fear and anxiety. Yet, doubts are essential for us to live successfully.

When doubts are good

Doubts identify potential obstacles to achieving what we desire. We may doubt whether we:

• Have the resources we need to accomplish what we desire.
• Have the background and experience to be successful.
• Are interested enough to persist during the inevitable challenges we’ll face.

Our doubts enable us to anticipate the challenges we’ll face and develop plans on how to deal with these challenges. In other words, our doubts help prepare us for the journey by laying out a map for the initial stages of our journey. That’s a good thing.

In some instances, after considering what’s required to accomplish what we desire, we decide that the costs outweigh the rewards and we abandon the idea. That too is a good thing.

When we view doubts as a tool to help us evaluate what we want and whether the rewards outweigh the costs, doubts serve us well. This is especially true when we are aware that our greatest ability, our superpower, is our ability to learn and adapt.

The truly successful among us view doubts for what they are, a map of the obstacles we’ll face. The one thing they don’t doubt is that they’ll be able to overcome any obstacle they face. They know that their ability to learn and adapt will provide the solutions they need.

Having said that, nothing, including doubts, is all good or all bad. So when do doubts become bad?

When doubts are bad

Doubts become bad (they’re not intrinsically bad) when we nurture them. When we allow our thoughts to continue through cycle after cycle of interest, excitement, doubt, fear and anxiety, we are nurturing our doubts. This exercise is not only fruitless, it’s exhausting.

The analogy I use is your computer. When your computer gets conflicting instructions, a small wheel appears on the screen and cycles and cycles and cycles until you realize you have to reboot. In a similar fashion, when nurturing your doubts, your subconscious mind goes through these countless cycles of interest, excitement, fear and anxiety…until you exhaust yourself emotionally.

Nurturing doubts often leads to abandonment of what we desire. Far too many lives are lead unhappily because people fail to see doubts for what they are: guidance toward your goal.

Capitalizing on the good

In the future, when you experience doubt, pause a moment to remind yourself of two things:

• Doubts alert you to potential obstacles so that you can decide how to overcome them.
• Your superpower is your ability to learn and adapt which enables you to accomplish anything you envision.

Do this consistently and you’ll find that you’re able to accomplish more, more quickly with less stress…all because you’re not nurturing doubt; you’re using it as a map to your destination.

Takeways

Doubts are neither intrinsically good or bad.

Doubts are good when you use them to identify challenges and develop a plan for dealing with those challenges.

Doubts only become bad when when you allow them to prevent you from accomplishing what you desire…which comes from nurturing them, instead of viewing them as a map to what you desire.

The simplest way to assure that you gain the good that doubts proffer is to, when experiencing doubt, pause to remind yourself of two things:

1. Doubts alert you to potential obstacles so that you can decide how to overcome them.
2. Your superpower is your ability to learn and adapt which enables you to accomplish anything you envision.

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