Embracing Self-Doubt: Turning Fear into Fuel for Confidence

In today’s episode, we explore self-doubt—its origins, manifestations, and how to handle it effectively.

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding Self-Doubt: Often rooted in early experiences and can impact various areas of life.
• Normalizing Doubt: It’s common and manageable; how you deal with it matters more than the doubt itself.
• Personal Experience: Maria shares her own struggles with imposter syndrome and how past experiences shape her self-view.
• Shifting Perspective: Use doubt as a growth tool; acknowledge it without resistance.
• Building Confidence: Grow by taking action despite doubt; evaluate your ability to handle different outcomes.
• Imposter Syndrome: It’s natural; overcome it by showing up as the person you aspire to be.
• Self-Compassion: Embrace imperfections and use practices like journaling to reinforce your strengths.
• Practical Tips: Journal your thoughts and consider hiring a coach if needed.

Embrace your journey—self-doubt is part of the process, but it doesn’t define you. Learn from it and keep moving forward with confidence.

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Transcript

0:00

Imposter syndrome is you being afraid of showing up or looking like someone? They are not. But you can't become that person unless you start showing up that way. Welcome to You First, a Journey to Self podcast, where we empower women to rediscover their true, authentic selves and regain personal power. If you are ready for a major shift, you've come to the right place. I am your host, Maria Fuentes, an expert in women's emotional mastery and self discovery. With a degree in psychology and nearly two decades of experience, I am passionate about addressing the challenges women face most. Self love, healthy relationships, and emotional awareness. I've had the privilege of coaching so many incredible women and witnessing their transformation through the methods we'll discuss on this podcast. This show is your weekly space to shift your perspective, find inspiration within and heal in ways that feel true to you. I'm so grateful you're here. Let's dive into this week's episode. Hello, my gorgeous muses. And welcome back to another episode. We're going to dive in to this little thing called doubt, this little emotion that comes up and I say little, but it's not little. It comes up. It feels so intense. It feels so raw. It feels. Like there's no other alternative and camp here to switch that perspective for you today. Maybe give you a little bit of a different way to look at doubt. And I'm not only talking about, self-doubt also doubting others, doubting your ability to make decisions. Doubt comes in many, many forms and flavors. And I have struggled with doubt a lot. And to give you some background on where doubt even comes from. If you grew up in a environment that wasn't conducive to helping you gain confidence, so where you can actually do stuff. And if you failed, it was okay. Or you had super judgemental parents and you had to always walk on eggshells or you didn't, you felt like you never did good enough. It wasn't a very conducive environment for you too. Create and sustain confidence and the ability to make decisions and, and trust yourself. And so if you grew up with that, I grew up with a lot of doubt and a lot of doubt of your capabilities and the way that you can do things. And so that translates into our adulthood, especially because we start collecting. All this evidence, right? When we, we grew up that way, then we start collecting evidence. And usually it's around like your teenage years with your friends, people judge, you, we feel so uncomfortable. You're going through this, like. Really uncomfortable shutting of not being a kid anymore. I'm not being an adult said. And you start collecting evidence of all the things you felt as a child. And so. The doubt's going to be there and it's going to come up. It's going to come up in ways in times that are super inappropriate. Right there. And to come up, when you have to make a big life decision, they're going to come up. When it's your time to talk in front of 10 people, five people stand up and say something. The doubt is going to creep in at the moment that you're pushed out of your comfort zone or that you're pushed into doing something that you're maybe not used to. And so doubting yourself as normal. I want to normalize it before we even touch this subject. I want to really normalize this for you. It is normal. I feel self doubt. At least once a day. At some point. In some way. Um, I know I've, you've listened to me for a while. You know that I also work in commercial insurance. So I have clients, their commercial insurance is very intricate and elaborate, and there's a lot of different policies that come up in different people that I talk to in different businesses. Every single call that I take, every single client that I touch is different from the last. So. Unless it's the same client that has had the same issue. There's some doubt that comes up. If, if I don't know what I don't know. Right. If there's something that they asked me and I'm like, I have no idea. Google's become my best friend. Right, but self-doubt comes out there. There's doubt. That comes up for me. My relationship there's doubt that comes up for me when I create anything new. When I wanted to relaunch this podcast, my goodness, three months of like doubting. Is this the right name, Mrs. The right concept. Is this the right? This I've gone through it and it's a normal emotion. Emotions are our super power. If we learn to transcend. The emotion. It's like a lower energy emotion. And doubt it is one of those lower energy emotions. So if you're feeling doubt when you filled out, because it's going to happen. I want you to first say, okay, thank you. I see you doubt. Just like fear and other emotions that come up, just see it, recognize it. Don't fight it. And then get curious to where it's coming from. Right? I'm not, I'm not saying pinpoint like the. Time of your childhood, that trauma started because that's, we're not doing that, right. We're not re-traumatizing ourselves by pulling up all this crap from the past, every single time an emotion comes up. I want you to ask yourself where that self doubt is coming from right now. And a lot of the times you realize that the self-doubt is, it's just a fear of something not going the way we, we wanted to go and then not being able to hold the energy of it going the opposite way we wanted to go. And what I mean by that. We think, okay, well, if, if I do this and I don't get what I want, or I don't do as well as I think I can, or the relationship doesn't work out or, or that person doesn't respond to me the way that I wanted to, I won't be okay with the outcome. Like I won't feel good about the outcome. And I don't know that I can handle it. I don't know that I can like, there's this, this erratic fear that comes over us thinking that. When that moment comes, we won't be able to handle it. And just as we looked for evidence, as we grew up for the things that we didn't feel good enough about or the, where the self-doubt started coming through. Now as an adult, you're listening to this, you're probably in your twenties or thirties, or maybe even your forties. You've collected a lot of evidence. That things do work out. And that even if at the time you didn't think you were making the right decision or ended up being the wrong decision, or you didn't think you were good enough and he still did it. And maybe it didn't turn out just as the way you want it to nothing physically happened to you. And it was there for a reason. There's some point in your life that you're like, wow, now that makes sense. I realize why that had to happen or why didn't get the thing that I wanted to, or why I felt that self-doubt. And why did it, and then. Also the opposite that not only did you survive it, it did you overcome it, but there are so many times I'm sure that you had self doubt or. Doubt period. And you went for it and you did it. And the other side of it. Was exactly we wanted or even better., so, because we feel that the outcome's not what we want. That's when we feel all this self doubt. And I mean, a lot of people even call it imposter syndrome. It's funny actually did tell you a little personal story before we keep going, but I have a friend and she's working through. This email list that she's going to send out with a quiz of like, what is your, what is your limiting like belief? What is your limiting thing? That's like holding you back and stopping you. And she's like, Hey, can I send it to you? Just to test it out? See what you think. And we some feedback on the questions and I was like, sure, absolutely. And my thing was, um, imposter syndrome. And I laughed because I was like, of course, and it's what I'm going through right now, because there's been so many times, especially, like I said, what the relaunch of this podcast working on. Really honing in my coaching business and what that means that I feel like an imposter. Plenty of times, I feel like an imposter. Because there's moments that I'm like, wow. Well, I don't know as much as that other coach or as much set therapist, or I don't know as much as this or that. And. And I have to stop myself and realize, well, first of all, I'm not attracting the client or the people. That need more than I can give right now. And I also trust that I'm continuously learning and growing. And so as I continue to grow, so will the people around me and so will the people that I attract. But even furthermore, I realized too, when I'm doing that, as I am comparing myself to other people in the industry, maybe, or other people that maybe have more knowledge and that's their knowledge. That's not my knowledge. That's their life experiences. That's what they've learned because it's what suited them. It sort of helped them through life. I have my own and it's special and it's unique and it's powerful. And as you're listening to this, you have your own too. You have your own unique sense of everything. And so before I had launched anything or before I do anything, before I got into the relationship with TJ that I'm in, I asked myself before I moved here, you know, I made this big move after we got engaged, but that was already in the plans. I didn't even know where we're getting engaged in, in February. And when I said yes, Let's move on. Like let's, let's move forward into our relationship and growing it and living together. There was doubt. Of course there was doubt. Gosh, I have so much evidence of like, well, you move for this guy and then you moved for your ex-husband because you thought that like living by his sisters would be great. And then that ended up in divorce and. Of course, all the self doubt came up. And I realized, well, Have I had not gone to Wilmington because of my ex-husband. I wouldn't have even met my fiance. If I wouldn't have gone here or done this or any of the things that I'm using as evidence for why I should have self doubt. If I flip it. There's evidence of wow. That actually had to happen in order for me to be. Right where I'm at. Well, which is beautiful and wonderful and amazing. So what I do before I go into anything is that I ask myself, will I truly be okay with either or outcome? And every chapter of your life and every season of your life is going to be different. Sometimes it's going to be. Yes. Yes. I'll be fine with both. Sometimes it's like, no, hell no. Absolutely not. I wouldn't be okay if it didn't go the right way or what I've perceived to be as the right way. But that's how you started building conviction and confidence in yourself. And that self-doubt starts just. Not mattering as much I'll come up, but then you'll be able to shut it down with this like really grounded sense of I'll be okay. Both ways. And again, you have to look. In the past a little bit to find that evidence that no matter what decisions you've made, they've all been okay. and leading your life with self doubt and evidence of how things don't work out, doesn't lead you into an expensive, amazing place. It only leaves you to stay stuck because now you're staying only things stuck in the past and in the self-doubt. And the lack of confidence, but you're not allowing yourself to even make the mistakes be okay with them. You know, build yourself up somewhere, resilience and keep going. And that's what makes life. I, now that I'm in this industry even more, I don't know, one woman. And I'm just talking about women because I love talking to you. And I know you're a woman listener in the back end and I work with a lot of women. I only work with women actually. So I don't know one woman in the industry as a coach, as a leader in this industry or anything. That has not gone through. So many failures through so many challenges. So usually they become coaches and are in this industry because of the challenges and the struggles that they've had. In their lifetime. So when you feel alone or you feel like you're comparing yourself, remember that whoever you're comparing yourself to has had their own story and they've had to like really hone in or refine themselves in a way that felt really good to them. In a way that resonated with them. And so before you make any decision, ask yourself, can I hold the energy of this going? Absolutely amazing. Or this going, not as I expect. And so I had to do that with, with TJ. I did that when I moved here, like I said, I was like, okay, best case scenario. Which is what's going to happen because I'm the creator of my reality. We live an amazing life. I love it. And Wilmington and nothing happens that makes me think that I didn't make the right decision. Worst case scenario as the relationship doesn't work out. And I get to choose where I go next. Am I okay. With both of these outcomes. And because I've built a resilience because I build that confidence because I, I have evidence that not only did I not, not survive all the breakups in the past changes and the moving and everything else that I've done, but I thrived in it. Of course, I'm okay with both scenarios. And that's one of my biggest things that I do is. Understand and be okay with either or outcome. And then let's dive in a little bit into the imposter syndrome because I know a lot of us, I work with clients and they have they've either started businesses or they're successful in something, but they want to do something else. And then there's this doubt that comes through them. And there's this feeling of like, maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. And I'm here to tell you that you'll always regret the things that you don't try and that you don't do. And I've tried so many different things and I've, I've started personal development and I created. PR physical products that I sold on Amazon to help inspire people and motivate people. And. I had trials and failures and successes and all these different things. But if I wouldn't have tried all those, if I wouldn't have even start a self-mastery with Maria. A year and some change ago. I wouldn't relaunch. I wouldn't be even more purposeful, more dialed in, have gotten an received climb, amazing clients. Everything is there for a reason, like really enjoy the journey and know that it's, it's never a failure. If it's there to teach you something. Relationships are the same way. Friendships are the same way everyone and everything is there to teach you something. If you allow it to, we have to start, you have to just go do it and start doing whatever feels good. Like that is my biggest. If you take nothing else from this whole conversation. I want you to go towards the things that feel good to you. They don't have to make sense. They just have to feel good. They have to light you up to ha. Has to give you a rush, a passion, and we all have that. It's funny because that's what I named my brand. On Amazon, it was called InSpark. And it was like, I remember when I started my personal and that I let me know, he gets so excited about things, but then I'd be like, it'd be like, this is high, high, high. And then I was like, wow. And then I went to this dye and it was like the spark an idea. And then I was like, no, no, I just can't go through it. Like, it's just not worth it. And then bam, it would just, I would do nothing. And I created that because I wanted people to stay in the sparks. So I named it in spark. And so. Go for it, because if I don't remember anything in my life, but if I would've known this right, if I would have heard this, even if I would have heard, just like go for it just, it doesn't matter. Be be silly. Do the things that get you out of your comfort zone. None of it's going to kill you. And it's only going to help you be stronger and more confident because you have done the things you say you're going to do, and then do it with that conviction that I told you, like, make sure that you're okay with both outcomes. I'm going to go into this. I'm going to dive in. And this is best case scenario. This is worst case scenario. Can I be okay with both of them? And I promise you the older version of yourself, that's not, I'm going to make sure that we live a long life here. So the old version of you, that's 111 years old. Nice number. She's not looking back and being like, wow, you know what? I'm really glad we didn't take any risks. And I'm really glad that all the self-doubt we had, we let it stop us because I feel really good right now that that's not what she's saying. So this older version of you has all this knowledge, all this power, all this wisdom. But you can gain wisdom unless you go after the things that you want it, unless you get into the relationships, unless you go for the gut feelings, unless you trust your intuition. You don't let your anxiety overcome you. You don't let the fear, the self doubt, the imposter syndrome. Overcome you and that's exactly what it is. Imposter syndrome is you being afraid of showing up or looking like someone? They are not. But you can't become that person unless you start showing up that way. We all have this version of us that we know we would like to look like, feel like become. And we feel like it's so far fetched that if we start acting like in, in that way, now we start taking the steps that are going to get us there. That we're going to look like an imposter in there and people are going to judge us and they're going to be like, who does she think she is? And what is she thinking? But that's how you become that person. You're not an imposter. You're. On the way to being who you are, but you have to start showing up as that person right now. And today. And again, a lot of the successful women. I know, and I don't mean success in a financial sense or they've created great businesses. So they're successful. Yes, they've done that, but they're successful within the way that you feel with themselves and how they, how confident they are and how they feel about themselves. Those are the that's real success to me and those women. Have. Shown up as a version that they want to be in continuously show up as the version they want to be. Even when the imposter syndrome shows up, even when the self doubt creeps in, because it's all there and we all have it. And so I'll give you a couple more things that I do. And then I also think I want you to be really. Conscious about when that self doubt comes is having self-compassion for yourself. Like that is the most beautiful gift you can give yourself. Understanding that that's normal and that it came from somewhere. And whether you want to dive deep into where it came from. So you can reassess that. That's amazing. That's great. But if you're not there and you just want to live your life right now, and you just want to move forward, your mind is powerful enough to shift and change all that. So start changing and shifting it right now, but have the compassion for yourself as you're doing it. There's no. Oh, I did that wrong. I should have done that better. When it comes to your own healing. Compassion and loving yourself through all the seasons, through all the thoughts, through all the processes. That's the beautiful thing. And if you're having a hard time with that and you're listening to this and you're like, well, great, Maria. Well, how do I even start? I mean hiring people helps having a group of people that are on your same mindset. There they'll have lower vibrations in you that aren't keeping you stuck in the same place. And I understand that that doesn't happen overnight. And that's where people hire coaches and they hire therapists and they hire people to really help them out. And like, all I do with my clients is really show them who the fuck they are. And I helped him get into my energetic frequency so that they can uplift their energy and their frequency. And honestly, the people that are not meant to be in their life, they're not there to help them grow. Eventually just start shutting and falling off. It's the one thing I tell people like, listen, you're, you're hiring me as your coach. Your life's about to change and it's about to change for the best and in the most amazing way. But you're shifting, you're changing that energy. So. That's one way to do, and if you don't have a finance, so you don't have the money to hire a coach or anything like that, that's fine too. You have the power within you. Listening to a podcast like this, shifting the perspective. It won't happen overnight, but next time we feel self doubt. You start thinking about me and this podcast and what I said, and come back to this, share this with somebody that you know, how to self-doubt, that's how we start really expanding and opening up ourselves. Energetically. And also a good way to just help yourself as journaling out all those negative thoughts and the self doubt that comes up. When you see things on paper. They're not that heavy anymore. They're not that intense. They don't mean that much in your life anymore. You see them there in your life? Well, That's probably not even true. Wow. That's a lot of negative things. So, you know, your perception of it. It's when it's written, when it's on paper almost you're giving your mind a release. You're allowing it to just go somewhere. And sometimes when you see it, You start realizing, wow, I'm not going to let it hold me captive. I'm not going to allow these negative thoughts. Hold me captive. And then also writing down as you're writing down those negative thoughts, also writing down the evidence that you have, that you have survived. Like what achievements have you have you made not achievements and like, they can be big. They can be small. It could be like, okay, I made this much. Or I succeeded at this in business or. Or I, I said I was going to run a 5k and I ran a 5k, or I said, I was going to do something for a friend. And I showed up. I said, I was going to work out for a weekend in a row. And I did it. Like, it could be small and it can be huge. Whatever evidence are collecting that and write those down too, because then you start realizing damn, I'm a bad-ass. Of course you are. If you're listening to this, you're a bad-ass you were born worthy. You were born the way that you were supposed to be born. When we were born with it and feel unworthy, we didn't feel self doubt. We didn't feel imposter syndrome. We didn't feel any of these things. And so part of the process of growing and healing and personal development is coming back to yourself. Your true, authentic self, who you were born as in a. In our soul level and a soul level and a mental level, because before. All the people and the things and the experience in the past traumas and all of that before all of that started, you were born. Precious and amazing. And nothing's changed. We just have some life experiences, but those in essence don't truly matter because. As much work as I've done on myself and as much healing as I've done and. And working with therapists and various things, I realized that. All that only worked because I was able and I'm continuously able. To shift my mindset. And my mental capacity on how I perceive things. That's all it's done for me, because I know plenty of people that go to therapy and nothing really shifts and changes. They stay stuck. They will talk to somebody who's just, that person tries to open up their perception and shift their mindset. But they're not allowing that to happen. And so you can use tools. You can use people. You can have people help you and walk alongside you. And you could also do it for yourself. It is. Each choice every single day is when that self doubt creeps in and it's knocking at your door and you say, Hmm, wait a minute. I've seen this before. I've been here before. I know what this feels like. And I will allow self-doubt to overcome me. I won't allow it to stop me. I see it for what it is. And I'm going to build the confidence. I'm going to build the unshakeable confidence and I'm not going to allow it to trap me. Am I allowed to trap me in comparison to other people might allow it to trap me in not feeling good enough or feeling like an imposter. You are whoever you want to be. Our reality is really just that it's what we expect and want it to be. Our reality is ours to own, and it's ours to. To create when we start seeing ourselves as, as the creator of our own reality. Which of course God helps create our reality too. But gospel says, if I give you tools and don't prompt me, I don't, I said, I'm back, I'm back in my spiritual journey and closer to God, but I don't know, like biblical verses or anything like that, but I know in some way in the Bible, it says if. If I give to you, like, if I give you things. It's up to you to go after them and work for things, right? So like, God will give us stuff, but it's up to us to go do stuff with that. Right. It's up to us to actually do the things we want to do, because he's going to give us the tools, the people, the resources is going to open it up for us. But what are we willing to do with it? And I, and I hope that this episode helped you understand yourself a little bit better when it comes to self doubt and not allowing it to trap you and stop you from doing all the things that you were meant to do from being the person that you were always meant to be that you were born to be.