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Writer's pictureKaren Laidlaw

One Simple Way To Stop Second-Guessing Yourself On Every Single Thing

Over the last six weeks, I’ve been learning how to facilitate a new culture workshop for our leaders. While the content is easy enough, the technical elements have stretched me almost to the breaking point more than once. Just when I thought I had it down, something wouldn’t work the way it did before.


At long last, I conquered my final challenge, displaying a timer in Zoom while playing music during the break. Woohoo! Success at last.


What was interesting to me about this was that I really thought I’d gotten to a place of confidence, grace and self-trust such that I couldn’t become so undone by such a challenge. I had several moments when I wondered if I would ever get it, and at least once I considered whether this was a sign that it was time to retire.


Wasn’t I over this kind of self-doubt, this second-guessing of myself?


Apparently not.

Did you know we have over 60,000 thoughts a day and 80% of them are negative and repetitive? No wonder I was struggling.


My favourite piece of wisdom from author Marci Shimoff is, ‘don’t believe everything you think’.


The first thing I did was stop listening to all my negative thoughts. They still came up, but instead of taking them as truth, I talked back to them. Sometimes I disagreed with them, sometimes I just said no, sometimes I came up with a better, more helpful thought. It took some work and some energy, but eventually I quieted that voice.


Try this ONE thing


Try this experiment: for one day, notice your thoughts. You won’t catch all 60,000 of them, but you’ll catch quite a few. How many of them are worth believing? I’m betting there are a whole bunch of thoughts that just need to be ignored.


If you’re reading this on social, or in your inbox, I’d love to hear what you are discovering about your thoughts.


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