Ever wondered about ‘what’s wrong with you?’ Spoiler alert – the answer to that question is…’Absolutely nothing’.
Let me tell you why.
I coach women of all ages. From all walks of life. With vastly different desires and aspirations. And yet, there’s one phrase I hear consistently from my coaching clients.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
Now, these particular words usually book-end a whole lot of other words. Generally speaking, the whole story goes something like this:
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know I want to get a promotion (or lose weight or save money or whatever the goal is). And I know what I should be doing to bring my dream to life. It’s just that I don’t take action. Or I take action for a few days, then I just fall back into old ways and habits. And I feel so stuck. But, like I said, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
Common wisdom tells us that with the right amounts of desire, persistence and will-power we should be able to reach any goal we set for ourselves.
However, the one thing that wisdom doesn’t take into account is our self-doubt. Self doubt tends to have a fairly ordinary reputation, when the truth is, our self doubt is there for a very good reason.
Self-doubt only exists to protect us.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Self-doubt is only there to protect us. And that’s why there’s nothing wrong with you, even if you happen to be feeling stuck.
There’s nothing wrong with you – a deeper look at self-doubt and protection
Whenever you doubt yourself, or tell yourself you can’t do something, you’re usually trying to protect yourself from the risk of psychological pain. The sort of pain that comes from experiences like judgement, conflict, rejection and failure, for instance.
And when you think of it like this, your self doubt makes sense. As one of my lovely clients said when I was teaching on the concept…’It makes our self-doubt seem like a good thing’.
It also helps us understand why so many of us feel stuck. You might dream of big outcomes. However, if your self-doubt wants to protect you from risk, then you’ll likely find yourself struggling to take action towards your desires.
This is especially true if what you want sits outside your comfort zone. Rather than taking action, you’ll find yourself engaging in all of the ‘p words’ – procrastination, perfectionism, people-pleasing and polling. As a result, those actions tend to to lead to frustration and dissatisfaction. And if we’re not careful, an overwhelming feeling that there’s something wrong with you.
But it always makes so much more sense when we know that our protective behaviours like perfectionism, procrastination and people pleasing are simply ways to shield ourselves from the pain of risks like disappointment, complexity and, for some us, success. And it’s incredibly helpful to know that there is nothing wrong with you.
Importantly, once we understand more about protective behaviours, we can be more graceful with ourselves. And we can consciously choose if we want to undertake experiments to test if the risks are actually as bad as we imagine they are. And the more evidence we discover that tells us we’re actually safe to do the things we want to do, the more likely we are to be living the life of our dreams.
So, next time you’re feeling stuck, remember there’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing at all. You’ve just got some self-doubt triggering some protective behaviours.
I’m curious. Have you ever questioned if there was anything wrong with you? And where in your life is your self-doubt protecting you? Hit reply to this email and let me know.
And until next time – stay fabulous.
Warmest,
Janelle xx
P.S. If there is specific area of your life where you’re feeling stuck, you might want to consider booking an Aiming High Velocity Session with me. We’ll spend 90 minutes digging into where your self-doubt is holding you back from reaching a goal. And we’ll look at the actions you can take to start building your self-belief. Because it’s from a place of self-belief that you will reach your goals. You can learn more about these sessions – and my signature three month program – here xx
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