This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a wedding in New Jersey for which I enjoyed dancing, conversation and catching up with relatives. During this occasion, I also had some free time to visit relatives for dinner and engage in conversation about my business. They were sincerely caring about how I built my business, and asked a few questions about how it was going. After I shared the positives and negatives, they then shared their advice on what I should do more of and less of. I thanked them for their thoughts that I would consider. What ensued was 24 hours of self-doubt and a process for dealing with it.
The following 9 hours of driving back to Ohio from NJ was a time of self reflection and processing these new inputs for me to consider. I wanted to move on quickly, but needed to understand why I had self-doubt, not feel bad about it and think about what valuable changes I could make to remove the self doubt and continue to evolve as the CEO of my own business. During this time, I was also inspired to write to you.
CEO’s have self-doubt; which on the surface you may never see due to well honed coping mechanisms to maintain a confident presence. I’ve realized a few tips for both myself and other CEO’s & C-Suite Leaders of Tomorrow can learn about dealing with self-doubt. This can be the difference between those who succeed and those that fail.
The Three “A’s” of Dealing with Self-Doubt:
Awareness: Why do you feel self doubt?
Did someone question your decision?
Are you not getting the results you expected?
Did you deviate from your plans and now don’t know how to get through it?
The good news is you’re aware and now can do something about it. Self Doubt is a superpower showing a high level of awareness and willingness to listen and learn.
Actions : What can you do to confirm a gap that needs to be changed?
Does the person who questioned you have important points that you can take action?
If you’re not getting the results you expected, do you need to change or stay the course? Too often leaders will make changes based on only a few data points rather than letting all the processes mature and come into alignment to get the results.
If you deviated from your plans, can you get some help to get you back on track?
Once you’ve identified these actions, can you or with some support make any changes to get back on track?
Accountability: How are you going to manage your actions to completion?
Manage them in your calendar or daily habits.
Enlist the support from your admin or business coach
Check the changes each day and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.
When you have awareness you can take an action and be accountable to completion, little by little, the self doubt will go away and you simply realize each of these challenges are an opportunity to evolve as a leader. I often think about the British show Dr. Who, who every 11 episodes would regenerate into a new version of themselves.
While the concept is simple, it takes courage to pause, reflect and create a plan to move you through challenging times such as self-doubt. For me, it has been a time of growth and self assurance that I am doing the right things and making small course corrections in supporting you wherever you are at in your business or career. I simply want to see you succeed.
Now is the time for you to collect your thoughts and take action.
Maybe you simply need a support system to apply these new insights. I find leaders simply need a place to talk through the challenges and that’s why I created The Drop In CEO Collective, a forum for C-Suite leader support. To learn more about our next event, you can visit our page and register.
Would you rather have a quick 1-2-1 to discuss your specific challenge? Could The Drop In CEO be your support system? Direct Message me on LI or contact me via my website and let’s have a conversation. Until then, I wish you much success.