8 ways to Break The Chains of Self Doubt

Welcome back to the FFS Blog it has been way to long since I wrote any new posts. Like all good writers I was gaining experience, the more you learn the less you think you know. At times I get inspired only to let that inspiration dim, let the opportunity pass me by missing out on fun, missing out on the success, losing sight of the great journey we call life or more importantly the lessons life holds. Get lost in the wonder of exploration your hand at something new or an old past time can be exhilarating, inspirational and fucking fun! The failure lies in not trying, but rather in letting the siege of self doubt hold you back from your dreams. We have all had feelings of self doubt, self pity, thinking that a task or goal is to much or maybe impossible. An experienced backpacker laying out the logistics for their latest adventure he or she may be looking at the peak of the mountain range thinking how will I get there. Am I up to the task? Only to have that feeling return emphatically when they have the mountain within eye shot. I was thinking two or three months ago about this very issue a number of valuable questions arose: 

 -How I can attack the issue  of self doubt head on?

-If that does not work what flanking maneuvers can I utilize to accomplish my goals?

-How do we make success a repeatable system?

-What can I do to challenge myself in all areas of my life? 

-Can I get ready for a half marathon in two months? 

-What about working on an advanced certification in sports performance? 

-Can you work on yourself while growing a business?

This begged further questions that needed to be answered mainly what does it take to overcome self doubt? How can these feelings of doubt be adapted to chasing our goal down? Self doubt has been a road block for me as of late, but this was not always the case. A few years ago I guess you could have called me cocky or foolish take your pick. Maybe I was flat out confident in my abilities, as I felt that whatever I put my mind to I could accomplish. This feeling arose out of being challenged with an obstacle or two only to rise above or adapting to the obstacles in my path. My money is on the latter. Unfortunately as of late this has not been the case as their have been plenty of setbacks and loses. We will be looking at a few key areas that can create a time of self doubt in everyone such as self criticism, lack of inspiration, tackling tasks alone, and the underlying causes for self doubt. As well as eight ways in which these areas can be addressed. 

Its Monday morning your in the bathroom brushing your teeth outside the window your hear a muffled sound of someone talking to you. Opening the window, What did you say? You suck!You're a bum and your breathe stinks! No morning coffee, but this is happening again this is the third time in as many weeks. I have a tough enough time believing in myself without feeling like an out and out fraud. During the weekly sales meetings when I give my reports I expect to be outed for not knowing what I am doing or not deserving my job. Many of you would not take  remarks deriding your performance or abilities in your jobs from someone else. What comes to  mind for me are the commercials where Peyton Manning is imitating a belligerent fan, yelling at people in a normal job. Many of us walk around on a cloud of doubt and feeling like a fraud a phony or a fake without Joe from Fox Lane tweeting about our performance on his fantasy team. Conor Mcgregor is a world famous combat athlete competing in MMA and Boxing both sports where if you take self doubt into the ring you will have a short night and a shorter career. The level of belief it takes to compete in combat athletics is staggering, let alone to challenge someone considered the greatest defensive boxer of all time. Everyone has an opinion on Mcgregor’s antics, his way of selling fights, his persona. Let me steal his line Who the Fook is this guy?  He is a fighter who early in his career he had nothing he was on the dole. All he did was train in a country known for boxing not MMA. It was not until recently he started to train in America.  In eight years with hard work, will, determination and a crazy belief in himself he is a two division champion in the UFC. Watch this video about his self belief.Conor Post Fight Video On top of all that he just fought Floyd Mayweather an impossible fight they said, he had no chance they said. In essence all he thought was fuck what you say I know what I can do, I know who I am.

Some people write down their goals on a daily, weekly, monthly and or quarterly basis on a phone, a tablet,  a notebook, and or computer. Keep them in one location not in all four places. Successful people break down goals to manageable steps so its digestible. What do your goals look like? Do they wake you up at night? Scare the shit out of you? It should scare you on some level so as to encourage you move towards the goal. In the Four hour work week Tim Ferris spoke about having a big enough goal something that inspires you to attack it every day. This means you will need to be sure you have the right goals leading you in the direction of the main goal. Are the steps leading you to where you need to be? Do the steps allow you to win along the way? So that winning on a larger stage feels natural. If you look at some training plans for 10k’s and or Half Marathons they will have one or two 5k or 10k races in there. So you have success on a smaller stage to build you up.   What is my part in this story? My question was, can you get ready for a half marathon in eight weeks? Am I willing to put the work in to get there? Looking at my goal I developed a plan with steps that take me on my journey winning step by step, mile by mile until its completed. Things had to be different this time no wavering we have to have a full commitment. It was my job to get my miles in, to take care of my body as well as to make adjustments as we went. During the long runs if I had hills I faded, until the adjustment was made in my training and in my mindset. I let some of the people who I work with who are endurance athletes my plan creating a community.

8 ways to overcome self doubt 

1. Community Create a community around your goals this community should have mentors as well as people that have the same or similar goals in mind. Your will be able to draw from a well of shared experiences bounce ideas off of one another and create a personalized playbook for achievement.  
2. Inspiration Is the goal big enough to get you out of bed early? We need to find that dream or idea that really gets us going, something that will stoke that fire on a daily basis. What would you do for the love or the passion? What can you not do with you time? Or would you do for free? Its that level of passion and desire that is needed here. 
3. Dealing with the underlying cause of self doubt This may be the toughest one to deal with. The harsh reality is it could or should be number one, today it’s batting in the three hole. We will need to employ a number methods to address the underlying causes of self doubt. One is to dig in on what they are, where they originate and actively manage our behavior patterns going forward. A common cause is comparing yourself to others; Why do you think horses wear blinders? The truth is you're only competing with yourself.
4. Release Self Criticism ie shut that voice in your head up.  Think about all of the negative thoughts you have on repeat as pigeons. Round up all of those troublesome pigeons of doubt in that coop you call a brain. Lets release them into the wild, relieve ourselves of the doubts burden. Unshackle your mind so you can sore to the levels you need to reach.  
5. Work, Work, Work leave it all out on the “field” out work you self doubts. Put in an absurd amount of work so there cannot even be a shadow of a doubt that your ready. Know your craft forwards, backwards and sideways. When Steve Spurrier was the head coach of the Redskins he laughed at the coaches who worked the crazy hours. At that point it was all over but the shouting, it was a new role in a new league he simply did not know his craft nor was he willing to earn it. 
6. Play Small Ball or pull a Michael Jordan/Lebron James; Why are your talking about crying Jordan? Yes I am talking about the GOAT in an article touching self doubt….. Think about the fact that Jordan or a long retired Lebron could come back and score at least 20 points 5 free throws from fouls, four jump shots, and three three point shots at minimum. They know how to play small ball keep adjusting their shots out until they find a rhythm. 
7. Self Care in order to reach my goal what type of man/woman do I have to become to complete my journey? What do I need to sustain myself? On a daily, weekly or monthly basis that allow me to keep moving forward? You will have to be selfish here looking out for your own best interest. This is very challenging especially in the light of self doubt.
8. Celebrate your successes  this is of maximum importance it possibly could fall under self care. Many doubters fall into the trap of Imposter Syndrome. This is where individuals have the inability to internalize their accomplishments with an intermittent feeling of being found as a fraud. When you celebrate your successes you take the power from imposter syndrome.  They can be small or large a win is a win; no one take that away from you don’t steal it from yourself.

I used the eight ways to overcome self doubt with this goal worked and it worked well.  During the taper phase of my training and injury snagged me on the day I was to pick up my race swag making it tough to walk let alone run. I was not going to be deterred, I sought out treatment in the days before the race but still was limping. Against the better judgment of professionals I attempted the 13.1 mile race. Around mile 7 I could not move my quads and my hamstring was about to pop, my plan was to walk the hills and run the straight aways. Luckily cooler heads prevailed. While I did not finish the half marathon I never quit, self doubt did not take hold on that day. One of the reasons was my main inspiration to be disciplined in my actions and my intent in this endeavor. A true inspiration to me has been my father who has dealt with many serious health issues of the past years and honestly has been winning. He has been pushing forward through sheer will a relentless will in himself day by day, issue after issue. The newest issue he is facing has no guarantee he will walk again. Do you think self doubt has crept into his mind? That I can guarantee it has, but the trick is it does not stop him. This has been a very personal article for me to write revealing a lot to you. My hope in writing it is that it helps you to see striving forward chasing your dreams down.

Tabata and the Bookworm A Love Story !

Over the years we have seen an increase in exercise initiatives at first we had the Presidents Council on Fitness, the First Lady has Lets Move now, the NFL has the 60 campaign looking to get kids moving 60 minutes a day. They also have them at jobs with fit bit competitions, wellness evolutions, or companies encouraging folks to work out at lunch. They are all great programs I applaud you for your efforts in fighting obesity  and getting people moving.  I psyched you out we are not talking about physical fitness programs. Don’t be disappointed, and please don’t be butt hurt. We are talking about exercise it has many benefits one of which is in learning.  This subject came from two places a New York Times article outlining two studies one showing exercise benefiting learning, the other study showed a benefit but the study was flawed. When we look at it you will see why! I promise. This subject also came to me from another angle my interest in the conscious and subconscious mind as well as methods of reaching both with information namely learning. I always wonder about yoga where you put in work physically but the juicy part of yoga is in Shavasana or relaxation in the end. Where it is said you get the greatest benefit, the idea crossed my mind if we could tap into that to access different parts of the brain to learn. Some people are experimenting with learning language and sensory deprivation tanks with some success. To date it has self experimentation by biohacker’s without medical based evidence.  Exercise is not only good for body, its good for your soul you know you feel good when your on track with your fitness goals, its also good for your mind and getting your learn on. 

The first study up is titled Physical Exercise during Encoding Improves Vocabulary Learning in Young Female Adults Citation Schmidt-Kassow M, Deuser M, Thiel C, Otterbein S, Montag S. 2013 Published in Plos One. The participants in the study 105 right handed german females between the ages 18-30 were broken up into three different groups Relax, Post and Sim. The Relax groups task was to learn a word for 30 minutes and relax in a chair for the same amount of time. The Post group cycled at a hard effort for 30 minutes prior to learning new words for 30 minutes. The members of the Sim group learned while they cycled for 30 minutes. This resulted in all of the women learning some new words  but the women in the Sim group faired the best. They had better recall of information, the Relax group performed better than the post group which faired the worst. The testing of the subjects took place two days after learning the words.  The next study up is The Effects of Acute Exercise on Retention and Learning Mastrocola M, Exercise Science Elon University NC. They took 11 female college students who read a chapter in a nutrition text book during 2 separate elliptical sessions lasting 30 minutes which was to be moderate to hard or sitting. The group that studying quietly tested better immediately after the rest than the exercise group. After 24 hours there was no discernible difference in the groups retention. The study was flawed in my eyes as they had two problems no moderate to mild exercise group and if you have exercised hard even on an elliptical reading is not easy. You will get queasy or feel see sick and lose your place, a better option would have been auditory learning materials, in an effort to avoid the previously mentioned pitfalls. I do applaud the efforts of the researcher in looking at this topic. 

I believe the difference in the studies are the result of two differing forms of exercise, the fact that a moderate to hard effort lights up your central nervous system. This is a variable that cannot be discounted as it has a direct correlation on the brains ability to focus and learn.  Do you learn a new skill when your all light up with your body and mind ready to move?  No look at Jiu Jitsu practitioners they practice moves breaking them down into mini moves going over them slowly and working them before going live.  The same can be said for wrestling, combat sports, and football. The likelihood is that during physiological arousal certain chemicals are released that affect memory formation according to Dr. Schmidt but this has not been proven. If you have a test in a few hours study and review in quiet, but if the test is a couple of days away try some mild exercise.  

I mentioned exercise initiatives earlier in the article, one program has added a new element to their program academic benefit of learning during exercise. At the Take 10 Program the core of the program are 10 minute activities combining exercise and learning. One appeared in the journal Preventative Medicine called Invisible Jump Rope  the objective is to recall basic counting, addition and subtraction facts while jumping. The teacher calls out numbers from 1-10 starting with one, everyone jumps as they count up to that number. Then you start at 20 and count backwards as students do the invisible jump rope backwards. This is the beginner level of a three level system. It is backed by case studies posted on their website http://www.take10.net/case. 

In this article we have looked at three different studies with varying methodologies, age groups and sexes. Some of the results have fallen in line others have changed due to different variables. One thing is evident that the test subjects who studied during mild exercise faired the best out of the exercise groups having the best retention. If you think about it with runners in mind it holds true, many runners myself included feel that while you run you can really work out problems or issues once you catch a rhythm. I feel that exercise can help to stimulate learning, but like everything else you need to apply the appropriate form of exercise don’t go all out in a training session then expect to sit down and be ready to study. People learn in different ways so please experiment and find what works for you and your kids as far as learning goes.  This weekend we will be looking at Gut Microbiota, next week a summer wrap up list of movies, music, books and other entertainment.  Please read and share. 

What is your mind on?