Guest Post by Karen Davies

I have three questions for you to ponder on:-
1. How many times have you talked yourself out of doing something you wanted?
2. How much do you long to make a difference and yet wonder if you can?
3. How often do you feel drained by the battle against your nagging doubts and fears?

If they sound familiar – I hear you – I really do. So imagine a world with less internal interference, where the need to do battle is reduced and where our dreams can flow with ease and confidence. If this appeals to you, then I invite you to read on.

As introverts, our ability to reflect is an asset, although it can be our worst enemy too. When an idea to reach out and help others hits us, usually in our gut, it travels up to our heart, gets fuelled by a whole heap of passion and we become poised, ready for action – and then it arrives in our head! It is at this point that chaos usually reigns.

Our self-doubts kick in; our initial certainly wavers and, seizing its chance, fear takes over, strangling the life out of our vision. Before we know it, our passion has been gobbled up by this irrational cloud of negativity and doubt.

So how do we untangle the burden of our inner voice that surreptitiously chokes our longing to be happy and successful? As a self-esteem coach for 15 years, it has been a privilege to help my clients (and myself) release themselves from these demons and fly free. I would like to share three steps to help you achieve this too.

Science is increasingly showing us the potential for reprogramming our thoughts and although our subconscious mind runs the show, with awareness and courage we can limit its affect on our behaviours and therefore our destiny. Let’s bust these demons once and for all.

1. Tune in with AWARENESS
If we are going to banish our doubts, firstly we need to get to know them. Awareness is key in any change work as it empowers us to use our curiosity and logic to challenge the way we think, feel and behave.

So I invite you to take some time to tune into and journalise your negative trains of thought and your self-limiting beliefs. To help you, you might find these sentences helpful:

2. Dismantle with COURAGE
With some clarity about the nature of our inner voice, we are now ready to dismantle it. This is the really exciting part as we can start to feel some control over our captors.

We do this by applying some rational thinking to our irrational thoughts and, in so doing, create sufficient weakness that they begin to crumble.

Let’s use a table analogy to helps us here. For a table to stand firmly it needs legs to support it. Without legs, it looses its identity and purpose – it simply becomes a plank of wood. For a table to be a table, it needs at least three, strong legs without woodworm.

Similarly, for a negative thought to feel justified in our mind, it requires substantial proof to support its claim. Just like a table’s legs, this evidence needs to pass a sturdiness test – otherwise the negative thought weakens and collapses. This evidence test comprises of:
1. Truth – doubts often exist because they’ve been around for so long that we’ve never questioned them. So our first test requires us to look negativity straight in the eye and, from our heart ask ‘How true is this really?’
2. Quantity – only finding one or two pieces of evidence is not enough support and so the doubt begins to wobble. Even if we find two pieces of proof, if they come from the same person, that still weakens the doubt’s validity.
3. Timeline – if the evidence is old, then it is weak.
4. Credibility – if the proof comes from a person who we have little respect for, then we have a
wobble.
5. Regularity – if the evidence is one-off, guess what? It’s weak. For evidence to be sturdy, we
need to see a pattern of regularity.

When we begin to examine the evidence behind our enduring doubts, we start to see how little evidence there actually is and that they certainly lack sufficient strength to justify their existence. Often there is NO EVIDENCE at all when we actually challenge it.

The aim of this exercise is to create a wobble in the thoughts that we hold onto; a wobble that makes us question their validity and raises sufficient doubt that we begin to open up to the possibility of something more positive existing.

3. Rebuild with PRIDE
Congratulations if you have reached this point. It takes resilience to deal with these pesky thoughts. Now for the final step in this process that fills the gaps left by our eliminated negativity with something more positive and up-lifting.
It’s time to revisit the questions from Step 1, albeit the phrases have been tweaked:

Use these phrases to complete as many positive statements as you wish, although at least one for each box. And then, guess what? We’re going to turn them into solid tables that can stand the test of time. Now, just like before, we need to list evidence that allow these fresh, brand new seeds to take root, and that with some regular nurturing and repetition, can help us flourish and be the confident entrepreneur we were born to be.

Think about how these new statements are true by looking for evidence that uphold that truth. Build their strength with at least three firm, strong examples. Perhaps someone has recently given you some feedback or you have some regular examples of how you actually already doing this thing! Now we have ourselves the start of some robust looking tables that help us flourish.

I recognise that this process won’t change things over night – although it is achievable with the tenacity that us introverts possess in bucketloads. Allowing our love of reflection and quiet spaces to work through this process will empower us to step out of doubt’s shackles and step forward into our new power.

It’s time to put our energy into making a difference to people’s lives and not putting ourselves down. We were meant for better things and with genuine anticipation, I hope this three step process will help more of us BE HEARD, BE SEEN and BE RESPECTED for our talents.

Watch out world, these introverts are heading to a digital space near you and are going to set this world on fire.

About Karen
Karen is an experienced coach and author of ‘Awaken your Assertion’, who after years of coping with stress and depression, has faced her self-doubts and passivity to live her dream. She and her husband now travel around Europe in their Motorhome, accompanied by her mission; to free you from your demons, so you too can live the life you deserve.
www.lovemyhappyheart.com