You'll never get rid of self-doubt
I used to think self-doubt was a phase you grew out of. It isn't. It just changes what it says.
When I started out, I assumed self-doubt was something you felt before you had any proof you could do the job. Get a few wins under your belt and it would quietly pack up and leave.
It doesn’t leave.
I qualified as a doctor, walked away from medicine, and have since started and scaled several consumer startups. One was acquired. Two grew past £1M in annualised revenue. None of that has turned the voice off. It’s just found new things to say.
Early on, it asked whether I was even allowed in the room. I was a doctor with no business background, sitting across from CEOs who’d been doing this for decades.
Later the questions got more sophisticated. Was the last win just luck? Will this one actually work? Am I the right person to lead it, or just the person who happened to start it?
Doubt wasn’t the problem
It took me far too long to work this out. Self-doubt is what doing something uncertain feels like from the inside.
When I was building something new, I was working without proof. There was no guarantee the product would land, customers would buy or the team would stick around. Every challenge was new, and I rarely had data to go on.
Take a step back and it’s normal for your brain to feel nervous about that. It would be strange if it didn’t.
For years, my mistake was waiting for the doubt to go. I’d tell myself it would get easier with more experience and more businesses behind me. But that feeling rarely turned up on time, and waiting for less doubt never made a decision any better.
What’s helping
The biggest shift I’m trying to make is separating the feeling from the decision. I’m training myself to treat doubt as a sign of how I feel right now, in the current circumstances. It isn’t telling me whether the plan is right.
Keeping a record helps too, which is part of why I write here. On the bad weeks, doubt is very good at convincing me that nothing has ever worked and everything was luck. That’s harder to believe when I can scroll back and see what I’ve learnt each day.
Where I’ve landed
Self-doubt is still there, for sure. But I’m overthinking decisions less and learning more after I’ve made them. Most of the decisions I make are reversible anyway.
A year from now, I hope I’ll have stopped giving self-doubt a vote.