The Enemy Within... Overcoming Self-Doubt

Even the most successful musicians and artists have moments where they doubt themselves. I'm going to share some information, facts and actions that will help you overcome those anxieties and focus on achieving your goals.

1. Everybody Doubts Themselves

Every artist and musician I have ever met doubts themselves to some degree. The question is: will you allow your self-doubt to paralyze you and force you to give up, or will you use it to motivate you to work harder? Those who are successful never allow self-doubt to stop them from improving and working on their goals.

2. You Don't Need To Be "The Best"

A major source of self-doubt is the assumption that in order to be successful, you need to be the best in your genre, category, etc. You are basically telling yourself that you need to be in the top 0.001% of the tens of millions of artists in order to be successful, which is a very stressful thought. This is not true in music, because there is no definition of "best". Your uniqueness is what sets you apart from the rest, so you just need to be the best version of yourself. Develop your strengths and practice your weaknesses until they are no longer a hindrance.

3. Action Destroys Self-Doubt

The best way I have found to eliminate self-doubt is to take constructive action towards your goals. Use a calendar app to schedule slots in the day that you will dedicate to these actions. For example, if you are an artist you should schedule a 1-hour slot for sending out booking emails, a slot for writing a new song, a slot for posting on social media, etc. If you are truly going all out and working as hard as you possibly can on your goal, much of your self-doubt will be eliminated as you can rest assured that you are doing all you can.

Ultimately, you need to have a conversation with yourself and decide: how much does this mean to me? If you feel as though your life needs to revolve around creating music, then you simply MUST forget about the possibility of failure and work as hard as you can on making that life a reality. You will enjoy the process of working hard much more than the self-doubt and sadness that comes with knowing you're being half-hearted and will probably never do what you love. If you just want to make sure that music is always present as a hobby and passion, you will still need to work hard to make sure that happens in the long-term.

Best video for overcoming self-doubt: https://youtu.be/W6nT2yFc5UA

Charles Berthoud