
Steps to Turn Off the Nagging Self-Doubt in Your Head - petethomas
http://www.wsj.com/articles/steps-to-turn-off-the-nagging-self-doubt-in-your-head-1465838679
======
johnwheeler
This article hits home. Five years ago, I created a SaaS app that did well,
followed by one that did less so, and another that flopped (all eBay selling
software).

New projects weren't having as much an impact and making me feel good, so I
sat around reading books.

A turning point came when I read two: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and On
Writing by Stephen King. The first teaches we get optimal experience out of
what we spend our attention on. It really got me psyched about chasing that
feeling of being in the zone with my work. On Writing did that too. I saw
another HN poster refer to King's "blue collar work ethic" \-- totally true.
He works hard because he loves to.

I recently started working again for pleasure, less encumbered by
insecurities. I'm still working on it, still practicing. I created an open
source framework for Amazon Echo development, and it's starting to get some
traction. I think I was able to produce the work to get the traction because
I've had a clearer mind.

~~~
lgieron
The flip side of being in the flow is that you're not learning much (the task
is literally so easy for you that you can lose yourself in it).

~~~
sygma
My understanding of flow is that it is triggered when the task is neither too
easy or too hard. It's a sweet spot that maximizes your engagement with the
task at hand.

~~~
muhuk
Why can't _so easy for you that you can lose yourself in it_ fall within
_neither too easy or too hard_ range?

~~~
faitswulff
Because it fails to emphasize that there is any difficulty at all.

------
wallflower
It seems to me that the more you have a propensity to think (or over-think),
the more likely it is that you may be able to construct rationalizations
(excuses) before/during the moment as to why you might _not_ be able to do
something. More insidiously, you can construct these excuses after the moment
passes, like an endless negative Nancy TiVo gone berzerk in your mind.

There is no one-size-fits all solution to self-doubt, lack of confidence, etc.
Really, the only solution for nagging self-doubt is to generate contradictory
evidence to self-doubt. That is, do something.

Motivation is not ideal either because usually it makes you _think_ you can do
something.

The more I work on meditation and visualization and other techniques - the
more aware I am in the actual moment of when I am resisting doing something
out of my comfort/risk zone. There is a lot to be said for Zen and Stoicism,
as well. And in the end, only you (or your closest friends or partner) know
when you are not pushing yourself.

~~~
vldx
Can you give any resources, which influenced your thinking in this context?

~~~
wallflower
While there are some things that I am very good at naturally, there are many
things (especially in the social sphere) that I struggle with. The problem is
that I've developed camouflage that makes my acquaintances and even some of my
friends think that I am better in some of these areas than I know that I am.

Having bought (and eventually given most away) pounds and pounds of self-
help/self-improvement books over many years, there are common patterns in each
book. They are all marketing to fix X problem with Y techniques. All parts of
every technique Y may not work for you. However, like agile/scrum, there are
parts of it that may be worth using for you, personally.

Having someone that knows you help keep you accountable (even better if you
are both keeping each other accountable - or a small group) may work for you.
You can also hire a personal coach. The accountability doesn't have to be
every day (that is micromanagement and would get exhausting on both sides).
Something like once or twice a month can work well. A regular 8am meeting
twice a month, for example. It doesn't have to be face to face, it can be over
Skype.

Finally, you may encounter the strongest resistance from yourself. Simple
stuff like going to a yoga class instead of, say, a tech meetup. Or trying to
meditate or visualize every day (the key tip here is do it before you turn on
your laptop or your phone - do it right away, in the morning, as you roll out
of bed). Saying hi to that cute person or not - and regretting it until it
fades. You can make excuses until "the cows come home". And in the end, just
doing it is what matters.

Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs
[http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practi...](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical-
guide-for-entrepreneurs/)

Detaching emotion from action. Many articles talk about this, this is just an
example. [http://briankim.net/articles/important-remain-emotionally-
de...](http://briankim.net/articles/important-remain-emotionally-detached-
results/)

Jia Jiang 100 Days of Rejection [http://fearbuster.com/100-days-of-rejection-
therapy/](http://fearbuster.com/100-days-of-rejection-therapy/)

------
kriro
I talked to some psychologists at a conference a while back and they were
mildly opposed to "positive psychology" on the grounds of crowding out healthy
negative thoughts with positive ones being potentially detrimental to learning
and potentially harmful with non-understood side effects. They said the
research isn't exactly conclusive and noted that there's a lot of snake-oil
salespeople branding themselves with "positive psychology" (which makes sense
as it's a prefect self help topic which tends to attract some of them). I
never followed up on this by reading current studies.

The criticism section for the "positive psychology" article seems to suggest
something similar. I'd be interested in more informed opinions.

~~~
simonswords82
That's interesting, I'd love for somebody with more knowledge to chime in.

As a layperson my response to a psychologist who was critical of positive
psychology would be "okay fine, let's assume you're right - what would you
recommend people do to help themselves get better if not mindfulness, CBT or
some other form of mental programme to improve their mental wellbeing?".

I totally agree that there are people selling snake oil off the back of
positive psychology becoming more mainstream. That's life unfortunately...

Personally I'd take "non-understood side effects" over feeling like there's
nothing I can do in the event I suffered from depression/anxiety/low self
esteem or one of the dozens of other mental health issues that society on the
whole still aren't very good at recognising and treating.

~~~
mtreis86
I am not sure mindfulness falls into 'positive psychology'. Accepting things
for what they are, seems neutral to me.

~~~
Disruptive_Dave
This. At least the mindfulness I practice (rooted in Buddhist teachings, not
tied to them however) is definitely not driven by an expected outcome of
"positivity." Oddly enough, this has led me to a more positive outlook,
generally speaking.

~~~
davidjnelson
That's a great insight. When you experience the truth of yourself, you
experience the joy in it. Not because you are "trying to find joy". It's more
realizing the joy you already are. Or that's been my experience with
meditation and mindfulness at least.

------
blinkingled
I like to think I'm at least partially genius ;) - I had no idea about CBT or
any of the steps mentioned in the article but I had developed a very similar
process process mostly on my own.

The first step is to keep awareness of your thoughts and feelings. Next is to
remove partiality towards thoughts - you learn to take every thought as is and
you learn to not have feelings towards the negative ones. That is you realize
that you're partial to negativity - for some it's an excuse or explanation,
for others it is deeply engrossed beliefs in certain ideas. Whatever it is you
have to realize that you're more gullible to some type of thoughts than
others.

Next is evaluating the impact of the thoughts on your real actual life in
terms of steps you can take. Often times there isn't anything you can do about
those thoughts and you drop'em like hot coal. Sometimes you find you can do
things differently or avoid certain circumstances to not let those thoughts
recur. Some other times it's a longer term thing. Point is to map thoughts to
concrete actions and drop the ones that cause you negativity but have no
action possible to counter. In yet another words drop the madness and keep the
actions.

Rest is practice - you'll initially fail but so long as you notice it it'll
get better the next time. You can also use distraction initially if your
thoughts are too overwhelming.

It's a slow process especially for adults but it works!

~~~
harry_corn
Genius? Nah.

Anyone who brings awareness to their own thoughts and feelings will figure
this out.

~~~
blinkingled
It was a tongue in cheek remark obviously but nonetheless bringing awareness
is only the first step - then you're stuck being aware of your own limits -
overcoming those are the real effort and it requires quite a bit of it to
become habitually impartial to your own thoughts - the process, the making of
that habit of detachment - that's where real progress is.

~~~
harry_corn
Ok there. You sound so smart there bud. You guys are such pretentious losers.

------
jameslk
There's two really good approaches to this issue that I've learned. The one in
the article is cognitive behavioral therapy (also, dialectical behavioral
therapy, depending on the type of ruminations). Another approach that has been
gaining more traction lately is mindfulness, which is basically using
meditation to clear the mind of ruminating thoughts.

I've read bits of Feeling Good Handbook, which is an often recommended book
for CBT, but I really felt like I connected more with the mindfulness
approach. Mindfulness seems to work faster for me since I can use meditation
to quickly clear out negative thoughts rather than trying to reason about them
over time as with CBT. For mindfulness, I'd highly recommend Hardwiring
Happiness, which goes into depth about using neuroplasticity (the ability to
rewire the brain) to pave more positive neural paths using mindfulness
techniques.

I'm sure both CBT and mindfulness are good approaches and can be used in
conjunction, and there's likely other good alternatives to these as well.
Ultimately the goal is to balance our evolved negativity bias with more
positive thinking.

~~~
kilroy123
I totally agree about the mindfulness. I started to use the app,
[https://www.headspace.com](https://www.headspace.com). Which walks you
through mindfulness meditation.

I've noticed a stead improvement after using it for a while.

~~~
unlikelymordant
That app on android needs some strange permissions, access to photos and
storage and access to device id and call information plus some other stuff. I
can't see why it would need to know what numbers I call.

~~~
anowlcalledjosh
The actual permission is 'read phone status and identity', which I guess is
used to pause a meditation session if you get a phone call. 'Access to photos'
is needed to get access to external storage, presumably to download audio
files.

Disclaimer: I'm not an Android dev, this is just what I've picked up from the
internet.

------
dionidium
I once heard Sam Harris talking about a similar process. Most people sort of
_are_ their thoughts. That is -- this is tough to describe plainly -- their
thoughts and feelings are primary, driving their actions as if mechanically
linked. But you can in a certain sense become aware of your thoughts and view
them as an outsider, as something that's happening that you can see and choose
how you react to. It's not just about self-assessment. It works during acute
"attacks" too.

It's crazy, but hearing him say that made a huge impact on an anxiety problem
that had been getting worse for me. Thinking of it this way has without
exaggeration changed my life.

~~~
phkn1
That sounds fascinating. Do you happen to have a link to anything he's written
or recorded on the subject?

~~~
johnthedebs
I've listened to Sam Harris' stuff too not long ago and I'm not sure if it
changed my life, but it definitely blew my mind and is part of a broader
interest in this type of stuff that _is_ changing my life. I don't agree with
all his opinions, but his interview with Tim Ferriss and his book Waking Up
are both fantastic.

Tim Ferriss Interview: [http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/06/18/sam-
harris/](http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/06/18/sam-harris/)

Waking Up (narrated by Sam himself, which I prefer):
[http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/Waking-Up-
Au...](http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/Waking-Up-
Audiobook/B00M9KCT12)

~~~
dionidium
Harris was initially my least favorite of the Four Horsemen -- Richard
Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett -- but my
opinion has completely changed over the last year. With Hitchens gone, he's
playing the role of public intellectual better than anybody else I'm aware of
right now. I highly recommend his podcast.

~~~
gdilla
I lost some respect for Harris when he tried to lay into Noam Chomsky and
failed miserably [http://www.alternet.org/books/what-happened-when-sam-
harris-...](http://www.alternet.org/books/what-happened-when-sam-harris-tried-
and-failed-embarrass-noam-chomsky)

~~~
dionidium
I was able to make it through about half of that before the irrelevant mewling
about "privileged powerful male elites in U.S. society" became too much for
me.

If anybody is interested in what Harris actually had to say, they should go
read it for themselves:

[https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-
discourse](https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse)

~~~
gdilla
yeah, because that's a totally neutral take on what happened.

------
robteix
This article reminds me a lot of my personal experience with cognitive
behavioural therapy.

I've long suffered from social anxiety and after years of anti-anxiety drugs
and some therapy, I finally tried CBT and it was essentially:

\- write down the thoughts

\- identify what triggered them

\- find alternative (positive) conclusions

At first I thought it was ridiculous but it actually works after a while.

~~~
elcct
And some people pay thousands to have them those things explained

~~~
htima
Well when you are depressed/anxious or just in a bad state of mind it is very
difficult to follow simply steps; But thankfully I didn't need to pay since my
university offered free mental health support

------
domusliber
I have extreme anxiety, caused by OCD where the compulsions are mental rather
than physical rituals. Looking through this article, all of the tips are
tremendously powerful.

Unfortunately, they're things that have taken me over 5 years to really become
aware of, accept, practice--oh man, is persevering difficult--make mistakes,
and finally get better at. Unfortunately, as with many mental habits, it's
really, really hard to implement advice when other people just tell it to you.
It's a much longer process than that.

Still, all the points are great.

~~~
amelius
Hi, fellow OCD sufferer here.

Are you using dietary supplements to treat your OCD/anxiety?

I've found some helpful pointers here [1][2][3], but I'm only starting to
explore the field.

[1] Overcoming Ocd & Depression: My Personal Journey and Recovery, White,
David B.

[2] [http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/natural-healing-of-
ob...](http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/natural-healing-of-obsessive-
compulsive-disorder-ocd/)

[3] [http://www.ocd-free.org](http://www.ocd-free.org)

------
grumblestumble
The world, and Silicon Valley startup culture in particular, is filled to the
brim with oblivious narcissists. You can pry my nagging self-doubt from my
cold, dead fingers, thank you very much.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
North American culture has a tendency to redefine all criticism, external or
internal, as 'negativity' \-- to the point that, from my observation,
organizations will a) fail without realizing it b) fail unnecessarily due to
inability to deal with criticism c) define unrealistic goals on the assumption
that "I think I can" will get them there.

I think this is worse in California than other places, and infects Silicon
Vally the worst.

I think it leads to a 'shotgun approach' where if enough people "try try try"
then yes some do succeed spectacularly while everyone else around them crashes
and burns. But for people who just want to get things done properly, being on
the hurtling train of "YES WE CAN" is frustrating.

Growing up with an immigrant European (German) father, I have a hard time
shutting off the critical voice, and it has led to lots of culture conflict
for me within workplaces.

I think there is definitely a distinction to be made within oneself between
needless and mean negativity and critique, but I think the crucial point is
that when the latter is repeatedly ignored, it leads to the former.

~~~
scrupulusalbion
Are you sure that this is an America/California/Silicon-Valley feature? That
your own internal critical voice arose as a result of growing up with your
father (a German) seems to indicate that you got it from either having an
immigrant parent, a German/European parent, or a parent who was just a
negative nancy. I don't mean to be critical of you or your father; I mean to
point out that the criticism=>negativity idea doesn't seem to be a strictly
American thing.

> I think it leads to a 'shotgun approach' where if enough people "try try
> try" then yes some do succeed spectacularly while everyone else around them
> crashes and burns.

This reminds me of the Orks in Warhammer 40k, wherein the sheer psychic power
of an Ork can make a war machine function; the machine would collapse if a
non-Ork attempted to operate it.

I think the negativity about / criticism of oneself and one's identity (e.g.
the self-effacing comic) is unique to Western civilization. Do people outside
the West (e.g. Africa, Middle East, Asia, and perhaps South America) view
themselves as backwards for how their lives work? Plenty of people, whether on
the right or left, are critical of Western policies, especially regarding
military and economic campaign in non-Western countries.

I am genuinely curious if people in non-Western countries see themselves as
Westerners do (e.g. more bad than good).

------
NumberCruncher
I now actually re-read the book

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy /by William B. Irvine/

It describes a couple of practical techniques to overcome negative emotions. I
highly recommend it for everyone, even for the ones not suffering from self-
doubt. Reading it was life changing for me.

A sort summary:
[https://sivers.org/book/StoicJoy](https://sivers.org/book/StoicJoy)

~~~
WA
Here is another summary, which I recommend: [http://becomingeden.com/summary-
of-a-guide-to-the-good-life/](http://becomingeden.com/summary-of-a-guide-to-
the-good-life/)

I tried to read the book. It's a long read and the author shows the reader all
of his thought processes. Example: The chapter about _negative visualization_
goes back and forth for a while, almost as if you needed even more convincing.

But the concept of _negative visualization_ isn't really that hard to grok,
the benefits are obvious to a somewhat intelligent reader and quite intuitive
and easy to implement from a summary. No lengthy convincing required.

Edit: Clarification.

------
Animats
This sort of thing has been around for a long time. See "The Power of Positive
Thinking" (1952), by Norman Vincent Peale.[1]

The short version: "Insecure", by Joan Jett.[2]

The century-old version: YMCA Salesmanship Training Manual, 1920.[3]

[1]
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC0SXM](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC0SXM)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAVeAVvJIoo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAVeAVvJIoo)
[3]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=CBFPAAAAYAAJ](https://books.google.com/books?id=CBFPAAAAYAAJ)

~~~
mercer
Then there's the millennia-old version in the form of Buddhism. I've been
looking into Buddhist 'psychology' and it's shocking how much of this was
already practiced and theorized about way back then.

------
keyle
Every time you doubt yourself, ask yourself if you're on the right path. If
not, make the adjustments, sometimes drastic. If you are and just are doubting
yourself, put your head down and get back to work. Not busy-busy-work, actual
work. Best quote I know is "If you think you can't, you can't". Hope this
doesn't come as preposterous, it's common sense, but at some stage I needed to
hear it too and that helped me. WORK is HEALTH.

------
madaxe_again
Self doubt is a good thing. If more people doubted and considered their
actions rather than maintaining the "I AM SO GREAT" attitude, and believing
they are gods great gift and their actions are infallible, perhaps fewer
shitty things would happen in this world.

~~~
harrisi
As someone who has dealt with depression and self doubt for the majority of my
short life, I will say I would be much more terrified of a world where
everyone had the outlook on life and self worth that I hold than one where
everyone had an "I'm so great" attitude.

------
d3lxa
> Imagine that you have a friend who is exactly like you in every respect.
> Give him a name. Then pretend he is telling himself the same destructive
> thoughts you tell yourself.

You may also be interested by the IFS therapy method which allows one to stays
in Self and discusses with his inner voices/personas with curiosity and
goodwill. You can read
[http://www.selfleadership.org/](http://www.selfleadership.org/) and the self-
therapy a step by step guide.

------
tps5
I didn't get through the article so apologies if I missed the point.

I've run into a fair bit of this stuff recently: people who encourage me to
"think positively" or "remind yourself how awesome you are."

I think it's all nonsense. I believe that self-doubt and self-interrogation
are usually healthy. Obviously there's a line to be drawn. At some point self-
doubt will impede your ability to act. But, in general, I think a skeptical
internal dialogue is a healthy thing.

~~~
cjhveal
There's a huge difference between being skeptical and being self-deprecating.
By all means one should play devil's advocate to their own impulses, but
without practicing self-awareness, it's exceptionally difficult to come up
with useful criticism of one's own thoughts and to unravel the complex
interplay between thoughts, behaviours, and emotions. Because of this, many
people give themselves poor/irrelevant feedback and form habits of thought
that cause the same kind of negative self-evaluation to recur.

In addition, it's common for people to feel a sense of threat from their own
negative thoughts, and the sympathetic nervous system doesn't very effectively
differentiate psychological threats from physical. Subsequently, attacking
oneself can lead to fight-or-flight response, which can cause a cascade of
changes throughout the body, including the brain, which can manifest as
cognitive biases, for instance attentional bias towards negative stimuli or
interpreting ambiguous stimuli to be negative.

Hopefully you can see how the combination of these effects could create a
negative feedback loop, causing typically rational skeptic to veer off into
unfounded, inconsistent thoughts blaming oneself and generating further
negative emotion.

So ultimately, I'd agree with you 100%, there's a line to be drawn. The
unfortunate thing is that it's very fuzzy from within one's own mind to
discern where that line should be drawn, and negative feedback loops can set
up instability that overshoots that line, even when meaning well. For
individuals with this kind of pathological negative self-examination, framing
things positively can have a huge impact on how they are actually perceived
and acted upon. And for people struggling with depression/anxiety, it can make
a world of difference in outcome to simply reframe a thought like: "I should
have worked harder on that work deadline. Now everyone hates me because I
missed it and I'm going to get fired." as "I'll feel better about my work and
my relationships with colleagues if I give myself extra time and raise
concerns early about deadlines."

At the same time, an excess of positive thinking can absolutely create it's
own share of psychological effects and reactionary feedback loops. For
example, in bipolar disorder we see a grandiosity of thought and excess of
confidence that leads to underestimating risks and inflated expectations,
which collide with reality (often disastrously) leading to a large down swing
in emotion, and the resulting post-manic depression.

------
kstenerud
What did it for me was choosing to behave as if I lived a charmed life. I'd
make my plans under the assumption that it would work out. Things would very
rarely go wrong (thus reinforcing the charmed life angle), and if they ever
did, it wouldn't be that hard to fix it anyway. People will forgive an amazing
number of things, and the worst case scenario just doesn't happen in practice.

It's amazing how much baggage you can shed with this approach. And shedding
the baggage makes you more pleasant to be around (even to yourself), thus
giving you better opportunities and even more ready forgiveness.

~~~
_pmf_
> What did it for me was choosing to behave as if I lived a charmed life.

And on a global scale (and a historic view), we actually and undoubtedly do.

"The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" discusses this in depth (and in an actually
applicable manner).

------
perlpimp
This is so true, I'd like to add sometimes I get a bit frazzled or swept up in
something I don't need and I mentally stand aside and ridicule and laugh how
silly and pathetic that part of me is. And then we laugh together and suddenly
everything is trivial funny and not worth any worry at all.

------
artur_makly
and on the flip side..the other challenge is to keep your hubris/ego in check.
obtaining the equilibrium is the art of life

------
vorotato
Now that you know you can, should you?

