I agree completely about self doubt and self belief. When I doubt myself, sometimes I'm too in it to have clarity and often seek counsel for a second opinion. A second opinion can reveal things you hadn't though about and offer another perspective that can be agreed with or not. Sometimes the other opinion makes me think yes I was right. Gut feeling is valuable, ignore it at your peril or that's been my experience, although I'm doubting this now! :)
It's certainly something that I have experienced Mark, yes - those significant swings between doubt & belief & back again!
It can be difficult to find the happy medium between the two where you understand that not everything you do is going to win or lose, but in fact it will be a mixture of the two :)
But being consciously aware of those swings is the first step in my mind.
Yes Matt, you can't always get it right. I was thinking last night, do you reason with yourself about self doubt or do you talk about it with others or a combination? Clarity of thinking will result in better decisions, having all the information without being overloaded. Big question, but how do we get clearer thinking? I guess the big decisions usually involve someone else.
My first step is always with myself Mark - and I use pen-and-paper to get things out as it flows better for me that way. Basically I need some idea of what the parameters of the problem are before I can realistically articulate them to someone else.
But once that's done, that's where the "other people" come in for me - once I can articulate what I think the problem is, I try to do so with multiple people, each of them with the right experience / knowledge that would provide context to what I'm telling them.
Very little is solved in a vacuum, and all potential solutions need to be accepted by people other than yourself if they are to be effective - so those external perspectives really matter.
I agree completely about self doubt and self belief. When I doubt myself, sometimes I'm too in it to have clarity and often seek counsel for a second opinion. A second opinion can reveal things you hadn't though about and offer another perspective that can be agreed with or not. Sometimes the other opinion makes me think yes I was right. Gut feeling is valuable, ignore it at your peril or that's been my experience, although I'm doubting this now! :)
It's certainly something that I have experienced Mark, yes - those significant swings between doubt & belief & back again!
It can be difficult to find the happy medium between the two where you understand that not everything you do is going to win or lose, but in fact it will be a mixture of the two :)
But being consciously aware of those swings is the first step in my mind.
Yes Matt, you can't always get it right. I was thinking last night, do you reason with yourself about self doubt or do you talk about it with others or a combination? Clarity of thinking will result in better decisions, having all the information without being overloaded. Big question, but how do we get clearer thinking? I guess the big decisions usually involve someone else.
My first step is always with myself Mark - and I use pen-and-paper to get things out as it flows better for me that way. Basically I need some idea of what the parameters of the problem are before I can realistically articulate them to someone else.
But once that's done, that's where the "other people" come in for me - once I can articulate what I think the problem is, I try to do so with multiple people, each of them with the right experience / knowledge that would provide context to what I'm telling them.
Very little is solved in a vacuum, and all potential solutions need to be accepted by people other than yourself if they are to be effective - so those external perspectives really matter.
That makes sense Matt. Pen and paper!
Those people around us are gold. I agree more and more about not working in a vacuum.