The Connection Between Self-Doubt and Anxiety: What You Need to Know
Life is full of uncertainties. We don’t know how quickly we’ll get to work, whether we’ll be safe from robbers in the street, or if our business venture will be successful. We doubt whether we’re suitable for the task at hand or whether we’re worthy of love and respect.
Against such a list of worries, everyone will get nervous from time to time. Stress and doubt often come together, and self-doubt anxiety might be more prevalent than we even realize. Today, we’ll have a short exploration of their connection and how to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy uncertainty.
Self-Doubt and Anxiety: The Basics
Self-doubt is a state of thinking in which you question your capabilities, decisions, or worth (or all at once). Healthy self-doubt might encourage you to grow and look at yourself objectively. When we take it overboard, though, it damages our self-esteem and stalls our choices.
What of anxiety? It is your body’s natural response to stress that typically shows up as worry, nervousness, or restlessness. In more than one Liven app review, users admit to regarding anxiety as their core challenge. Just as with self-doubt, anxiety can be healthy and actually productive: if we can manage our anxiety levels before performance, we get an additional push of energy. However, unhelpful worry takes rather than gives.
Self-doubt creates uncertainty about ourselves and the world, which, in turn, causes anxiety to grow. They reinforce each other.
The Anxious Motor: How One Fuels the Other
Have you noticed that whenever you feel unsure about how well you can accomplish something, your nerves get the better of you? Now you know the reason: the link between self-doubt and anxiety regularly plays out in a repeating cycle. Some compare it to the small pebble in their shoes — seemingly unnoticeable but irritating. However, the more time you spend with this pebble in your shoe, the more uncomfortable it gets.
Let’s imagine that you’ve met with your friend for the first time in half a year. Later at home, you consider whether you said the right thing during a dialogue, whatever the topic. And this “pebble” becomes more annoying the more you circle back to it.
This is where you start to overthink. Many athletes admit that overthinking a basic movement in sports can lead them to make a mistake in a well-learned routine. That’s how it works here, too: your mind is overwhelmed by all the thoughts that pile up on top. What if they are offended? What if you said something rude? What if… You get the point. This flow of thoughts and questions triggers your anxiety.
Anxiety doesn’t help your case, either. You suddenly want to run in all directions, but don’t know which one to pick. When every path seems scary, even blinking might appear terrifying. This stalling and lack of actual decisions make you think that you cannot trust yourself to move. And this, in turn, returns to your self-doubt.
About the Biological Factors Behind the Cycle
While self-doubt and anxiety may feel purely mental, biology plays a huge role in why they work the way they do. Your self-questioning — the one you can’t find the response to — triggers a stress response that sees the lack of confidence as a real-life threat. Your body releases cortisol and adrenaline. It means your muscles get tense, your heart rate rises, and you are ready to go into action.
Let’s not forget about the amygdala and prefrontal cortex; they also get involved in the cycle. What do they do? Amygdala detects danger (yes, the one your brain sees in uncertainty) and starts ringing the alarm bells. Meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex loses its primary capacity to make decisions and process information logically. That’s why we can’t think properly when nervous about potential choices.
Finally, some people are simply more anxious than others due to genetic factors or negative experiences in the past. This is the reason why we behave so differently even in the same situation.
Psychological Factors and How They Manifest
Your thought patterns play an equally important role in how you handle self-doubt and anxiety and, more importantly, how they affect you. These are the most common psychological components that can escalate a situation from merely nervous to catastrophic (in your eyes). Look through the examples — does anything look familiar?
Cognitive Distortions
We aren’t as objective as we’d like to be. We stare at the world through tinted glass, but its color is the belief system we’ve accumulated over the years. These are cognitive traps, such as all-or-nothing thinking (“If I don’t succeed perfectly, I’ve failed”) or catastrophizing (“One mistake will ruin everything”).
Example: You have made a simple mistake at work. It wasn’t tiny, but it wasn’t an end-of-the-world one either. The more you contemplate it, the more you worry until you start to believe that your boss probably views you as incompetent. This, in turn, further facilitates your anxiety and self-doubt.
Low Self-Esteem
Regardless of why you have low self-esteem (past trauma, unstable relationships, or personal opinions), you see potential challenges as severe threats to your worth.
Example: You have always dreamed of being a dancer/artist/singer. But you feel like you’ll fail, so you hesitate or avoid learning new skills, trying out new hobbies, or exploring new career paths.
Perfectionism
When you want everything to be ideal, you might set yourself up for a major disappointment. No one is perfect — and yet, some of us always want to achieve that ethereal goal, not even realizing how it affects us.
Example: In a romantic relationship, you hold yourself to such a high standard that you are constantly worried your partner will leave you.
Conclusion
Getting rid of self-doubt entirely is mission impossible. But to make sure it doesn’t stop you from living your life, doesn’t drive your thoughts up the wall? You can do this, and you have already started. By understanding how anxiety and self-doubt influence each other, you gain a deeper self-awareness, which is vital to trusting yourself.
