to feel constant self doubt?

[Mystro]

So, I'm 37 and I would have thought I'd have grown out of this by now. But as it is, my days are full of self-doubt and a real lack of self confidence. At work I often feel fairly inadequate, I'm scared of making mistakes, and don't respond well to any sort of 'rejection.' For example, someone criticised me in a meeting today. I don't know if it was a fair criticism or not, but I am now sitting here basically thinking I'm crap at my job, when I sort of know that someone else might just have shrugged it off and moved on. In other areas of my life, I worry for example about whether people like me, or about whether I've said the wrong thing. In fact, I also spent a lot of my life feeling like a total loon having said something stupid!

Does anybody else feels like this? If so, what strategies do you use to deal with it - and do they work!?

I don't know whether these feelings are based on an 'objective' assessment of me and my life, but I do know they reduce my happiness. I should just add that I am generally quite a happy person having said all that. In fact, I think that my life would be pretty amazing, if I could just get rid of feeling like I've constantly not got things right! Give me some tips!

Whoops, lots of typos! I'll blame that on late night typing!

I think that a lot of people feel the same-it just isn't the face they show. When I feel like that I remind myself of the successful things that I have done. You are not going to please everyone so don't try.
I know I am not much help but if you imagine that others feel the same but are better at hiding it it might make you feel better.

I have a new rule - every time I think a negative thought about myself, I have to tell myself three positive things instead. I does seem to be working...

I think you've just got to stop overthinking things and move on. Commnets people make can ruin your day, if you let them. take the constructive ones and use them, the ones that hurt, think 'water off a ducks back'

I have been feeling that way for years, it is only recently that a promotion has forced me to think differently. I felt that if I felt that way about myself then how could I expect other people to have confidence in me?

I can't really explain how I am doing it, just trying to exude an air of confidence and accepting that not everyone will like me, why should they? (Not just work I mean, but in life in general.)

By any chance, did you feel unloved as a child? I know my issues stem from a generally unfeeling family. I have never been abused or even treated that badly, just have a mother who never shows any emotion.

One thing that does help me is, if I am feeling a lack of self confidence, I make a little mental list of all the things I have handled well recently and all the things I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am good at.

HTH.

You are not alone,I'm a lot older than you,always been the same and having loads of cancer treatmetn hasnt helped,but i survive,i get by with help from psychologist from local cancer centre,other folk, CBH therapy in bad spells.You have admitted it whihc is good, Now is not the time to talk, its late and you are tired.But you can do this.

Mystro I feel like that all the time. I am generally quite a successful person, but I always seem to focus things I that I think I've not done well rather than what I've achieved.

I also think people are judging me all the time, however when I seriously think about it I doubt they have given me a second thought.

A good tip that helps me when a negative thought pops into my head is to say "So what" (mentally to myself, not out loud!)

I wonder if there are any good self-help books that could help.

You already know that you are not alone! I think that there are far more people that feel the same but they would never say so. The idea of having to think a positive thought every time you have a negative one is a good one.

Thanks so much for your replies everybody - you have made me feel better already. When I turned 30, I read Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. I saw it in a bookshop and thought that's how I feel, scared all the time! Anyway, I found it quite literally life changing - I changed loads of things, for the better. Now that I'm having a wobble maybe I should go back to it. My DD is two and the biggest thing I want to give her (well, one of) is self confidence and self belief. I think the best thing to do is to model that so I really need to learn myself!

I had a very fortunate childhood I think, not perfect like almost anybody, but loved. I am academically quite a 'high achiever' - in fact, I am now an academic. So looking purely at my qualifications, on paper I look good I guess - although I always think that I've somehow tricked the examiners into giving me undeserved good marks! It is probably part of my personality to over think, but you are all right, I have to remember that I'm not the centre of the universe! So a day of meetings today ... here goes with the practising!

A survey of teachers found out that a large proportion are waiting to be found out as frauds! Even though they have observations and come out as outstanding and they know that colleagues see them as very successful, they still feel it is a mistake! You are over thinking and being hard on yourself. Try thinking that you will aim to be 'good enough' and anything else is a bonus. I think that I had a lovely childhood, a loving DH and emotionally stable, caring DCs so I must be doing something right! It stands me in good stead for the down side.

It's supposed to be a very 'female'thing, this feeling that you're just waiting to be found out as a fraud and are really pretty rubbish. I remember a management training course where you moved along levels from 'unconciously incompetent' (ie a complete liability) to 'conciously incompetent' (which is where I'm stuck), all the way up through 'conciously competent' to 'unconciously competent'

I have felt 'conciously incompetent' for years, for example I have more qualifications than you can shake a stick at, but mentally write them off as 'just academic, not any actual use...'

I now have a list of positive thoughts stuck to the inside front page of my work notebook, which feels a bit of a cliche, but actually works for me (sometimes).

DH says he has only recently (at age 42) stopped feeling like this after years of pretending, and puts it down to being promoted to a level where he just has to get on with it.

You are not alone!

I think that most people have the feeling to some degree, you would have to be very thick skinned to truly not care about what people think. People have different ways of coping and very successful people would never admit to it. If you have no sensitivity or self doubt you would be horrible to live with!

I really relate to this! I am one of those teachers waiting to be found out too. I hate the way I feel about myself, I know it holds me back and makes me unhappy. I am constantly paranoid that people don't like me or think I am useless. My biggest fear is that I will pass this on to my son. I have even thought about trying something like EFT to get rid of it but it is soooo much money.

I can completely relate to this. I'm very prone to feeling like this and have done ever since I was a child. (Parents very affectionate and loving but there was some non-parent thing that could be the reason - or just how I'm made!). I was an academic too - but got out of it partly because I always felt like a fraud, despite having the qualifications, having bosses that were happy with me and publishing the odd thing. Same thing with friends or acquaintances - always tend to think they're judging me, thinking this, that and the other. I do find myself quite hard work!!! Luckily I have a great DH who is good at talking sense into me. And I find as I get older (I'm a similar age too) it gets better as I just can't be bothered to be so bothered and I guess I'm more confident as I've been round the block before, the world hasn't caved in when I've felt this way before and I know its more self-destructive than anything else. Probably by the time I'm in my 60s I'll be a well rounded individual! Sometimes helps me to try and think logically/impassively about my thought processes, e.g. is it likely that all the other mums at that party when DS was having a gigantic tantrum thought I was completely incompetent and a terrible mother?, what would I have thought if the shoe was on the other foot? Sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't. I think with your work situation I would just try and focus on something else - at lunchtime go for a walk and clear your head, maybe treat yourself to something (even if its just a coffee). Anyway, you're not alone!

Thanks everybody, nice to know that I'm not alone. I marched into lots of interviews with vaguely intimidating people today and pretended I was confident! It sort of worked. And I am refusing to dwell on anything that was said - except for the slight problem that I now have to transcribe said interviews so have to listen again!

Were you often told you were clever? I would recommend Carol Dweck's book Mindset. I think it will help enormously.

Dweck talks a lot about the importance of having a 'growth mindset' - in other words, you don't have permanent traits set in stone, you can change things and 'improve' in all areas if you like.

Dweck explains that if a child is praised continually for being 'clever' there is a danger that when they find things tricky at some stage, they'll believe they have reached their limit, the limit of their cleverness. This can lead to 'imposter syndrome' as an adult.

It's helped me hugely. I find social settings difficult at times and can be socially awkward. Reading the book has taught me that it's ok to mess up, everyone has to start somewhere, few are born brilliant social mixers. I can get better! That goes for anything I find difficult. That's very empowering I think.

Oh bless you Mystro. I dont have anything to add really that hasn't been said but just wanted to offer my support and say that we all feel like that at times.

If that book worked for you, read it again. I read it at 14 and probably wouldnt be where I am now had I not.

Mystro - I am you! I am an academic too and everything you have written I think constantly about myself - I am in fact sitting in my office trying to write an article and before coming on MN just now phoned DH in tears saying I just can't seem to write anything.

I don't really have any super tips I am afraid (see - how rubbish is that!)but I did just want to add my support and let you know you are definitely not alone

Hello! Just in the middle of writing a tricky article (hello Beagle!) and though I'd have a quick look at Mumsnet (as you do) and rediscovered this thread.

Mindset sounds really interesting Cortina, I will have a look at that. I don't think I was constantly praised for being clever whilst growing up. In fact, I out-performed my siblings in academic achievement and my parents sort of encouraged me not to mention it. They were obviously pleased when I did well, but they would also tell me off for being 'too clever' or winning arguments or if there was any implication that a sister would feel less good as a result. Fair enough. But I guess I have spent a lot of my life sort of downplaying my abilities in that area.

Anyway, that coincides with a strange belief just as you point out that things should come easily to me, and I feel shocked and let down by myself when they don't! So I sort of seem to have both an under-estimation and an over-estimation of my abilities. Gosh, I sound like a nut!

Beagle - I feel your pain and my DH could identify with yours I'm sure! He often has to suffer through me telling him that everything I write is mediocre and I'm a failure. He is very patient thank goodness!

Cortina, that's really interesting.

Mystro, I also have bouts of feeling like this (including right now. Mind you, I have been mnetting most of the day at work so possibly deserve to feel a fraud!). It helps to realize that many other people are also waiting to be found out. When I was 15 I was shocked to read a sonnet by Shakespeare lamenting his own inadequacies: he found himself "desiring this man's art and that man's scope".

I'm glad that many of you have DHs who sympathize. I had an ex who tried to sap my confidence in any way he could, so I'm slow to expose any vulnerabilities now. But generally it helps to take the long view - stuff I'm fretting over today isn't going to matter very much 100 years from now (or possibly even next week).

Yes the long view definitely helps doesn't it. In fact one thing I used to do was to pretend I was sitting on the moon, looking down at the world, in order to see how insignificant me and my 'problems' were.

Really interesting quote from Shakespeare. If he felt like that, what hope for the rest of us. Although part of his genius is in expressing universalities, I guess - I'm definitely not an expert on Shakespeare! If just about everybody feels self-doubt, does not feeling it make you a psychopath I wonder? Something to consider for the weekend!!

I am the same. I can't shake it, even though I'm in my 40s. Unfortunately, just saying to myself 'get over it' or 'forget it' just doesn't work. I can say the words, but not feel the feelings!

I am always worried about what people think of me, worried I'm crap at my job (even tho it's a job way beneath what people might consider I could do given my qualifications), get very upset when people criticise me, constantly worried about my health and my looks.

God, I sound a wreck! Apart from that (!) I'm basically a happy ish person with lots of friends.

I need therapy!!! It annoys me that I'm still feeling this way at my age. I know I need to get over it and enjoy life, but as I said, it's not that easy to put into practice.

Re DHs. Mine is a very strong confident man. Rarely has self doubt. I find that I need someone like that - to say STOP and move on. I don't find it easy to move on from whatever worry I have at that moment, but it would be horrendous if I had someone who pandered to my irrational fears of life!!!