There are many ways to sabotage your own success, but doubt is the biggest one of them all. Doubting yourself and your abilities is a paralyzing thought. It keeps you away from even trying, thus losing by giving up.

There are obstacles in life, regardless of what your goal is. Even the simplest goals have some obstacles in their path of making them real. The bigger your dream, the more difficult the road is. You also have your own weaknesses to overcome, and in the process of becoming better, you will fail. The idea is that there is no smooth path to success. It is a bumpy road, full of obstacles, that will stop you very easily if you have even the slightest doubt in your ability to succeed. It is how it’s meant to be. God gave us unlimited potential and resources at our disposal, but we have to work hard for it.

Your brain doesn’t want you to succeed. It simply doesn’t care about anything else but survival. And what survival means? Avoiding pain, discomfort, and choosing a more pleasant way if available. The problem is that success is achieved only by going through obstacles and pain. Here is where doubts come along. Your mind wants to stop you from going through all that trouble and pain, therefore it’s sending you thoughts of “maybe you aren’t meant for this and should quit”. If you buy into them, these thoughts will become stronger and will have the power over you.

We control our thoughts, and whatever we feed ourselves or we let to grow, it will become the dominant force that controls our actions. Imagine like you have two minds, one that is positive and wants you to succeed and it helps you do it, and one that wants you to fail, shows you what’s wrong and tries to stop you. When you choose to believe a thought and keep it into your consciousness, you feed either the positive mind or the negative one. And whichever you feed, becomes the dominant mind that control your subconscious behaviour.

There is a great story of how not believing your doubts helps you succeed. Is from the actor Sylvester Stallone. When he had the idea for the script for “Rocky”, he had a very hard time making it real. He was so broke that at some point he had to sell his dog (which he later bought back for a lot of more money). The movie producers he contacted loved the script for “Rocky”, but they wanted to buy it and use their own actors. But Stallone refused, knowing in his heart that he is meant to play the leading role as well. He refused a lot of money offered for the script because he believed in himself and his dream. At some point, the movie producers offered him a smaller deal with his conditions, and the rest is legendary. There wouldn’t be a “Rocky”, “Rambo” or “The Expendables” if he did believe his doubts instead of his dream.

On the other side of the coin, Jim Carrey talked in one of his speeches about his father, that wanted to be a comedian as well but chose a safer job out of fear. He remembered how at some point his father was fired from the “safe” job he had, and his family struggled to survive. His conclusion was that you can fail at things you don’t love too, therefore why not take a shot at what you do love. The point is that his father listened to his doubts more than he listened to his dreams. And that sadly made him choose a life he didn’t love, out of the illusion of safety. The truth is nothing is safe. The only thing that guarantees our success is our ability to achieve it, and we cannot tap into our full potential without believing in our dreams first. Doubt kills dreams, therefore we must kill doubt to achieve our dreams.

But how do we kill doubt so we can achieve our dreams? I believe there are 3 simple steps that we can apply to remove doubt from our life and achieve the things we most wish.

Take action. Taking action is the cure of self-doubt. Doubts become powerful and take control of us when we allow them too much time to grow by overthinking. There is something powerful and inspiring when we take action. Even if you don’t know what to do next or what is the overall plan, by taking action on even the simplest thing will make you feel amazing and will bring more ideas into your mind.

With time, you can develop a plan and take small steps towards the realization of your goals, but the idea is just starting to do something. That will create momentum and discipline in your life. Don’t let excuses hold you back anymore. I am sure that if you take a piece of paper you can write down at least 3 actions that you can do right now that moves you closer to your goal. Write 3 things you can do, sort them by impact with A, B and C, A being the most powerful, and start doing A right away.

Learn from your failures. Your mistakes are not there to hurt you, they are there to teach you. Our past is a great school that we can use to our own advantage. It doesn’t help us to use our past as a club and beat ourselves with it. A master has failed many times more than a novice even tried. Failing doesn’t make you a failure, giving up make you a failure. Failing is just a tool for development. You cannot learn anything new from winning, you are already performing the best. But when a mistake comes along, there are great opportunities to grow, learn and develop that cannot be found at any other opportunity.

By learning from your failures you will also remove the paralyzing fear of making a mistake, that holds most people down. Without this fear, you will be bold to take massive action, and that will bring the results you want.

Focus daily on your goals. Where your attention goes, energy flows. Stop giving attention to the things you don’t like or want in your life, because that’s where you will be redirected. Instead, focus on your goals and what you want to achieve in life. Write them down in your journal and read them every single day. Imagine like you are already there, and feel all the joy and excitement that you will have once you achieve those things.

This will give you great energy and enthusiasm to perform better and take action towards the realization of your dreams. Not to mention that your subconscious will take your goals as an order, and will guide you towards that realization without you even knowing.

These are 3 simple steps that are actually very powerful, and they will guide you towards a life that you love and will remove that paralyzing self-doubt that keeps most people in a life they hate. With time, you will become better at what you do and that will reinforce your self-confidence. And the best part is that these 3 positive steps will become habits and that will create your life. Because our days are in fact our future in miniature. What we do every day holds the greatest impact on what we are going to have in the future.

Stay brave, take action and create a life for you and your family that is worth living!