Minimize Your Self-Doubt: Cultivating Creativity and Success through Self-Belief

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Hi there. Welcome back to the Make Time For Success podcast. This is episode number 182. You know, there are some days when I wonder what it would be like to host a podcast about something tangible like cars. But here I am, the host of this show, the Make Time For Success podcast, where we talk about so many different things that are completely intangible. Today's topic is about the very intangible concept of believing in yourself. And in order to tackle this topic, we have to really dig deep and look at the ways in which we doubt ourselves. So that is the main subject today.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:44]:
Inside this episode, you're going to hear about a lot of different subtopics, including your unique talent and zone of genius and also ways in which to embrace your full potential and all the possibilities in your life. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:08]:
Hi. I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:54]:
Hi there. It is Dr. Christine Li, back with another episode on the podcast. Today, I'm gonna be using my notes. I typically refer to notes, but oftentimes, try to pretend to like I'm not using them. Today, I've got so many different notes that you may hear the rustling of little pieces of paper as I am delivering the content today. Today's episode is all about the importance of minimizing or even doing away with your self doubt because, as I will explain as I do this episode, having positive self belief and really quieting your self doubt can be really wonderful for igniting your creativity and the success that comes when we are allowing ourselves to be creative. So a little bit about the backstory of why this topic is coming up today for me. One reason is that over the past Memorial Day long weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to return to my alma mater and to enjoy a huge reunion.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:13]:
It was a big year reunion, one of the, major reunions, so I returned with a bunch of my friends and saw everyone and danced and got away from reality for a little bit, and it was so much fun. And part of the reunion was a series of panels that were a combination of both alumni and faculty of the university. And one of the panels that I chose to go to was one on creativity, particularly creativity in entrepreneurship. And both of those topics are really near and dear to my heart. And this panel was actually a panel of 1 professor, and he was delightful. He was really fun, knowledgeable, friendly, and a wonderful teacher. And I thought I would share a little bit of what he taught me in that session. What he talked about broadly was what the definition of creativity is.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:16]:
And what we found in the group discussion was that it's not the easiest thing to define what is creativity, because sometimes it's about thinking up something that's original, but other times it's more like being able to put ideas together in a different kind of way. And sometimes, the professor argued, it is really about allowing something to happen creatively without the feeling of being constrained. And I really like that definition in particular. He gave one example to illustrate his points, and one exercise that he gives his students is the exercise that I've heard before somewhere else. I don't remember where, but it's the exercise to list 26 novel ideas, distinct ideas for how to use a brick. You know, those red bricks that are used for housing and other things. And when you first hear that assignment, it might not feel so daunting. But when you sit down to make a list of 26 different ideas for using a red brick, you might actually find yourself getting stymied or stuck.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:39]:
And he said that most people will get stuck at around 8, 9, or idea number 10. But once people are coached into how to think more creatively, they have a much easier time of coming up with a full list of 26 different uses for a single red brick. And in case you're wondering right now, what could you do with a red brick other than build a nice house for yourself? You could use a brick for a trivet. You could use it as the base of an art piece. You could paint it. You could use the brick as a weight for your arms while you're walking, and you can use the brick for a weight for when you're on the beach and you need something to hold down your picnic blanket. Those are just some fun ones that I came up with while preparing for this episode. You get the idea that there are really no limits to what you could do with a red brick and what you could use it for.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:40]:
But there's a way in which our brains are kind of narrowed by our habits, by our past teaching that, you know what, red bricks are for building, and they're only good for building houses, and we should only think about the red brick and housing. We can't think of it as a block for a mouse trap, or something to hold your flowers in, something like that. So I think the point was that we can be stymied in our creativity without really even realizing it. So that is my first lesson borrowed from that professor, who was really fun, to decide for yourself that you can think outside conventional limits. Your brain is certainly talented enough to do it. No matter what kind of schooling you have and no matter what you think of your brain's capacity, you do have this capacity to think outside what you know. You just need to give yourself the permission to do so. Alright.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:42]:
The second point here is that, it's a little bit of an extension of the first point. We are in the habit of doubting ourselves. And I think that habit influences how we get our work done. Another story from the reunion, which will help me to describe what I'm trying to describe here, was that someone I was sitting across a round table from, all of a sudden, interjected in our conversation, our group conversation, and said, Christine, your voice on the podcast is really nice. I really like your voice on the podcast. And I think if you were there, you would have seen my mouth drop to the table hanging open because, a, I couldn't believe this person who happens to live in the UK listens to the podcast, and b, I couldn't believe that she liked my voice. And I went on to describe how I sometimes don't necessarily prefer the sound of my own voice, and so on and so forth. And she went on to say, you know what, Christine? I know you can talk over the nice thing that she had said, but she wanted to reassert that I have a nice speaking voice.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:00]:
And I just wanted to put this in here because it's an example of how we can be just dumbfounded by things that other people see in us. And we can kind of lose sight of the fact that we are capable, and that when we try to put creative things out into the world, like a single podcast episode or an entire series of podcast episodes, that people will be listening to the things that you're doing. They will be taking it in. You can still be overwhelmed by every single comment that anybody ever makes about your podcast, but the podcast still stands as an effort and a sign of creativity and of a sign of the fact that you've overcome your self doubt so that you can believe in yourself and do the things that you feel called to do. So thank you, Miriam, for that lovely comment across the table. And, really, I just wanted to share that because even though I am the host of the podcast, it doesn't mean that I'm not completely overwhelmed by positive comments about the show, my voice, the content. And thank you everyone who listens and supports the show. Alright.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:22]:
Before I go on to the next point, I wanted to stop here and have you think about your own life. Are there ways in which you might be thinking you're not doing so well, or you haven't mastered what you're doing, or you could be so much better, when really you're making such progress, when really people are noticing, and when really you might need to just, like, pat yourself on the back mid journey because you've come so far. Sometimes it can be really not in our habit to stop, take stock of what's going on, and see everything as this giant piece of progress that we've made, and instead, we just are in the habit, the very passive habit of saying, oh, it's not good enough. Oh, I haven't mastered this yet. Oh, nobody's noticing. Things like that. Okay. So before I go into the next section, the next section of the podcast is what research shows about the importance of believing in yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:28]:
But before I go into that section, I want to know that I believe that having a positive sense of yourself, believing in yourself and really actively shutting down your self doubt is a must. I don't think this is optional. I think this is something that anyone and everyone should be working towards on a regular basis, on a consistent basis. Because self belief is such a powerful form of fuel for our energy, for our confidence, for our creativity, for our well-being, for our cells, the cells in our body that make us and allow us to think and be creative and come up with different uses for a red brick. It's all of a piece. And when we're doubting ourselves, we're kind of limiting that whole system from functioning at its best. Again, we're in the habit of not believing in ourselves all the time, because that takes energy, but I want to let you know that you have that kind of energy, and when you get to that level where you're feeling really positively about yourself and your potential and what you're doing, that energy will carry you through, that you will have enough source energy to keep going. You will not be running out of energy when you get to that level of really positive and pure self belief.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:01]:
Okay. Now I promised you a section on what the research says about self belief and here we go. Here's this little piece of paper here. Research shows that 1, self doubt can really inhibit creative thinking and problem solving abilities. And this makes sense, doesn't it? After what I just said, That when we're doubting ourselves, we're kind of focusing on our lack of ability rather than thinking about the creative issue or the problem that we're trying to solve. We're trying to get out of our own heads and that icky feeling of doubting ourselves, rather than thinking, okay, what can we do? How can we put our heads together? What can I come up with here? And we've all been in both situations. We've been in situations where we've doubted ourselves and felt like we weren't coming up with any good answers at all. But we've all been in situations where we feel like we're coming up with 26 answers for a red brick all at the same time, in the same 5 minute period, and we're really on fire.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:06]:
And I'm really just coaching you to think for yourself that you could be on fire almost all the time when you release self doubt. So self doubt can limit your creativity and your problem solving ability. It can also encourage you to shy away from risks and to avoid exploring new possibilities and new options. And when you do that, when you don't take risks, when you don't explore new ideas, what ends up happening is that you put out less. You put out fewer results. You maybe generate fewer pages in your manuscript. It kind of has a ripple effect. So again, we wanna nurture self belief and we wanna squash our self doubt.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:55]:
The second piece of research that I wanna mention here is that there is a gender difference in how we experience self doubt, and it turns out that women often experience higher levels of self doubt than our counterpart men. And when I was writing down the notes about this research, I was thinking about the big topic of imposter syndrome. And if you've spent any time reading about imposter syndrome or learning about it as I have, you will know that the literature is really all about the experience of women. It's not that men do not experience impostor syndrome, but there was a piece that I read a while ago that indicated or alluded to the idea that imposter syndrome was something that was created as women were entering the workforce, and there was a tension, and the male establishment was interested in creating a new environment where women who were rising in the ranks somehow felt out of place, or that they weren't good enough, or they couldn't cut the mustard. And so these areas of self doubt, they may be embedded in our institutions, in our culture, in the way we talk to each other, in the way we think about ourselves. And so I'm sitting here recording this episode just challenging you to challenge, where did I come up with the idea that I am not worthy or I'm not good enough or I'm not talented enough for the things that I feel I want to accomplish and conquer and put out into the world. I want you to just fully believe in yourself no matter what your inner voice has been feeding you, trying to keep you safe over the years. Okay.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:48]:
Now, the next section of this episode is my argument for why it's so important for you to overcome your own self doubt if you happen to suffer from self doubt. And I've given you the research ideas, I've given you some thoughts about this, but here are a few more. One of them, I think, is maybe the most important one. That trying to get things done while also not believing in yourself, it's kind of like walking up a mountain with a 50 pound bag of bricks on your back. It's really making your entire journey much more arduous and energy consuming, and frustrating, and stop start. There's no verb for that. But when you doubt yourself, you periodically have to stop yourself to just check-in with yourself. And in all honesty, oftentimes, I procrastinate before recording these sessions because, you know, I feel like I have to get my energy in the right way.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:59]:
I have to get my notes all in the right way. But more than the notes and the ideas, it's more my confidence. I need to just make sure I'm in one piece with my confidence before I press record. Because otherwise, you wouldn't get the voice that sounds positive. You would get someone who sounded a little more shaky and sounded a little less self confident. So I want you to just think to yourself that you can learn to put your confidence all in one place, that you do not have to get things done while also doubting yourself. These two things can literally be separated. I've done it in my own life.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:39]:
It's been a journey. Totally, in all honesty, it's not an overnight trip, but it really is a wonderful trip that you should get on. Because when you're able to be productive and at high levels, without having to tear yourself apart in the process, it's like the joy of using your brain, and using your heart, and putting your ideas together is just pure. You don't have to waste time anymore. You don't have to check-in with your colleagues anymore. You can just create. You can just let your brain generate this wonderful material. You can just listen to what the universe is trying to communicate through you, and you can get your work done so much more cleanly and quickly when you do.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:29]:
Okay. The second point that I have here about why you should overcome your self doubt is that when you believe in yourself more, your creativity is expanded. You will be able to see many more options when you are calm in your heart, and when you trust yourself, and when you think, oh, I have such a great brain participating here. Let me actively listen. Let my neurons fire. Let those is it neurons? Let the synapses fire. It's not I think I'm using the wrong language. But anyway, I think you understand what I'm saying.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:08]:
Let your brain cells, you know, be ignited and connect. And let's have our creativity be enlivened by our desire to create. Okay? Let our system flow, I think is is the non technical terms because they're escaping me now. I wanna put in another story here at this point because I think this is a story of how even the most creative among us struggle with this issue of, do I really allow myself to be in flow? I had the wonderful opportunity of speaking with a doctoral student in the field of physics, and we were talking about the fact that there is now the possibility of studying the intersection of physics with the social sciences. And I got very, very excited about this conversation because I am someone who's in the social sciences, but I'm really very interested. So I have a layperson's understanding of physics, But I do think our brains and our feelings and our emotional systems and our habits are governed or guided or are parallel systems somehow to what we know of in physics. And so I think about this stuff on my own, but this young man was studying the intersection of physics and social sciences. So I got very, very excited, and he was very, very excited himself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:51]:
And then he mentioned that although he's excited about what he's doing currently, that he was slightly worried about his future opportunities. And that's where my training comes in. That's where my creativity really kicked in because I wanted him, and I want you to know that everything in the future, your future opportunities are both there for you in this moment, but also not within your control in this moment or in the future. The only thing that you are in control of is your current self, is your current creativity. So I advised this young gentleman that the best way to secure the best future is to allow your creativity to go hog wild. I didn't use those words, but to really allow yourself to fully enjoy what you're doing without worry of the future. Because the future in this young man's mind was operating as a constraint because the future was tapping into fear. The future thought was, oh, there may be limited opportunities for him in the future.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:11]:
And I'm thinking, oh, wow. The future is yours to grab right now. The future is yours to literally create right now and to just use that idea as fuel to go forward. So I hope that helped you because it really made me happy to be able to share that piece of wisdom from an older person to a younger man at the reunion. And here again, I wanna stop and have you think to yourself, in what way might you be thinking about the future in a way that limits the way you're able to play and create and be yourself, your full amazing self today? If you're doing something like that, curb that behavior, elevate your self belief even more, and then dig deep into the work and the play that you're doing in the current day. Enjoy yourself more. Don't worry about the future so much because the future will take care of itself. Alright.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:15]:
Now, I also wanted to mention before I move on that the possibilities of what could happen to any of us are limitless. There are so many different options for the future. It's like these movies that are kind of sci fi visionary type movies, like everywhere, everyone, all at once. What is the movie called? I'm my English is failing me today. Everything, everywhere, all at once. That wonderful movie that showed us in such wonderful, brilliant detail that our future is built by our choices today, but also we exist in alternative versions of our future because they were things that we had imagined, because they were things other people had imagined for us. Because there are things that are operating in the metaverse that are not within our control. I'm starting to veer from my notes, which I need to go back to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:25:20]:
But know that life is not really a linear path. We have a way of telling the story of our lives in a linear way, but really, there's so many different things. Like going back to this reunion, it's just like time had stopped all of a sudden, and I was back in the eighties, and it was so much fun. And there was really fun disco music and things like the better music we had in the eighties. So, oh, boy, I have ear. So let's get back on to track. But remember, your opportunities are limitless. And I don't want you to worry about what's gonna happen in the future because that's gonna spoil your beautiful current life and your opportunities today.

Dr. Christine Li [00:26:02]:
Alright. Now the next tip I have or the next idea is how to flex your creativity, how you can teach yourself to be creative. The first idea here is that I want you to see yourself as a naturally creative being. You might be like, oh my god, that artist, they're so incredible. That person on Instagram, look at how many pieces of art they're churning out. Look how much they've written. Oh my god, it's a best seller. You might think I can't compare to them, but I want you to know that your brain is also a creative brain.

Dr. Christine Li [00:26:37]:
And if you don't quite see that yet, please know that you've been taught in different ways to see yourself as not so creative. Perhaps you have not been given enough opportunities, or perhaps you have not taken the risks or the new paths to really explore the creativity that is within you. But I want to let you know that you've chosen to listen to the Make Time For Success podcast and the stuff that I put out into the world. So I want you to know that you do care about enhancing your skills because that's why I put out these episodes to help people enhance their already existing and already amazing skills to the nth level, to the point where you no longer doubt yourself, to the point where you're creating all the time on demand whenever you want to. So remember to flex your view of yourself here. Just remember that you were born creative, and now you get the opportunity to just explore where is the next place that I can exhibit this creativity, where I can release this creativity, where I can express this creativity. The second point I have is borrowed from a book that I was listening to on the drive home from the reunion. The book is called 10 x is better than 2 x.

Dr. Christine Li [00:28:02]:
And the central argument of the book, as you can imagine, is that most people go through a linear path of building their business or their creative work. They're thinking, oh, I've done this much. Let me double it. That's 2 x. But the authors of this book argued that 2 x is just as hard to develop and to create as it is 10 x. So I was listening to this book and one of the sections in this book is all about how each of us is uniquely talented, and I love that idea. I do believe that to be true because each of us is unique in structure and makeup from every other person on the planet. Any other person that has been alive, who will be alive, anybody who is alive currently today, they are uniquely different from you and vice versa.

Dr. Christine Li [00:28:59]:
And so one of our tasks in living and being creative is to kind of find out in what way are we unique and what is our unique talent? What is our unique set of talents? And the authors note that the more you explore this topic of your own uniqueness, the more you're gonna be able to refine that topic and see, wow, I'm really a specialist in this. Wow. I'm really good at doing that. And wow, I really enjoy doing that with this group of people. And I really liked that because that uniqueness is also another argument for why you should just toss away the self doubt because you are freaking amazing. Okay. Next point, your past does not need to limit your future. And this is very powerful for me because as I think many of you know, I am a psychologist.

Dr. Christine Li [00:30:00]:
So I listen to the stories of my clients and my patients. And oftentimes, what is happening is there's some element of the past for my clients and patients that is acting like a big ton of bricks on their soul, or on their energy, or on their sense of self confidence and self belief. And it's my job and my privilege to be able to help them to remove brick by brick, thought by thought, feeling by feeling that ton of bricks. And when you see that you can begin again, no matter what you've been through, and no matter what you've thought about how successful or creative you've been in the past, or whatever mess ups you've had in the past, that you can make a new start at any time. I think when you understand that, you end up feeling free, and you end up feeling unfettered, and you end up feeling safe again. And I think all of these factors are really important for just getting rid of the self doubt and being yourself, which is probably the most powerful way you can be. Alright. I want you to know that a lot of what I've been speaking about today, almost all of it, except for the red brick part, is intangible.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:33]:
This is not stuff that we can grade, give a grade to, or we can't put it in a shopping basket, and we can't bottle it. It's just energy that we have inside of ourselves. It's just the spirit that we're working with. But that makes it no less important than the grades, or the jobs that you can get, or the books that you can publish, or anything else. So take the time to really explore the questions that I've dropped in this episode at different points for how you can think about your own relationship to how you feel about yourself. Remember to always on the side of lifting yourself up. I don't think it's ever a mistake to boost yourself up, and to support yourself and your work, and your possibilities, and your potential. Because when you feel well, I think that energy kind of extends to other people, and it helps other people to be able to do their best and act as their best as well.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:44]:
So this is really a love letter to you. If you desire success, elevate your self belief. Imagine all of the scenarios where you get all the prizes and you get all the jobs after your PhD is over. Do the work that you have to do in front of you like a professional, like you were meant for this, like you're the only person on the planet who can do this as well as you're doing. And I think you're gonna find that this is a wonderful, positive spiral and ripple effect, and may it be a blessing in your life. Alright? So before I sign off this episode, I wanna leave you with 4 different questions. The first question is, what are you gonna try now that you've listened to this episode? Is there something that you've been holding yourself back from that you can now give a try? 2. The second question is, what might be constraining your creativity and your success? If there's something that you know about, or you've figured out as part of listening to this episode, go tackle that thing.

Dr. Christine Li [00:33:58]:
Go uninvited from your brain or your operating system or your desk, whatever it is. Maybe it's clutter. Just get rid of it. The third question I have for you is who can you learn from? I learned from a young PhD student and a professor doing his own panel and from returning to the eighties for my college reunion. But who will you be learning from these days? Decide who your best teachers are. The last question I have for you is, what can you do if you can decide to elevate your self belief? What are things that you never even thought were possible for you that you can now entertain, that you can now make plans to do, and that you can now fully enjoy. Thank you so much for listening to this fun, note filled, rambly session with me. I hope you got something out of it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:35:00]:
I hope it ignites your creativity and your path to greater success. Thank you for listening to this podcast. As always, I appreciate every minute that you spend with me and the show. And I will see you next week. Next week, I have a wonderful interview with the amazing Susan Callender. I'll see you then.

Dr. Christine Li [00:35:21]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, make time for success podcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:36:01]:
Talk to you soon.