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I haven’t attempted competitive exams after 12th standard (2015) and post 2 years of working, I am not able to concentrate and study the way I could before. I am afraid I may no longer have what it takes to crack the GMAT exam.
I have taken the GMAT twice. I studied using an online course first, from October – March. Scored a 500. I then resumed and worked with a teacher from April – August and only scored a 530. I have hit a wall. I am losing confidence.
Self-doubt is my biggest concern. Everyone around me feels I am capable whereas I myself have doubts.
These are some of the messages I have received from GMAT aspirants, and I’ve heard countless expressions of self-doubt – people doubting in different ways and for different reasons whether they have what it takes to get a good GMAT score.
Self-doubt has the potential to substantially demotivate a person and to completely drain their energy. Thus, if not handled well, self-doubt can wreak one’s GMAT prep journey.
In this article, I share my thoughts with the aim to help people facing self-doubt.
Self-doubt is doubting whether you have the ability to achieve what you want to achieve.
It’s one of the worst feelings. It’s equivalent to feeling helpless – we want to achieve something, but we are helpless that we can’t since we don’t have the ability to get that. There is a tremendous amount of suffering in self-doubt. Thus, we want to get rid of it as soon as we can by rationalizing, looking at our past successes, or distracting ourselves.
Because it’s against hope. If hope is light, self-doubt is darkness. Hope is “I can do it” while self-doubt is “I can’t”.
Good Question! 🙂
Doubting ourselves is completely natural.
Think about it. What would be the opposite of doubting ourselves?
Having 100% confidence in ourselves.
However, how can we be 100% confident when there are many uncertainties?
We cannot be. Thus, it’s perfectly natural to doubt ourselves.
However, what is not natural but is becoming quite common is becoming consumed by self-doubt. Letting the lack of guarantee rule our minds and prevent us from making efforts is not natural.
For example, we all have our weaknesses. Being aware of our weaknesses is actually a positive attribute. However, constantly worrying about our weaknesses and letting them define us are neither natural nor helpful.
As I said above, doubting ourselves is perfectly natural and sensible. However, this article is about the morbid form of self-doubt in which a person constantly worries about their abilities to the point that they become dispirited enough to be unable to take action.
This self-doubt leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy:
(Self-doubt) I cannot achieve my goal -> Leads to demotivation and a lack of effort towards the goal -> Increased chances of not achieving the goal
It’s perfectly reasonable to have self-doubt. Of course, we are fallible; we make mistakes; we are not perfect; we can fail.
However, there is a difference between
Many of us end up in the latter category.
Is it possible to not belong to the second category?
Yes. I believe so.
Let me ask you a few questions before I answer this question:
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The first reason why we continuously doubt ourselves is that we have a fixed mindset i.e. we believe that our capabilities are fixed. If our capabilities are fixed, then it makes sense to know whether we have the capability to get our target GMAT score even before we commence our GMAT prep. Why would we want to spend time, energy, and money on something we cannot achieve?
However, research after research has demonstrated brain plasticity i.e. the ability of our brain to change. Many research studies have shown that humans have the potential to continuously grow their intellect. The belief that our capabilities are fixed, thus, runs counter to science.
Once we get rid of the notion of fixed capability, a significant reason for self-doubt is taken away. Now, we don’t need to worry about whether we have the capability or not. Even if we don’t have it now, we can build it with effort.
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The second reason we engage in continuous self-doubt is that we are focusing on the outcome, not on the process. We are always worried about reaching the destination that we are not focusing on the journey. We are so worried about not achieving the outcome that we are not able to give our best to the process.
The situation is similar to that of a person traveling from Delhi to Amritsar, who takes a stop every 100 meters to ascertain whether the road he has taken will take him to Amritsar. Every 100 meters, he asks the pedestrians, checks his google map, and even searches online about the correctness of google maps. What if Google maps turned out to be incorrect?
Think about it. When we are doubting ourselves, are we doubting our ability to make efforts?
No. We’re doubting our ability to reach our goals. We’re focused on reaching our goals rather than giving our best to the process.
What if we choose to focus our energies on the process?
Naturally, we’ll not doubt ourselves and will be able to give our best to the process. And giving our best is the only way to achieving our goals. No?
I’m not asking you to never think of your goals. You can think about your goals and the effectiveness of your processes. However, this thinking needs to happen once a fortnight or once a month. For the remaining days, you should be focused solely on the process.
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The third reason why we keep doubting ourselves daily is that we are looking for certainty. We don’t want to accept the inherent uncertainty – one part of us wants to eliminate uncertainty but another part of us knows that the uncertainty exists. Thus, there is tension and stress within us – the two parts of us resist each other.
What can help us is to stop resisting uncertainty and accept it as a part of life. When we stop resisting its presence, we’ll sense a release of tremendous amount of stress.
We accept that uncertainty is there; we accept that we can fail, but we choose to focus on giving our best to the process.
My little story of giving my best in the face of uncertainty
Earlier, I used to slow down before the red light if I sensed that it could turn orange before I reached. I did so not out of a concern for traffic rules but out of a desire to avoid psychological pain. If I gave my best to cross the light before it turned orange but the light turned orange before I could cross it, I’d feel miserable – I gave my best but still couldn’t succeed. Since this scenario was quite painful, I started avoiding it by not giving my best. I’d slow down rather than speed up if I sensed a potential that the light could turn orange before I reached. As a result, I didn’t feel the pain of failing despite giving my best.
As I introspected and realized that this was what was happening, I changed. I now give my best to cross the light. Of course, I still fail to cross it many times. However, I succeed much more often than I did when I used to slow down to avoid failure. When I fail these days, I don’t feel bad because I have consciously decided to give my best despite the potential to fail.
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The fourth reason for persistent self-doubt is setting stringent, at times unrealistic, timelines to achieve our goals.
“I have to get GMAT XYZ score in the next 3 months, no matter what!”
Two significant reasons why many of us set such deadlines for ourselves are:
However, the forums are filled with biased data and long-held misconceptions. And when we talk with others, they also share the same data points, for their source of data is also the same forums. As far as pushing ourselves is concerned, many a time doing so backfires. When you are already under stress, putting more pressure is a recipe for failure, not for success.
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Thus, I recommend the following to reduce the scope of self-doubt:
Some of us think that we’ll be living in an illusion if we don’t continuously doubt ourselves.
I agree that we’ll be living in an illusion if we don’t doubt ourselves. However, doubting ourselves so persistently that we don’t have time and motivation left to take action toward our goals is unhealthy and even pathological.
It’s okay to be aware of our limitations and of the inherent uncertainty in all our pursuits, but our main focus has to be on what we can do i.e. our efforts. If a significant amount of our time and energy gets wasted in doubting ourselves or worrying about potential failures, we need to take concrete steps to get out of that state of mind.
Many of us have what we believe are very strong reasons to doubt ourselves:
My point throughout this article is not that we shouldn’t doubt ourselves. Rather, it’s perfectly okay to doubt ourselves. However, this self-doubt shouldn’t become pathological; it shouldn’t become a disease that doesn’t let us make efforts toward our goals.
A reasonable amount of self-doubt can help us create a better plan, use better resources, improve our processes, and seek newer ways of problem-solving. For example:
Somebody who has never excelled at competitive exams may plan in a way that he gives himself much more time than an average candidate takes; he may also work a lot on building the right mindset so that the sources of his past failures are addressed as much as possible.
Somebody who hasn’t succeeded even after taking multiple courses may evaluate whether he sincerely followed what the courses asked him to do and whether he was trying to learn from the courses or just complete the courses.
If you find yourself self-doubting, be compassionate with yourself. The part of you who is self-doubting is already suffering. Don’t beat it.
Empathise with it. Love it.
Do you want to grow into a person who doesn’t self-doubt continuously?
Beating yourself or cursing yourself is not the way. Provide your inner self with a safe environment that is without judgment so that it can grow and blossom at its pace. I understand that you may be in a rush to improve. However, rushing will elongate the process. There’s a saying, “Infinite patience produces instant results.”
I wrote this article to help people handle self-doubt better. I’d like to hear from you how I fared. What did you like in the article? How can I improve this article? I look forward to hearing from you 🙂
Learn GMAT the right way – through common sense and logic. There’s no shortcut to a well-deserved success!
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