From Doubt to Discernment: Learning to Trust Myself

In today’s blog, I’m sharing something I wrote in April of 2025. It’s a reflection of a time when I started learning how to trust myself. When I started questioning how much doubt was actually helping me.

Doubt can be a comforting friend that reminds us of what is. What’s safe. What’s familiar. It wants to protect us—but if we want change, grand or simple, doubt doesn’t create the type of hesitation that offers clarity.

Read on to see my thoughts unfold as I realize the difference between doubt and discernment, and start taking my first steps toward self-trust.

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When Doubt Becomes the Default

If I could pinpoint all of my hesitance and inaction—my muddling by and acceptance of the mundane—to one thing, it would be doubt.

Overwhelm always leads me to doubt. Conflict pushes me headlong into doubt. Criticism is a direct influence on doubt. Even novelty invites me steadfastly into feeling doubt. Specifically, doubt in my ability to move through the present situation and arrive at the destination I was oriented toward—especially when any of the experiences I named above are encountered along the road.

Do I have the mental ability to come up with a solution? What about the finances to cover the expenses needed to make this happen? Can I really even do this? What compelled me to even consider this in the first place? When have I ever actually done something I set out to do in the exact way I envisioned it?

Looking Back for Proof—and Finding Doubt Instead

We look to our past experiences for certainty, but just as often as we find accomplishment and success, we find missed opportunities and failures as well. Depending on our frame of mind, seeing objectively what the patterns are can be tumultuous.

From the doubt perspective I’m currently sitting in, I see a pattern of giving up. Of falling back on the familiar—even when it hasn’t been optimal. Even when I knew I was capable of more.

Doubt, the driver at the helm—its primary question: Do you really think you’re good enough?

A Moment of Confidence—and the Need to Diminish It

A couple of weeks ago, my coach asked me to think of a time when I was confident in myself.

I was able to recall a time when I managed to perform well at a task, because it has been so etched in my brain as a “proof point” that I am good at some things. However, I immediately qualified it by stating the lack of importance I had in my role at the time and how, despite the fact that I did something right, it ultimately didn’t matter.

Other than in the moment—knowing I was right and correct—everything around me went awry because no one was looking to me to find the answer.

I got really sad when she pointed that qualifier out. Whether it was the fact that the memory was a bittersweet moment of having my self-doubt proven wrong, or the realization that I am not wired to be proud of myself, I can’t say.

What I do know is that it sucked to realize my frame of mind is such that, when I look back on my life, I see only failings and falling short. Whether literally not placing in a competition or achieving a grade or raise, or the “opportunities for growth” I didn’t take because I either didn’t know they were available or didn’t feel I was allowed to take them—for one reason or another.

Doubt in the Work, the Vision, and Myself

It’s not surprising, then, that doubt has been my default—from the moment I received a “resubmit” status on my first attempt at my Final Exam with iPEC, to the hurdle I had to jump when deciding which session to use for my re-submission last night.

Nor is it surprising that doubt shows up when I come up against resistance in how I want to build my coaching practice and the help I’ve partnered with to make it happen.

Doubt in the quality of my skills and intelligence, as well as my worthiness to assume a status of “Professional” for what feels like the first time in my life. Doubt in the value of my vision of myself, my business objectives, and my ability to send a message out into the world that attracts the specific people I want to work with.

Doubt about whether this effort to maintain a career that aligns with who I am will be worth the money it costs—and whether what I have to offer will translate into an income worth all of the stress and effort I’m putting not just on myself, but on Brian too.

From Doubt to Discernment

As with all negative emotions, doubt is exhausting.

I’m so tired of having so little faith in myself that, at the first brush of a sidelong breeze, I lock into the inevitability that I don’t have what it takes.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but I’ve been working to rewire the vantage point of doubt into one of discernment.

Both create pause. Both raise questions.

However, where doubt sees only lack, discernment knows there is abundance—in the form of unconceived ideas, help and support, deeper understanding, prolonged learning, and untapped potential.

Choosing Discernment as a Path to Innovation

While right now I feel like there is something I’m failing to do—and that it’s related to a character flaw—I’m leaning into discernment to help me understand that something may be absent, but it’s not within me so much as within the scope of where and how I’m looking for solutions.

Progress has an undeniable connection to breaking with convention. In fact, innovation seems to be the only way patterns are broken and new horizons are reached.

The first step to innovation is discernment.

With that, I am discerning that I am capable—and that I can choose where to refine my abilities. I am not without clarity, but I do need discernment around who I invite in to help me confirm messaging. I am not incapable of producing things of value for others that will, in turn, provide back to me.

I’m on the road to innovation, and the progress I make is directly tied to how effectively I quiet the whispers of doubt and turn instead to the wisdom of discernment.

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Coming Back to the Present

When I wrote this almost a year ago, I wasn’t quite sure how to frame it into this blog. I knew I wanted to show the crunchiness of realizing I wanted more, being tired of old patterns, and coming to terms with the fact that I needed to trust myself more.

Growth isn’t smooth. It’s not a well-soundtracked makeover where one second you’re wearing paint-covered overalls and glasses, and the next you’re in a sleek, strappy body-con and squinting in contacts. There’s a choice to change that precedes the undressing—and a ton of internal battle to navigate before heading down those stairs and out into the milky twilight.

I can say that I still have moments where doubt comes creeping in and I begin looking back at the safety of what was. Or I find myself seeking the approval of people farther along than me, hoping they’ll tell me what I need to do.

Then I remember: no one is building the life I am. So how could they possibly know what I need to do?

Only I can.

And that’s what discernment and self-trust have become for me—steady companions in my ongoing journey to live authentically.

If you’re anything like I was, feeling the absolute exhaustion that comes from ruminating and doubting yourself, let’s connect. If you’re ready to have a conversation about what’s possible and what’s locked away inside of you, you’re invited to book a Discovery Call.

I’m not a fan of high pressure or pushiness. This is a totally free, 30-minute opportunity to start rebuilding your self-trust and explore how Pattern + Purpose™ can support you on your quest.