Doubt Your Doubts: How to Transform Negative Self-Talk, Take Action and Confidently Create Your Dream Life

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2021 Rachell Kitchen

All rights reserved.

Doubt Your Doubts

How to Transform Negative Self-Talk, Take Action, and Confidently Create Your Dream Life

ISBN 978-1-63730-825-7 Paperback

ISBN 978-1-63730-887-5 Kindle Ebook

ISBN 978-1-63730-963-6 Ebook

Contents

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1. Ignorance Is Bliss (NOT!)

Chapter 2. The Burden of Expectation

Chapter 3. Own YOUR Story (Not the Story You’re Telling Yourself)

Chapter 4. Just Outside Your Comfort Zone

Chapter 5. Meet Rachel

Chapter 6. Who Says…

Chapter 7. What She Said…

Chapter 8. The Unstoppable Woman

Chapter 9. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…. Who’s Really There?

Chapter 10. Dying of Embarrassment and Shame

Chapter 11. Be Your Own Unicorn.

EPILOGUE

RESOURCES

DOUBT YOUR DOUBT TOOL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

APPENDIX

The only walls in your life are the ones that you have built yourself.

— Iyanla Vanzant

To the brave women who’ve struggled with negative self-talk and have gone on to live their best lives.

Your example inspires and empowers.

PROLOGUE

Beginning the Journey

The most important journey of our lives doesn’t necessarily involve climbing the highest peak or trekking around the world. The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.

— Oprah Winfrey

On the morning of July 22nd, 2016, I stood in the garage for what felt like forever before loading my new business tote, water bottle, and lunch bag into the car’s passenger seat. I took a deep breath, inhaling in the humid air, then scrambled into the driver’s side.

It took one more long inhale and one more slow, resigned exhale before I started the car and backed out of the driveway.

Driving from my house to the Westin Hotel near O’Hare airport for day one of the three-day iPEC Life and Leadership Potentials Training was only supposed to take a little over thirty minutes, but I was leaving nothing to chance. Traffic in the best of times was unpredictable, so I figured allowing an hour and a half should get me there a little early. (You see, if I’m not at least fifteen minutes early, I consider myself late.) Today was not a day to be late.

The ever-present critical voice in my head wasted no time getting started.

Gurl, what are you doing? Are you crazy? You’ve cashed in your IRA to pay for this! You know you’re going to need that money once you’re divorced—Lawd, help you. Jesus, take the wheel.

At first, I tried to drown out the blathering in my head by turning up the volume on my power song playlist. The songs on my playlist represented meaningful personal experiences. They were a rebuttal to the self-doubt that surfaced because of those experiences. Roar by Katy Perry played on repeat, booming through the car sound system. I hoped that the song’s words would counterbalance the voice raging in my head, the voice trying to convince me that my current course of action was wrong.

The lyrics in this song represented so many things to me. I had finally gotten up out of my family room chair, changed out of my ratty pajamas, and charted a way forward through the chaos that was currently my life. I could even hear the voice of my father rooting for me as the lyrics’ referenced Muhammad Ali’s iconic quote, Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee (Ali, 2010). (My Dad was a former amateur boxer and a huge fan. He believed that this comment helped propel Ali to victory over the unbeatable Sonny Liston back in 1964; there were very few circumstances where he didn’t hold up Ali as a model for overcoming any tough situation.)

The memory packs a punch, emotionally charged because of how my dad lost his last fight. He was killed in September of 2014; he was beaten on the streets of Chicago on his way to work. At age eighty-eight, he was still a fighter, but he couldn’t defend himself against two attackers half his age. Three days later, he died of his injuries. I thought that the power of that memory would be enough to win this round with the opponent in my mind, sending it back to its corner.

IT DIDN’T WORK

The voice in my head blathered on for the entire ride. My inner monologue got louder and harsher with each passing mile. By the time I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, my heart was racing, and my hands were clammy, sweaty, and shaking.

I’m a little embarrassed to say that I nearly turned the car around—twice.

Scooping my belongings from the passenger seat, I steadied myself and headed in. I made a beeline to the hotel event board just across from the Starbucks coffee house on the hotel’s lobby level. I quickly found the ballroom where I needed to go; fortunately for me, it was just around the corner from the event board. Unfortunately, however, I still had about thirty-five minutes to kill—more than enough time for the narrator in my head to talk me into spinning on my heels and running from the lobby, screaming all the way back to the car.

Nope, nope, nope, I thought. I’d grab a white chocolate mocha and a blueberry scone from the Starbucks, and people-watch for about twenty-five minutes. Of course, the bully in my head roared with laughter as it admonished me: Yeah, chocolate and caffeine, that’s precisely what you need. By the time this thing starts, you’ll be jumping out of your skin and will really look like a fool.

I did my best to ignore it by focusing on the piped-in hotel lobby music while waiting in line at the coffeehouse. I spent the time scrolling through social media, people-watching and half-heartedly enjoying my coffee and scone through the lump in my throat. Before I knew it, it was time to head back to the ballroom and claim a seat for myself.

The left side of the room. First row. End seat. Here is where I initially got introduced to GAIL. GAIL stands for gremlin (my inner critic), assumptions, interpretations, and limiting beliefs. It’s not so much a who as it is a what. GAIL were the energy blocks that had prevented me from achieving the success I wanted and deserved in my personal and professional life.

But I have realized that my gremlin is all these things, and so is yours. My gremlin has me making assumptions all the time. It helps me create opinions and form judgments about events, situations, experiences, and people in my life that I believe to be true without ever questioning if those interpretations are accurate or if there is another way to look at them. My gremlin stirs the pot on limiting beliefs I didn’t even know I had, yet these have influenced my thoughts, decisions, and actions since I came into this world.

That moment started my journey of wanting to know everything I could about my gremlin because, until this moment, it had been large and in charge.

It was running the show in my life.

My self-confidence was in the tank, and my self-esteem had taken a complete nose-dive. Yeah, I always looked pulled together on the outside. I was well-groomed, thoughtful, and articulate, and I had been successful in life by most people’s standards, but the truth was that I was a flaming hot mess on wheels on the inside.

Instead of proactively creating my life, my life was creating me. My gremlin’s annoying voice was loud and on repeat. It had me compromising my life by keeping me playing small—dismissing what I truly wanted just to maintain the illusion of security, acceptance, and control. It never allowed me to go beyond my comfort zone or reach my full potential because I was motivated by my fears and insecurities.

Have you ever heard a voice in your head saying something like,

•I’m not smart enough.

•I’m not experienced enough.

•I don’t deserve success.

•Oh my gosh, they’re going to find out I’m a phony.

•What the hell, who am I kidding here?

•I’m stupid.

•I’m incapable.

•I’m unworthy.

or whatever insult shakes you to your core?

Or maybe you’ve heard a voice saying things like,

•I need [fill in the blank] before I’m ready.

•I need to figure out the big picture before I start.

•I’ll start tomorrow.

•I gotta think about it.

Maybe this is the voice that’s loud and on repeat for you, or maybe it’s just a tiny, constant whisper that hums in the background. Either way, this mind chatter is standing in the way, slowing you down, or stopping you from going for the success you want and deserve.

This type of destructive self-talk is your energy-sucking gremlin!

Despite having no actual evidence to back it up, your gremlin’s annoying voice continues to shout or whisper to you, Give it up—it ain’t gonna happen. (Whatever that important it might be for you.)

These destructive internal battles are more than just a nuisance. If they go unchecked, they will tank your self-confidence, keep you stuck in procrastination land (without an exit ramp in sight), and have you unknowingly self-sabotaging yourself. Long term, the internal verbal fight club going on in your head will chip away at your self-esteem and your belief in your ability to reach your personal or professional goals.

Many high-achieving women entrepreneurs and professionals aren’t even aware of how these false narratives impact everything they experience, from their relationships and physical health to whether they will succeed at becoming their best selves and creating their best lives. And whether they are conscious of their gremlin’s voice or not, they never question it.

They assume If I feel like an imposter, it must be true. If I feel unattractive, inadequate, incapable, or not good enough, there has to be something to it, or else I wouldn’t feel this way.

We automatically and unconditionally believe these made-up stories that we tell ourselves about who we are and what we can achieve. Unfortunately, such beliefs cost us big time by creating confidence gaps between women and our male counterparts.

A key finding from the 2020 KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit report found that 75 percent of women executives reported experiencing imposter syndrome in their careers, and 74 percent feel they are putting a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed. As a result, they experience more doubt and pressure than men, which leads to stress, anxiety, and depression (KPMG International, 2020).

Here’s the skinny. Since the late ‘80s, women have outnumbered men on college campuses, studying in a wide range of competitive fields. They’ve earned at least one-third of law degrees, accounted for one-third of medical school attendees, and contributed to a more significant number of new business startups globally. But women have not advanced in position and pay at anywhere near the rate that these stats would suggest.

According to the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), women receive just 7 percent of venture funding for their startups, even though 40 percent of businesses in the US are women-owned (Fundera, 2020). The stats for professional women are just as bleak. Based on a new report from Morningstar authored by Jackie Cook, among the higher-level positions in corporate America, male executives outnumber female executives by a factor of seven. At the C-Suite level, men outnumber women nearly seventeen to one. And according to the same study, in 2020, men held 62 percent of the entry-level management positions, while women held just 38 percent (Forbes, 2021).

Why is this? The gap is not for lack of ambition or desire.

Certainly, there is a list of contributing factors as long as your arm that explains