How can founders overcome self-doubt?

Yesterday, a serial entrepreneur contacted me and asked for my help to see if he was the biggest stumbling block on his path to success. Here are his questions:

Hello, Zhu Yi:

I've recently fallen into endless self - doubt. I feel that my growth rate is not fast enough and worry that I can't keep up with the ever - changing technological competition. I've also been questioning whether I have the ability to lead a top - notch team and guide everyone towards greater development. This self - doubting mindset makes me hesitant when trying new methods, making new decisions, and exploring new directions.

As a serial entrepreneur, I've encountered such situations more than once, and now it's almost become a nightmare in my mind.

I'd like to know if you can recommend any exercises or frameworks to objectively evaluate self - doubt and develop the habit of rebuilding beliefs, so as to avoid falling into the state of doubt repeatedly?

Among all the questions I've received as a founder coach, this is one of the most frequently asked questions.

Perhaps this is not surprising: based on my experience, the most successful founders often have strong self - awareness. They not only know their greatest strengths but also are eager to make up for their blind spots. This is what sets them apart from other failures, who are more like ostriches burying their heads in the sand.

Struggling is actually a common sign of growth, not failure. When founders learn to embrace struggle and love pain, it can help them overcome the doubt about failure; this is the only way to reshape the success they dream of.

I recommend three methods to founders:

1. Read the interpretation of Byron Katie's book The Work;

2. Learn how to identify cognitive distortions in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT);

3. Keep a doubt journal;

I'll explain each of them in the following text.

Let's start with the first point:

The interpretation of Byron Katie's The Work is very simple. I use an adapted version.

1. When you feel self - doubt, first examine the judgments you've made about others or a certain situation.

2. Then ask yourself, "Is this true?" (Usually, it's not.)

3. Then continue to ask yourself, "Do I really know this is true?" (It's almost impossible to know if something is true.)

4. Then, challenge: "Which statement is more true than the first one?" Try to reverse it and adopt the opposite idea.

5. The most powerful part of The Work is: "What would my life be like now if I didn't have the initial thought?"

Let me give you an example.

Suppose you think, "The excellent employees in the team don't respect me, or they think I, as a leader, learn too slowly to keep up with them and guide the company in a meaningful direction."

Let's incorporate the initial thought into the steps outlined above.

· Question 1: Is this true?

· Answer: "Yes," your doubting mind replies.

· Question 2: Do you really know this is true?

· Answer: "No. I'm not sure."

· Question 3: What else is more true than the first statement?

· Answer: "My team really respects me. They really think I learn fast enough. I'm learning as fast as I can. I spend a lot of time learning and improving myself."

· Question 4: What would my life be like if I didn't have the initial thought?

· Answer: "I would feel very free. I would feel like an unstoppable leader. I might break free from my self - imposed shackles."

If you only have a moment to do one thing when you feel doubt or make a judgment about others, just ask yourself if it's true and what a more true statement would be.

Changing "My team affects me" to "My own thinking affects me" will fundamentally make a difference.

Point 2: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a clinically proven psychotherapy method adopted by many therapists around the world.

It's considered the gold standard for treating various mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, post - traumatic stress disorder, obsessive - compulsive disorder, etc. A large number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and meta - analyses have found that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is very effective. In the long run, in many cases, its efficacy is often comparable to or even better than drug treatment.

The essence of CBT is:

· You'll notice when you're in the doubt mode and which cognitive distortions you're using.

· After recognizing these distortions, you'll cognitively reshape your thoughts.

· If you avoid something due to doubt, you can use exposure therapy to gradually reduce your anxiety about such situations.

In this article, I'll focus on the parts of distortion and reorganization. My observation is that most founders resort to exposure therapy out of necessity.

Here are the most common cognitive distortions. You can check if you have these problems.

There are dozens of cognitive distortions - and we unconsciously use many of them every day. This is reactive thinking, which is controlled by your amygdala.

Find out your triggers and identify them. The earlier you recognize your patterns, the more interesting it will be when they appear. For example, the most common ones that people are easily affected by are:

· Mind - reading: It mainly refers to jumping to conclusions. People assume they know what others are thinking; for example, when a person sees an unhappy expression on a colleague's, friend's, or leader's face, they automatically have negative thoughts that the other person might be blaming or disapproving of them.

· Blaming others: When something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault. For example, as a founder, if a colleague doesn't do their job well, you'll shift the blame to them.

· Labeling: We make value judgments about ourselves or others based on one example or experience. (Personally, I think this is a sign of conceit.) For example, if a colleague performs poorly in a certain task and affects the overall progress, you might think they're incompetent and even want to fire them. Another example is what parents often said when we were kids: "If you don't study hard now, you won't get into a good university when you grow up. If you don't get into a good university, you won't get a good job. If you don't get a good job..."

· Emotional reasoning: Emotional reasoning occurs when we take our emotions as facts; for example, since I got all green lights on my way today and I'm extremely lucky, I'm sure I'll get investment in the upcoming financing roadshow.

· Should statements: They are statements about what we "should", "ought to", or "must" do. These ideas set unrealistic expectations and may not be achievable. Such statements usually express guilt, shame, resentment, regret, and disappointment; for example, since the company's current development hasn't reached the expected number of users, it should be because I didn't increase the budget. Or, since this financing failed, I think I should have added an explanation, and the result would have been better.

Many years ago, there was a company called Quirk in YC. Although they're no longer a startup, they've open - sourced the original code on Github, and you can create a branch and continue using it.

However, I've always liked the way they used CBT, and it was very helpful in my early entrepreneurial days. Here are the questions Quirk would ask you:

· What are you subconsciously thinking?

· Which cognitive distortions have you fallen into? (Choose one or more - usually, in any distorted thinking, there are some acceptable distortions.)

· How can you cognitively restructure your thinking?

Point 3: Doubt Journal

One of the reasons why doubt holds you back is that your brain focuses more on when things go wrong than when they go right.

Every day, millions of things go smoothly. You wake up and you're still alive. Your basic living facilities and needs are met. You take your workspace for granted. You have people who love you. You're in good health. And so on.

But your brain locks onto the thing that goes wrong or the thing that might go wrong (without even confirming if it really is wrong).

For example: Your colleague ignored your question during a Zoom call.

Is it because they hate you?

Is it because they think you're stupid?

Is it because you did something to make them angry?

Maybe someone in your leadership team said something to them, and now they don't respect you.

So what did you do to annoy them?

Of course, later, they'll smile at you and say, "I didn't perform well in this morning's meeting because I stayed up late playing games last night and wasn't fully awake during the meeting."

Then you'll smile to yourself and think, "Oh, they just got up too early and weren't awake." Soon, you'll let it go and forget about your morning worry that your colleague hates you.

We let doubt take over mainly because we don't take the time to confirm if it's really wrong.

A doubt journal changes all this. It allows you to continuously record how often your doubts are inaccurate. In the worst - case scenario, your doubts are exaggerated. In the best - case scenario, they're completely wrong and deceiving you.

Here's how to keep a doubt journal:

1. When you feel doubt, write it down.

Write down the story you're telling yourself. That's all. By framing it as a story, you'll realize that just because you have this thought doesn't mean it's a fact or even the truth. It's actually just a story made up by your brain.

Allow yourself to keep writing down your doubts until you reach the core doubt. For example, in the above - mentioned scenario, if you're recording your doubts, you can write like this:

1. This person doesn't like me.

2. They must think I'm not good at my job.

3. What if I'm no longer in a state of growth?

4. My boss will fire me / No one will want to invest in my company.

5. I'll fail, no one will want to be my friend, and then I'll die alone.

Your doubt journal usually ends with statements like these: I'll die alone, I won't be loved, no one will want to work with me again, I'll fail and never recover, etc.

These are our deep - seated doubts: everyone desires to be loved, respected, and understood, and everyone has such doubts to some extent. But this doesn't make you weak; it makes you a real person.

The more honestly you can face your deepest fears - not being loved, not being needed, being alone, failing, being excluded - the more you can shift from being reactive to being proactive.

2. Then, find out your cognitive distortions.

Remember the CBT mentioned above? It comes into play here.

3. Make a bet against your doubt.

This part is very important: write down what you think is a more realistic situation. Here's what I think might be more accurate than what doubt tells me.

Let your "brain" take control of your actual actions. At this stage, you choose to respond rather than react passively. It's shifting from fast thinking to slow thinking. In this state, you're using your prefrontal cortex instead of your "amygdala brain".

4. Review your doubts later.

Let life take its course. If you're afraid of a specific event or occasion, evaluate it after the event is over. If it's a general doubt without a clear deadline, evaluate it after a few days or weeks.

Review the doubts you wrote down before. Is it true? Is it a lie? Or is it an exaggeration?

This will create a continuous record of how many times your doubts have been proven wrong. You might laugh at the absurdity of the things you were once afraid of.

If you want to prove that this works, think back to a moment a few years ago when you were extremely doubtful. You might have thought your life was over. You might have hated the people you had to deal with. Maybe your investors wanted to cheat you. Maybe you hated a bold former boss. Maybe you thought your co - founder had a grudge against you and was trying to ruin your life.

As time passes, doubt fades away, and we can view our situation more clearly.

Looking back, if you're very honest with yourself, you'll probably say, "Yes, I was under a lot of pressure in my life at that time, and I was very scared, but my reactive behavior might have caused many of the problems I encountered."

Or, you might say, "Yes, I was under a lot of pressure in my life at that time, and I was very scared, but looking back, it wasn't that bad... mainly because those people, situations, or things weren't important to me."

This is your informal doubt journal, which tells you that your doubts are often exaggerated or misinterpreted. Now, write it down and build a real doubt journal.

I estimate that you'll keep it for a week or two and then stop. This is because if you do it right, there will be many events in your personal and work life every day that will put you in an anxious or doubtful state. By the end of the week, you'll have several journals and entries. You'll find that many of them are wrong.

I once had a student who kept a doubt journal for about a week. In the second week, he told me that the most powerful thing about the doubt journal was that he realized he often hindered the company's development and didn't make strong enough changes. The doubt journal led to a huge transformation in the company, and the number of daily active users soared beyond their imagination.

So, the question is, if you stop doubting yourself, do you think you can achieve more?

This article is from the WeChat official account "What Zhu Yi Knows", author: Zhu Yi. Republished with permission from 36Kr.