How to Overcome Second Guessing Yourself: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Overcome Second Guessing Yourself, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Practices that may help

1. Actively update your estimate of how much others notice
   When you assume everyone saw your blunder, consciously cut the estimate in half.
   The Spotlight Effect: Why You Think Everyone Is Watching
2. Execute from procedural memory without step-by-step monitoring
   Trust the automatic version of your skill and resist the urge to supervise each movement.
   Choking Under Pressure, Made Practical
3. Ask 'What am I missing?' before major decisions
   Treat a confident feeling before a high-stakes decision as a cue to check what your competence map is omitting.
   Circle of Competence
4. Keep a competence evidence log
   Write down specific instances of doing the hard thing successfully so the brain has concrete data to draw on.
   The Confidence–Competence Loop
5. Keep an evidence log
   Record concrete proof of your competence to counter the brain’s habit of discounting it.
   Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, Made Practical
6. Run uncertainty experiments
   Deliberately leave small things uncertain and observe what actually happens.
   Accepting Uncertainty: The Core Skill in CBT for GAD
7. Build genuine self-efficacy to eliminate the motive
   The most durable cure for self-handicapping is a genuine track record of success that makes the excuse unnecessary.
   Self-Handicapping: Recognizing and Stopping the Excuse Setup
8. Treat your decision as more final than it is
   Mentally close off the "undo" option to stop rumination and increase satisfaction.
   Choice Overload, Made Practical
9. Seek mentors who name their own uncertainty
   Actively look for respected people who openly describe their own learning curve — they recalibrate your model of what mastery looks like.
   Impostor Phenomenon, Made Practical
10. The practice of living consciously
    Bring awareness to what you are doing and seeing, rather than acting on autopilot or avoidance.
    The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Made Practical

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The second I stumble over a word or trip on a step, my whole body floods with the certainty that the entire room clocked it and is still thinking about it→
• Halfway through doing the thing I suddenly doubt myself and try to take over the controls mid-motion, and that little hitch of second-guessing is the exact thing that breaks it→
• I feel completely sure about this decision, which is honestly starting to make me nervous→
• No matter how much I’ve actually pulled off, the second I face something new my mind goes blank on every success and floods with the times I fell short→
• When I try to reassure myself I’m actually good at this, I come up empty→

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