How To Use Your Doubts To Thrive

Girl standing in the mountains alone regardless of doubts or fears. She healed her autoimmune disease by finding hope through doubts.

Doubts have an important function.

They help us survive by keeping us clear of risky situations.

When we start doing something outside of our usual programming the brain turns on the switch meant to deter us from danger.

That switch turns on things we have a hard time not noticing.

Anxiety.

Fear.

Doubt.

Sometimes we doubt ourselves.

Or whether the effort is worth it.

Or whether our plan will actually get us where we want to go.

And so we slowly slip back into "safe" behaviors.

Like the Benadryl people give their kids before a long trip to Grandma's. (Or my passenger-seat stressing husband before I drive through LA traffic)

Sometimes we resist the urge to quit by using sheer will power to push into new behaviors.

Dang! That takes some serious effort!

Sometimes we distract from the doubts by ignoring them.

My son used to do this when we would raise a concern about him driving on the icy roads late at night with his friends. When we asked him if he knew what to do if he started slipping, or getting tired, or went off the road and he would just say, "I'm not going to wreck!"

(May I just note that this distraction method did precious little to decrease concern???)

Sometimes we react to the doubts without thinking.

We simply stop.

Stop trying, pursuing, hoping.

BUT...

What if you can use those fears to help you move forward?

Like hacking the system and using the strongest programs to slip past the fear grid and get doing that thing you really want to do.

Something we can do is to listen to the doubts and fears.

What are they telling you?

Do they indicate that you don't believe you can do it?

Great! You now know deliberately where your work lies rather than defaulting to a dull loss of interest and motivation or fear.

Many times when we take the opportunity to genuinely look at what our fears are...they actually aren't that bad.

Okay...so maybe I'll be embarrassed.

Worth it?

You may deliberately decide it isn't worth it.

At least it is a choice rather than the result of a lack of awareness.

I used my doubts to figure out how to get up in the mountains by myself.

I felt the hugest desire to get up there above the clouds.

Snow, rain, sun, I didn't care.

The backcountry just called to me.

But I was afraid of wild animals, getting lost, and freezing to death.

At first I reacted to it by getting mad at anyone who wouldn't go with me.

Then I considered bagging the whole idea.

I wondered if taking walks on the trails would do it.

It wouldn't.

And so I began analyzing my doubts one by one.

How do people who stay overnight in the winter in the mountains do it?

On my days off I would drop my kids off at school while wearing my winter hikers and my backpack stowed in the trunk.

I would hike up a little ways and try to make a fire.

Pack it up, pick the kids up, and research what worked and what didn't.

Next time I would hike a little higher and try to set up a tent and start a fire using different materials around me.

And then I would get back in time to pick my kids up, and research what worked and what didn't.

Eat.

Sleep.

Repeat.

As I worked my way through, my doubts helped me know where I needed to focus.

"What if I get lost?" My mind would whisper in an attempt to stay home and read by the fire instead of pack up my snowshoes for a chilly day on the mountain.

And so I researched how to use orienteering and bought a compass.

Throughout the trial and error process I tried so many things.

I talked to so many people.

I asked random strangers in the sauna at the gym how to start a fire in the snow.

I asked men dressed in camo in the bleachers at my son's wrestling meets if they could help me identify the animal tracks I had taken pictures with on my phone.

I tried SO many things that I wouldn't have thought to try if I didn't have something in my brain worrying about the details.

Every doubt and fear helped me build my list of research materials.

I have had SO many amazing adventures and learned SO many things not to do, and so many things to do, to have an amazing time out there in the wild that I love so dearly.

I have:

Slept out under the stars more times than I can remember

Learned how to locate water, find my way through fog

Learned what to pack for emergencies

Had moments that I came face-to-face with more than a few bull moose

Played ring-around-the-rosie with a bull

Been dropped off on one side of the mountain range and emerged another day on the other side in another state

Walked every inch of the bottom half of the Bear River Range (except 6 miles...bucket list)

Scaled a rock face in my underwear and knee socks with my snow shoes strapped to my back (long story) and still made it to work on time.

I have fallen asleep next to a running creek, the full moon reflecting on the snow around me, watching the fire snap and grow blurry as I peacefully surrendered to a long day of hiking.

You don't need to ask me if it was worth it.

You can feel it whenever I talk about it how much I love this life in the wild of mine.

And I owe it to my doubts.

They showed me the way up.