5 tips for overcoming self-doubt to launch a podcast or a digital product

Self-doubt. Hands up, who struggles with self-doubt? My hand is pretty high in the sky right now because, honestly, I am probably my worst critic. And I'm sure some of you can resonate with that as well.

Today I'm going to share a couple of tips that I have used to work through the self-doubt when I have been launching new products, when I launched my podcast, when I've put anything out there for the world to criticize, tear down, anything like that.

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Honestly, there have been so many times when I thought, “Who the heck am I to be talking about any of this? Who the heck am I to be teaching people about how to launch a digital product? Who am I to even be recording a podcast episode about overcoming self-doubt when I still struggle it?” I struggle with it quite a lot, and I don't think it ever really goes away. But there are some tips that you can swipe from me to work through it.

 

How to overcome self-doubt when launching a podcast or digital product

 

#1 – Know that we all struggle with it

My first tip is to just know that we all struggle with it. Even nearly three years into podcasting, I still regularly question myself, who am I to be doing this? And I know that this is something that is super common. It came up in my recent group course, Launch Magic. One of my students told us that she has a PhD and still questions whether she knows enough at times. There's a wonderful Ted Talk by Mike Cannon-Brooks from Atlassian, where he talks about his own battle with imposter syndrome, and how he was at a big event in Portugal or somewhere in Europe, and he'd been nominated for a big award. And he was sitting next to some guy who was a billionaire and had all of these employees and the guy he was sitting next to also had imposter syndrome. So it's totally common.

And I think no matter what level you're at of business, there's always going to be some element of that self-doubt, some element of that imposter syndrome. So just knowing that everyone struggles with it, and that you're not alone and it, can help you to start working through it.

 

#2 – It’s not about you, it’s about the people you’re helping

The second tip is to remember that it's not about you. It's about the people you're helping. It's about the value that you are providing. And by letting your self-doubt hold you back from sharing that value, and from helping those people, you are doing your audience a disservice. You are letting your self-doubt be more important than the risk of whatever you're afraid of happening by putting yourself out there.

#3 – The more you know, the more you realise how much you don’t know

If you're questioning whether you know enough, that's a pretty good sign, right? There's a concept called the Dunning-Kruger effect, and basically what this is, is that the people who think they know lots are usually the ones who don't know anything. So if you're questioning whether you know enough, that's a sign that you do know enough. There's always going to be more to learn as well. No matter how much of an expert you are in your topic, there's always going to be stuff that you don't know and that's okay. You don't need to be the number one expert in your topic to launch a podcast about it, or to create a digital product about it. You just need to know more than the people who are in your audience so that you can help them to achieve the transformation, or solve the problem that they want solving.

 

#4 – Create a “happy feedback” folder

Start a little folder in your inbox, on your phone, with pieces of happy feedback. This has been a really big one for me, because sometimes it can be really… You can really disconnect between what you're doing when you're sitting behind a microphone, or sitting behind your laptop working on a product, and the actual tangible impact that it's having on peoples lives and peoples businesses, right? So by having this happy feedback folder, you are reminding yourself of the impact that you can make by putting yourself out there.

 

#5 – Lean on others around you for support

Join a mastermind group with other business owners, find business friends you can bounce off, chat to a trusted mentor, chat to a friend. Lean on other people because like I said, everyone's struggling with self-doubt, and sometimes all it takes is one business friend to be like, “Heck yeah you can do it!” And that can set you off in motion.

 

It's just all a mindset battle. And the longer I'm in business, the more I realize that everything is in our heads. That's really all it is.

 

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