Accelerate Your Action: Breaking Free from Self-Doubt
Mel Robbins, in The Let Them Theory, delivers a powerful truth:
"The fear of what other people may think is a major source of your self-doubt."
How many times have you held back from speaking up in a meeting, pursuing a dream, or setting boundaries - simply because you worried about what others might think?
This fear isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a roadblock. It slows us down, keeps us stuck, and makes us hesitate when we should be stepping forward. If we want to accelerate our own action - whether in leadership, parenting, or personal growth - we have to stop outsourcing our confidence to the opinions of others.
The Weight of Other People’s Opinions
From a young age, many women are conditioned to seek approval - to be liked, agreeable, and non-disruptive. In leadership, this conditioning can manifest as imposter syndrome, perfectionism, or an overreliance on external validation. As parents, it can look like guilt over choices that don’t fit societal norms. Women have been brought up for generations as 'human givers' as opposed to 'human beings'.
Motherhood makes these external expectations even more intense, as it comes with an overwhelming amount of external opinions - how we should parent, balance work and family, or even take time for ourselves. The perfect mother image on Instagram, although it's being debunked in recent years, has done its damage to a generation of mothers, seeking the impossible perfection. The reality is: People will always have opinions. Let them.
Worrying about judgment won’t stop it from happening; it will only stop you from taking action. The key is to recognise when the fear of others’ opinions, the fear of judgment, is running the show - and choose to act anyway.
How to Reclaim Your Power
Here are three mindset shifts to help you accelerate your action and break free from self-doubt:
Recognise that judgment is inevitable – No matter what you do, no matter how well you do it, someone will have an opinion. If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one (including yourself).
Challenge yourself to detach from external validation – Confidence doesn’t come from others approving of you; it comes from you approving of yourself. The more you practice making decisions based on your own intuition and experience, the more trust you build in yourself.
Act before you feel ready – Waiting until you feel 100% confident is a trap. Action creates confidence, not the other way around. The sooner you start, the sooner self-doubt loses its grip.
Your Move: Accelerate Your Own Action
This International Women’s Day, there will be conversations about how the world can accelerate action for gender equity. And that's great - we need more of those! But let’s also talk about how we, as women, can accelerate our own action - by freeing ourselves from the opinions that hold us back.
So, what’s one action you’ve been hesitating on? What’s one step you can take today, without waiting for approval?