All people know how self-doubt usually affects our psyche. It may prevent us from asking for a promotion, talking to someone we like, or seeking a big dream because it increases our fear and deludes us that we do not deserve what we are trying to achieve. However, its impact is deeper than that. Self-doubt may lead us to question our decisions in every situation, and this does not mean that we are weak enough that we cannot face life courageously. We are constantly worried about what we may lose when we decide to take a certain action.
“Opportunity cost” is the cost of every decision we make. In the language of economy, it means “losing the potential gains of other alternatives when choosing a specific alternative.” For example, if you decide to move to a specific city, you lose all the opportunities you would have had if you stayed where you live, or if you decide to eat a specific dish at lunch, you lose the opportunity to eat any other dish.
The opportunity cost is the “thing” you give up when you choose something else, and that is the essence of self-doubt, which is fear of the cost of a decision. However, when that fear causes you to lose a potential source of income, or miss an opportunity to connect with your potential partner, it is easy to understand how self-doubt turns into a fear that impedes you from progressing.
Opportunity cost is inevitable:
The opportunity cost is a trade-off, caused by the intersection of two events from which you can only choose one, and there is an opportunity cost for everything, and sometimes this cost is negative. For example, if you do not get a university degree, you will have more free time in your twenties, but you will trade it for a lack of education that reduces the total amount you earn from your work during the rest of your life. Nevertheless, this cost can be positive. For example, the opportunity cost of going to the gym is to reduce the time you spend sitting on the couch.
But when the opportunity cost affects one of the key areas of your life, whether professional, social, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise, it can lead to a level of self-doubt that can cripple your progress. For example, suppose you want to start a career in a new field that happens to be very needed in a city far from where you currently reside. At first glance, it may seem like you have no choice but to move on to pursue your dreams, but it's not that easy.
After you decide to take this big step and start your career again, you start to doubt yourself, and you think: How can I leave all my friends and family? And why would I want to start from scratch again after working so hard in my current career? What if I move and then miss the chance to meet my future husband or wife?
As you can see, all these questions of self-doubt stem from fear of losing the opportunity cost, a sense of dread caused by changing your routine and missing an opportunity that you might have had, but is that true?
Get out of your comfort zone:
The fear of missing opportunities has two sides. When you have a chance at first glance, it is normal to think about all the advantages and disadvantages of not seizing them, almost immediately afterwards, you start thinking about what you will lose if you decide to move forward in this new direction, and then you start flipping your thoughts and the negative aspects of the opportunity until you finally decide not to take any action.
All because of your comfort zone, it's easier to stay in the status quo than to change things, so we focus on the downsides of opportunity, and we live in fear of change.
That is a stupid way to live life. Instead, we must focus on the things that we will win, not lose, so there are many positives as well as negatives, but our physiological nature forces us to think first about what we give up, not what we gain in our lives. So, we give great importance to the cost of opportunity instead of the positive side of our decision, and this is the essence of self-doubt. We fear abandoning what we know; therefore, we doubt our desire for positive change, and then we remain stuck in a vicious circle.
Instead, we must accept change, we must welcome new experiences, and we must focus on the positive side of the decision, not on the negative one because you may not have the thing you are afraid to miss and the opportunity cost you are afraid to afford anyway, and so you allow the future to influence your current decisions, but the future is unpredictable. Therefore, you must act as if the things you expect to happen will never happen and you will never miss them.
Instead, when you see an opportunity, seize it, and deep down, learn that the opportunity you have had is the right way to take it, so don't let fear of the future affect your decision.
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