Learning to doubt your doubts

The opposite of two negatives is a positive. At least I think so.

Here’s a counterintuitive idea backed by new psychology research: When you’re stuck doubting whether you can achieve an important goal, the way forward may not be to build confidence. Instead, it may be to learn to doubt your doubts.

A new study from researchers at Ohio State University examined what happens when people pursuing long-term identity goals hit serious obstacles.

These are the big goals tied to who people want to become—starting a business, changing careers, becoming a doctor, or writing a book.

Psychologists call the moment when those goals start to wobble an action crisis.

You’re still moving forward, but you’re quietly wondering whether you should stop.

Most research has focused on those doubts themselves—where they come from and how often they predict quitting. This research flipped the question. Instead of asking what doubt does to commitment, the researcher asked something more subtle:

What happens if people begin to question whether their doubts are valid?

The answer surprised even the author.

Two simple experiments

In two experiments, people who were already uncertain about their goals became more committed when researchers induced what’s known as meta-cognitive doubt—uncertainty about whether their thoughts and judgments were reliable.

In one study, participants first rated how conflicted they felt about continuing their most important goal. Then, under the guise of an unrelated memory exercise, they were asked to write about a time when they had felt uncertain about their own thinking.

That exercise had nothing to do with their goal—or so it seemed.

Afterward, participants who had been doubting their goal showed higher commitment than before. Writing about doubt made them less confident in their negative thoughts, not more.

As study author Patrick Carroll, a professor of social psychology, put it, “Doubt plus doubt equaled less doubt.”

A second experiment replicated the effect using a clever psychological trick. Participants completed a questionnaire with their non-dominant hand. The awkward handwriting subtly undermined confidence in their own judgments, and once again, commitment increased.

Neither good nor bad

Doubt isn’t inherently good or bad. Neither is confidence. You can doubt a bad idea and be right, or feel confident and still be objectively wrong.

What this research suggests is that our certainty about our doubts may matter more than the doubts themselves—something many people rarely stop to consider.

That has real consequences for how people think about motivation and habit formation.

Most advice aimed at people who feel stuck pushes reassurance: visualize success, remind yourself why you started, double down on confidence. Sometimes that works. But if you’re already in an action crisis, reinforcing certainty—especially certainty in negative judgments—can backfire.

One of the most telling findings was that when people who doubted their goal were induced to feel confident in their thinking, they became less committed. Confidence didn’t resolve the doubt; it locked it in.

This helps explain a familiar experience. You talk yourself into quitting not because the evidence is overwhelming, but because your internal narrative feels airtight. You’re not just doubting. Instead, you’re convinced you’re right to doubt.

The research also explains why this technique is hard to apply deliberately. The effect worked best when participants were unaware that the doubt-inducing experience had anything to do with their goal.

Once people consciously try to manipulate their own thinking—“I’m doubting my doubts on purpose”—the mechanism weakens.

The practical lesson

Still, there’s a practical lesson here for personal goal pursuit.

If you’re questioning whether to continue something important, arguing directly with the doubt may be the wrong move. Instead of asking, “Am I good enough?” or “Is this realistic?” a more useful question to train yourself to ask might be:

“How reliable is my thinking right now?”

That re-framing creates distance without forcing optimism. It shifts attention away from the conclusion and toward the conditions under which you’re drawing it—stress, fatigue, fear, recent setbacks.

It’s not a license for blind persistence.

Used indiscriminately, inducing doubt can undermine good judgment, humility, and the ability to quit wisely when quitting is the right call.

But the research highlights something many high performers already sense intuitively. Moments of doubt aren’t always signals to stop.

Sometimes, they are signals to slow down, change perspective, and question how much authority you’re giving your inner critic.

If you’re pursuing something that matters and find yourself stuck in that uneasy middle ground between pushing forward and walking away, the takeaway isn’t “believe in yourself more.”

It’s subtler and often more useful: Before you let doubt decide for you, ask whether your doubts have really earned your confidence.

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Other things:

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• Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights after being called to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee. Saying he had advised his client not to testify, Maxwell’s attorney said she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump ... For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms. Maxwell alone can explain why.” (People)

• President Trump’s tariffs cost the average American household $1,000 last year, rising to $1,300 this year, according to new research from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. The research called Trump’s tariffs “the largest U.S. tax increase as a percent of GDP since 1993.” (ABC News)

• A quarter of a century ago, Elon Musk founded SpaceX with a single-minded goal: settling Mars. But on Sunday, as more than 120 million people tuned in to the Super Bowl Musk took to his social network and revealed that SpaceX is pivoting from the settlement of Mars to building a “self-growing” city on the Moon. We cannot know Musk’s full rationale for pivoting to the Moon, at least in the near term. Only a year ago, he referred to the Moon as a “distraction.” But now, apparently, it’s not. (Ars Technica)

• Cuba has warned airlines that there isn’t enough fuel for airplanes to refuel on the island, the latest step in its moves to ration energy as the Trump administration cuts the Caribbean nation off from its fuel resources. While the rationing may not disrupt shorter regional flights, it presents a significant challenge for long-haul routes from countries like Russia and Canada — a critical pillar of Cuba’s tourism economy. (AP)

• Eddie Bauer said Monday that it has declared bankruptcy — the third time the 106-year-old outdoor apparel retailer has filed for Chapter 11 protection from its debts. Eddie Bauer launched in 1920 as a Seattle fishing shop, and became known for providing outerwear, including down jackets and sleeping bags, for the military during World War I. In 1963, Jim Whittaker wore the company’s clothing in becoming the first American to climb Mount Everest. (CBS News)

• American skier Lindsey Vonn, 41, says she has “no regrets” after a crash in the women’s downhill competition at the Winter Olympics resulted in a “complex tibia fracture” which will require multiple surgeries: “Standing in the starting gate yesterday was an incredible feeling that I will never forget. Knowing I stood there having a chance to win was a victory in and of itself.” (BBC)

Thanks for reading. Photo by Logan Voss on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before on Inc.com. See you in the comments.