Self-doubt to the point of immobility is an experience common to people who are self-employed. It’s at these times that a normal job most appeals to them.

For me, it’s usually Tuesday morning when I freak out completely and spend the morning scrambling the internet for leads on culture in Cardiff.

Ironically, most weeks my self-doubt starts when I calm down and realise that everything is great.

From several months of self-employment, I think that I’ve discovered several great ways of saving my day from complete immobility.

Take a break

Sure, it might be 10am on a Monday morning when you suddenly realise you’ve got hundreds of pounds worth of bills and rent to pay that month with no sign of work on the horizon, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a break.

Everybody’s advice to people who work from home is to take a walk first thing in the morning. That idea transfers to the self-employed too.

If progress is evading you, have a coffee and read a magazine (*cough* Plastik Magazine, for example *cough*), draw a picture, go for a walk, do some shopping.

Setting your mind to do something completely unrelated to work will probably soothe your worries, if only for half an hour.

You might even have the breakthrough idea that you need to break through your wall.

Find a shortcut

Taking a break is all well and good, but if time is a luxury that you do not have then sometimes a repose is not the best way to manage your self-doubt.

When a deadline or important meeting looms and you feel paralysed, take a shortcut.

Answer some e-mails to do with your startup, tweet some of your company’s most recent news, write a blog.

Often, this will remind you of how good your idea is and you’ll gain a new confidence.

Branch out

Recently when I felt particularly battered by self-employment, I took a day off to work on different projects.

This was a brilliant move – during that day I worked on some side projects that I had in mind and it gave me so much space to breathe that I had a more productive day than I have had in months.

As a result of that day, I also had several great ideas of how to progress Plastik, my main occupation.

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Ultimately, finding a way to motivate yourself to overcome self-doubt is an individual task. I won’t be helped by your methods and you won’t be helped by mine. However, the three principles that we’ve just talked about will help you decode your own motivations.

As I wrote in a blogpost recently, “The worst possible thing that you can do in life is to become so worried about what you are going to do long term that you’re frozen into not doing in the short term.”