From the outside, Carrie Underwood leads an idyllic life, but that doesn’t make her immune from feelings of self-doubt. In a recent interview with Dr. Josh Axe, Underwood opened up about the feeling after Dr. Axe brought up mental health and asked the singer about one of the biggest challenges she has experienced over the past five to 10 years and how she used her mindset to work through it.
Often Struggles With Self-Doubt
“I feel like something that anybody, surely I can’t be the only one that’s in the spotlight, is having self-doubt,” Underwood replied. “You see yourself, and you’re like, ‘I should have done better. I could have done better. This didn’t do what I thought it was going to do. Do they like me? What do they think?’”
“When you’re in the public eye, it’s kind of like, it’s impossible not to think like that because ‘they’ are the ones, whoever they are, that are saying the things and that are coming to the shows and buying the music and stuff like that,” she continued. “I feel like that is where you can kind of see a skewed version of yourself and end up telling yourself you’re not good enough, and you did terrible and work harder, those kinds of things.”
Feels Like “The Devil Is Trying To Break You Down”
The GRAMMY Award-winner noted that “at the end of the day, I feel like that’s all the devil trying to break you down, trying to get in your head and make you feel those things and make you self-doubt, feel like you’re not good enough.”
Dr. Axe pointed out that Carrie Underwood‘s revelation “can be a comfort for some people” as “There probably are a good amount of people thinking, ‘Well, Carrie doesn’t have any doubts, right?’ I mean, she’s just all the way confident.” He also asked Underwood whether she has had any limiting beliefs in her life that initially held her back before she was able to overcome them.
The “Out Of That Truck” singer again pointed to self-doubt, replying, “I do think that outside pressure and the… you’re not good enough, self-doubt kind thing is the limiter to me because then you start, instead of doing things because you love to do them or believing that you’re going to do your best and hopefully that’s all you can do and then just being at peace with that and letting it go, it’s that thing that will get you scrutinizing everything that you’re doing.”
She added that “you can just drive yourself nuts and never feel like you’ve completed a work because you’re just obsessing over it,” calling that struggle “the limiter, probably, in my being.”
Also Battles Insecurities In Her Personal Life
Underwood also connected that difficulty to her life as a wife to husband Mike Fisher and their two sons, Isaiah and Jacob. “I work really hard, and then I come home, and sometimes I feel like I am not doing any of it well,” she said. “If I’m working really hard, then I feel like I’m being a terrible mom and wife and friend and daughter and all of those things. If I’m at home, and I’m immersed in that world, then I feel like I’m not doing a good job. So it’s what I said earlier, you do the best you can, you juggle and just try to keep telling yourself that you are doing the best you can and be at peace with that.”
Whatever she’s doing, Underwood gives it her all, telling Dr. Axe that while growing up, the people around her instilled in her the value of hard work.
“I had really incredible role models in my parents and how hard they worked and the things that they did with what they had. Just very good, hardworking people,” she said. “And I feel like that was a very good example for me growing up and knowing that you just get out there and get it. Don’t be lazy, work hard. Whatever it is that you’re doing, whether it’s at your job, in the garden, you’re with your kids, whatever it is, give it all you got. Don’t be lazy.”
Underwood is currently in Las Vegas performing her residency, REFLECTION, which will continue through October 2024 at Resorts World Las Vegas.
