Doubt is, without a doubt, powerful.
It can be destroyer and a honest critic at the same time!
Doubt is unlikely one of the most interesting states of the mind.

But what is doubt?
Is it just lack of confidence?
It occurs in very different situations and can obviously be labeled as a dialog.

The bad news first: its a part of you, the good news: you can learn to put it in control!

Whenever we experience the feeling of satisfaction, there is this little voice in the corner of our mind that asks if its not a little unfair that we are satisfied after a great meal while other people have to starve?
Doubt is the thing that makes a vegetarian and inflames protest against politicians or their decisions.

In its existence, its neither good nor bad.

Imagine doubt as a cop
Well, obviously these are very common scenarios and it seems that doubt is just the watcher of our consciousness, but somehow not a counterpart of the unconsciousness.

I imagine doubt as a cop, the prosecutor who is sitting next to both in my humble mind and observing the processes that are going on, with a succinct comment thrown in about whats happening every here and then.
I describe doubt as an independent prosecutor and not as judge, because its purpose is not judgement. But to put the status quo into question.

While very often doubt is useful (take the vegetarian or protest aspects for example) it can be a nagging bitch at times.
There are only two things in my opinion that can keep the prosecutor in a warm & fuzzy state:

1. Knowledge - the definition of knowledge that something is true, or has happened, or will happen
2. Intuition - the kind of intuition that is based upon knowledge

Intuition as I imagine it, is a real-time-engine that pulls out results from an "experience-database" , considers mood, unconsciousness and the conscience to verify information and allows reactions based on these factors at an alarming rate.

This means it is important to learn and grow on everything you can get your hands on.
To make the best use of intuition as possible you should never stop learning. If you let intuition judge what doubt puts into question, doubt will not longer be a fat and lazy bum who knows he is always right.

He has to run, verify and compare informations a lot, that keeps him busy and at the end he is not the first to raise his hand. He does it only if things really seem to be dangerous or on the edge of morality.

This leads to two conclusions:

1. Doubt is not always bad, it just puts your behavior into question, or in the best case into a dialog.
2. Self-doubt and too much doubt can be counteract with intuition, and prevent success.

This might be a personal conclusion. I´m just an observer, who is fascinated by how our mind works and I use my imagination to illustrate these processes to others.

Probably someone has a more valid explanation how these psychological aspects work, but I find this imagination quite interesting.

My approach is just to make living with these techniques easier. Especially for artists doubt and self-doubt are destructive, acquired and every too often unnecessary. In short: its the most known preventer of success.

From experience I can say that keeping the prosecutor busy, makes life soo much easier.