"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy." - Norman Vincent Peale
“Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don't let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.” - Roy T. Bennett
"So I've been hearing this phrase y'all got over here that I ain't too crazy about. 'it's the hope that kills you.' Y'all know what? I disagree, you know. I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief.” - Ted Lasso
Believing in yourself means having confidence in your own abilities. It means being able to trust yourself to do what you say you'll do and knowing that those efforts will result in the desired outcomes. That means that believing in yourself comes from several key psychological experiences. These experiences include self-worth, self-confidence, self-trust, autonomy, and environmental mastery. When we believe in ourselves, it kicks in all sorts of psychological processes that help us achieve our goals, improve ourselves, and increase our well-being. The opposite is also true. A lack of self-confidence or a lack of belief in ourselves means we are less likely to act, to change, or to push to make things better. As a result, when we expect to fail, we are actually more likely to fail. This means that believing in yourself is like the key that turns the ignition and starts the car. We can't really go anywhere without it. Try as we might to push ourselves forward, we're blocked because our thoughts, attitudes, and actions aren't in alignment with our goals. So we either don't do what we need to do or we sabotage ourselves along the way, sometimes in obvious ways and sometimes in ways that are completely unconscious to us.
"Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn't it? If you're comfortable while you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong." - Ted Lasso
Let's jump into how to go about believing yourself. Plus, there is always room for improvement. Making improvement in your own self belief will sometimes feel uncomfortable. If you aren't used to believing yourself in all situations, it's going to feel uncomfortable initially. And when you accomplish your challenges and goals, boy does it feel good! The 5 categories that I will cover are related, but also have their differences.
Self-worth is the sense that you have value as a human being. Do you value yourself as a human being? Do you agree that you're no worse than any other person?
Self-confidence is a positive attitude about your abilities, qualities, and judgement. Do you feel good about your skills and abilities? Do you feel good about your personal qualities? Do you feel good about your judgment and decision making?
Self-trust is faith that you can rely on yourself. Can you rely on yourself? Can you trust that you'll do what you say you'll do?
Autonomy is feeling able to choose and direct your own behavior. Do you feel free to do what you want to do? Do you believe that no one can stop you from reaching your dreams?
Environmental mastery is your belief that your efforts can result in the changes you desire. When you take action, do you believe that it will lead to the results you desire? Do you believe that you're effective in getting the things you want?
If you answered or were leaning towards a 'no' for any of these questions, these are likely the areas that need the most work to improve your ability to believe in yourself.
"You say impossible, but all I hear is 'I'm possible." - Ted Lasso
I, for example, recently struggled with environmental mastery. I had worked at a company for about 8 years and wasn't able to be selected for any supervisor roles after multiple internal interviews. It started to get to the point where I was doubting myself and questioning if I was good enough to succeed in a higher role. I eventually found a new company that does indeed value me and hired me to lead an entire wing of the company. Choosing not to take impossible as an answer and continuing to work hard, I was able to get my mind focused back on believing in myself and my abilities. I am possible! What about you? What do you struggle with? Can you identify things that happened in your past that taught you to doubt yourself in the ways listed above?
Question your self-doubts to cultivate self-belief. Once you can understand which questions above you struggle with, question these beliefs by talking back to your inner voice. If you feel like you have no value, tell yourself, "Believe you are a valuable, amazing, person who deserves to live a good life." Positive self-talk like this has been shown to improve our performance. By saying positive things to ourselves, we can start to rewrite our internal scripts.
Believe in your worth. The first and most fundamental part of believing in yourself is believing that you have worth. If you have a difficult time believing that you are worthy of your dreams, then why would you even shoot for them? On the other hand, if you like yourself and treat yourself like someone you like, then this positive self treatment can go a long way towards believing in yourself. Most people I know have so many friends and family that are rooting for them to succeed. YOU are no exception, so start rooting for YOURSELF! Talk nicely to yourself, root for yourself, and go easy on yourself if you ever hit a roadblock or make a mistake. Take those moments as opportunities to learn and improve. Use positive affirmations to help grow that self-belief.
"I have a really tricky time hearing folks that don't believe in themselves." - Ted Lasso
Believe in your good qualities. To believe in yourself, you must believe that you have the qualities or skills you need to do whatever it is you want to do. Start by creating a list of you positive qualities and strengths. You'll end up writing down much more than you may initially think you have! Next, think about how these positive qualities and strengths can help you reach your goals. When you see how many good traits you have and how they are useful to you, then hopefully you'll have to rely less on faith to believe in yourself. Instead, you'll see it right in front of you and see that you can accomplish your goals!
Believe in yourself by building self-trust. We often think of trust as something we have for others. But we also need to be able to trust ourselves. When we trust another person, we're honest with them, we can count on them, and we are confident in them doing what's best for us. You can see why it is important to also trust yourself. When building your own self-trust, work on these points: do what you say you're going to do, be honest with yourself, do what you believe is right, and be clear with yourself. YOU are the most important person in your life that needs to truly believe in YOU.
Believe in yourself by cultivating self-empowerment. Autonomy is the idea of self-governance. It's the freedom we have to make our own decisions and pursue our own unique paths in life. It's also referred to as self-empowerment, or the ability to take control of out own life, set our own goals, and make or own choices. Lack of empowerment in a structured job setting, getting hurt by loved ones that we put trust into, addictions that have a negative control on your life, and social and cultural 'normalcies' are a few examples of how your belief in yourself, or specifically your autonomy, may get damaged. Believe in yourself by taking back your power. These examples are all situations that can take some of you control or power from your life. Take a moment to think about how you believed in yourself before and how you are going to get back to that belief again.
"And though I believe that Ted Lasso will fail here, and Richmond will suffer the embarrassment of relegation, I won't gloat when it happens, because I can't help but root for him." - Trent Crimm, The Independent (from Ted Lasso)
Believe in yourself by learning to master your world. Environmental mastery is all about taking effective action to achieve the results you want. If you've failed in the past or struggled to achieve the goals you've set for yourself despite doing your best, you might not believe in your ability to do what you set your mind to. You might not believe you can do it because in the past you didn't do it. This is totally understandable. Create that positive, confident, belief in yourself so that even if you or other people might not think you will be able to succeed in a situation, YOU and those other people will believe in you and will root for you to succeed. That alone will be enough to help you succeed more frequently! Believe!
Before I let you go, here are a few more ways to help improve your ability to believe in yourself:
Map out your short and long-term goals.
Imagine being your best self.
Try a self-compassion exercise.
Develop a more positive mindset!
"Living in the moment, it's a gift. That's why they call it the present." - Ted Lasso
I want to be able to live a positive and happy life, that's why I decided to write this post about the importance of believing in yourself. I truly think belief in myself plays an enormous role in allowing me to live with a positive mindset. I will always have areas in my life that I will need to improve, just like everyone. But the sooner we all start focusing on improving our self-belief, the closer we will be to living that positive lifestyle! Live in the moment, and make that moment a positive one more often than not! I hope this can hit home for anyone that takes the time to read this and I appreciate everyone who continues to support Birdman's Blog. You are all the best, got nothing but love for y'all! Always remember to BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!!
I will send you off with one final quote from one of my best friends when I called him up and asked him if he had a quote about "belief" for me to use (he is quite the philosopher LOL):
"Yeah, I got quote about belief for ya, it's from Cher, 'Do you believe in life after love?'" - Taylor Galleberg, Husband to Jordan/father to Sergeant/great human
