“The first step is to say that you can.”
Will Smith
Believing in yourself is one of the most important keys to achieving success in life. No matter what it is that you want to accomplish, if you don’t believe in yourself, you will never put in the full effort to make things work.
Deep down, when you don’t believe in yourself, you will only do things with half-hearted effort and when things become tough, you will be the first person to make excuses, blame, complain, and give up.
James Clear, one of my favorite bloggers wrote in one of his articles:
“The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful ones (in health, in business, and in life) is that successful people are determined to make the situation work for them rather than playing the role of the victim and searching for reasons why a situation won’t work.”
You see, when you read a book or an article, and you learn a new idea on how to do something, what do you say to yourself?
Do you say to yourself, “Yes, this is what I need and I will implement this idea right away”, or “Nah, this will never work for me”?
Your response says a lot about your self-belief.
People who believe in themselves are determined and they are always looking for ways to do things better, improve, and reach their goals.
On the other hand, people who lack self-belief will always find excuses, look for faults, and keep telling themselves why things can’t and won’t work out for them.
In the article, James Clear also wrote:
“The biggest difference I’ve noticed between successful people and unsuccessful people isn’t intelligence or opportunity or resources. It’s the belief that they can make their goals happen.”
And I can’t agree more.
We all have difficulties, problems, and setbacks in life.
Some people believe that they can do it and they choose to do it even if they are against all the odds.
On the contrary, there are also people who choose to believe that they can’t do it or that their problems are bigger than their capabilities, and that they choose to quit.
What you choose to do is totally up to you. But one thing I know for sure is that your beliefs are going to affect a large part of your life.
If you are someone who believes in yourself, you become more determined. You believe that somehow you are in control and that you can change the situation. You believe that you can do it. And you go in with all your heart.
And when you don’t believe in yourself, you will let life be and accept whatever that has happened to you. You go where the flow of life takes you. You feel you lack control over the situation. And because you think you can’t do it, you don’t take action. Even if you do take action, you won’t do it with your full heart.
Do you get that? Can you see how your beliefs can affect your success in life right now?
This is why it is extremely important to get rid of your fears and self-doubts. You must learn to build confidence and grow your inner beliefs to support you in reaching your goals and dreams.
So, what can you do to believe in yourself? How can you build stronger self-belief that can help you to succeed in life?
Here are 8 ways how you can do so…
1. Visualize the success you want
According to a study conducted by Dr. Biasiotto at the University of Chicago, he proved that visualization can have a big impact on our lives.
In the study, he divided the basketball players into 3 groups to test their free throws:
- First group – Practice free throws every day for an hour
- Second group – visualized themselves making the free throws without physically touching the ball
- Third group – the control group that did nothing
After 30 days, he tested the participants’ free throw skills again. And guess what he discovered?
The third group that did nothing did not improve at all, which was expected. The first group who practiced free throws had their skill improved by 24%.
The amazing thing is that the second group, the group where they just visualized the training showed an improvement of 23%, without touching the basketball at all.
And this is how visualization can help you strengthen your self-belief. You just need to visualize the success you desire. See yourself as someone who is successful.
- If you want to be the best basketball player, you must see yourself as one.
- If you want to build a multi-million-dollar business, you must constantly imagine yourself doing it.
- If you want to lose weight and get back in shape, you must visualize yourself having a thin and slim body.
Your thoughts are going to affect the way you feel, decide, and act.
Hence, practice visualization to help you grow your beliefs for what you want.
Action Steps:
Visualize and see yourself as the person whom you want to be. Every day, spend a few minutes to visualize yourself living the life you want. See yourself achieving the success you desire and are living your dreams.
I also suggest you create a vision board to help you visualize better. The more you see yourself as a success, the more you will make yourself believe that you are.
2. Acting as if
Another effective method to make yourself believe in yourself is to act as if. I first came across this powerful technique from The Success Principles, the best-selling book written by Jack Canfield.
You must identify the actions and live as if you are “already there”.
Always remember, you don’t get what you want, you get who you are. It is only when you become the right person, the right result will come to you.
There is no point to say that you want to be successful but all you do is watch TV. Like what Jim Carrey famously said:
“I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That’s the thing. You can’t visualize and go eat a sandwich.”
You must act to make your subconscious mind believe that you are the right person and so you will attract the right results.
Thus, if you want to be a successful writer, you must act as if you are already one. So what do successful writers do? Simply put, they write most of the time. So are you writing most of the time? Or do you spend most of your time on social media?
Your action will determine your beliefs. When you act, you are telling your subconscious mind that you believe in yourself and that is why you take action.
People who don’t believe something is possible will never do anything about it. Why? The answer is simple, they don’t even bother because they don’t believe in it.
Action Steps:
Identify the person you want to be and the actions you should be taking once you are successful and do it now. Ask yourself these few questions:
- If you are living your dreams, what kind of person would you be?
- Who would you take and have as your friends?
- What kind of clothes would you be wearing?
- What would you be doing each and every day?
- How would you treat others?
- How would you walk and talk when you are successful?
You must first act as if you are already successful in order to create the success you want in life. And that’s how you make yourself believe in your dreams and goals.
3. Talk to yourself positively
A large part of our beliefs is formed by how we talk to ourselves. If you constantly bombard yourself with negative self-talk, guess what, you will never live a positive life.
People who constantly tell themselves, whether out loud or in their minds, that they can’t do it are usually right.
You create your own beliefs in your head, my friend. Whether you think you can or can’t, you are right.
This is why people who believed that they can do it, take massive action and succeeded. On the contrary, people who don’t believe it, give themselves all sorts of excuses and reasons why they can’t.
It is all in your mind. How you talk to yourself matters.
Action Steps:
Changing your self-talk can be something difficult. But one great way to do it is through affirmations. Here’s a guide you should read:
If you want to learn more about programming your subconscious mind for success and how to talk to yourself positively, you should read the book by Shad Helmstetter called What to Say When You Talk to Your Self.
4. Take care of your health and physical wellbeing
Do you know that people who are fit physically and healthy have higher self-confidence?
And your self-confidence is what makes you believe in yourself. According to this article on Elite Daily, when you spend even just a few minutes of mindful, joyful movement each day, you can significantly increase your level of self-esteem.
And when you feel good about yourself, you have higher confidence. And when you are confident, you tend to believe in yourself.
Imagine when you stand in front of a mirror and all you see is someone who is overweight, has no energy, and is in a mess, how does that make you feel? Not good, right?
This is why taking care of your physical health and overall well-being is important to your self-confidence. And when you are confident, you believe in yourself more.
You can’t achieve great things if you always feel tired and lack the energy to pursue greatness. Hence, if you want to believe in yourself again, exercise regularly, stay healthy, and get fit.
Action Steps:
Commit to exercise regularly. Spend at least 30 minutes on physical activities each day. The successful writer, Gretchen Rubin, has shared how anyone can make exercise their habit. Read the article here:
5. Reinforce your victories
Another great way to believe in yourself again is to think about your past successes and all your victories.
Usually, the moment you don’t believe in yourself is the moment you are feeling down. You don’t see the hope and as a result, you don’t believe that you can do it.
People tend to lose faith and confidence when they don’t see the possibility to reach their goals.
Therefore, reinforce your victories. What you need to do is simply revisit your past successes, regardless of whether they are big victories or small ones.
When you think about all the achievements you have accomplished, they make you feel good. They boost your confidence and make you believe in yourself once again.
Action Steps:
Keep a success journal. Write down all your achievements in the journal, big and small. And revisit the journal whenever you want to.
This will reinforce your subconscious mind to believe that you are a success. You force yourself to focus on the positive and not the negative.
Every time when you see your past successes, you feel proud and it makes you believe that you can do it.
6. Stop listening to the naysayers
If you want to believe in yourself and that you can achieve all the goals and dreams you desire, you must stop listening to the naysayers.
Imagine if you want to start an online business and someone keeps telling you that you can’t do it, how would you feel?
Never ever let other people talk you out of your dreams. Never let others decide your life. This is your life and you are the one who is living it. You are the one who is in control, so don’t listen to the naysayers.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to venture into the acting industry, people told him that his body was too bulky and that his name was too difficult to pronounce.
Did he listen to them? No, he ignored them and went ahead with his dream. And this is what you need to do too.
When you listen to people who tell you it can’t be done or it is not possible, you will doubt yourself and start to believe what they said. And if things don’t work out well, you’ll choose to quit and give up rather than find ways to overcome it.
So don’t let this happens to you.
Action Steps:
The solution here is simple, don’t listen to negative people and people who tell you it can’t be done. When someone tells you what you want to accomplish is impossible or looks down on your goals and dreams, run. Get away from them as soon as possible.
Here’s an article from Inc.com that is helpful:
- 9 Strategies for Ignoring Naysayers as an Entrepreneur
7. Join the right people who encourage you
Once you get rid of the naysayers, what you need to do then is to mix yourself with people who are positive and people who will encourage you to pursue your dreams.
If you want to believe in yourself, it helps when you have someone to believe in you first.
This is why most successful businesses started with a team of people. Usually, if you try to do everything all by yourself, when you hit a snag, you will doubt yourself and start to lose faith. This is when most people will give up.
And it helps when you have others to watch your back and tell you that it is possible and that you should go on.
Sometimes, if you can’t find partners in your business venture, you can get yourself a coach or a mentor. A mentor can be helpful in reminding your purpose and at the same time, encourage you to keep going.
Action Steps:
Mix with other positive people who believe in you and who will also encourage you. It is difficult to face everything all by yourself. You need help from people who trust you.
Energy is contagious. And you will become who you spend time with most of the time. So, make sure you surround yourself with people who are positive and who are more successful than you. Here’s a great resource to help…
8. Feeding yourself with possibilities
Another great way to believe in yourself is to constantly feed yourself with possibilities.
For instance, when you read about someone’s success story, you feel good and that makes you believe that you too, can do it.
This is why successful people read a lot. They constantly feed themselves with positive and inspirational information all the time.
If you want to know who are the successful people that read a lot, check out this article from HuffPost. And you will learn that Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, and many other extremely successful people are readers.
You see, it is difficult to believe in yourself when you lock yourself up in your own world and not wanted to explore. But when you read, explore, and venture, you started to see the possibilities.
You thought that making $10,000 a month is a lot until you met a man who is making $100,000 a month.
Of course, there is always someone who is doing better and earning more than you do. And really, you don’t have to compare yourself with them.
What you need to do is to explore and venture out of your comfort zone so that you will believe in yourself that you can do it again, because if others can do it, so can you.
The more you read, learn and explore, the more you will discover and the more possibilities you will get. That’s when you will open up and start to believe that you too, can do it.
Action Steps:
Read, explore, and constantly improve yourself. I suggest you attend this web class to learn how you can unleash your maximum potential of your subconscious mind to achieve what you want in life.
Thus, commit to constant and never-ending improvement. The better you become, the more you will believe in your own ability.
Takeaway
I know, it is not easy to believe in yourself and has high confidence when things are tough. And that’s exactly why you are reading this article, isn’t it?
It is easy to believe that you can do it when everything is going according to your plan, are feeling great, and have a bunch of supportive friends.
But it will be a different story when things become difficult. Imagine when you don’t have enough money to pay the bills or to put food on the table. Or when your loans are overdue and may get your house and cars foreclosed.
Those are the times when you needed to believe in yourself the most. Hence, use the techniques you learn in this article to help you build a strong mentality to go through tough times.
Whenever you doubt yourself or lack faith, remember this quote:
“A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not on the branch but on its own wings.”
There’s a hero in you. Never doubt what you can accomplish or who you are. I hope this article is helpful.
The link, “go through these 3-part video presentation” from John Assaraf, is broken.
Wow! Thanks for the GREAT message! I felt inspired and am ready now to act on my dreams despite the fears I have been having in my mind.