The level of success you see in your life is a direct result of your belief system. You must believe in yourself.
I’m not talking about religion or philosophy here. What I mean is your belief in your ability to succeed.
Believing in yourself means having faith in your own capabilities. It means believing that you CAN do something — that it is within your ability. When you believe in yourself, you can overcome self-doubt and have the confidence to take action and get things done.
When you’re drowning in fears, doubts, and self-sabotaging behaviors, success feels out of your grasp. All of the skills, training, and tools in the world won’t change your life.
Once you solidify your belief in yourself, success is 100% possible for you.
Work on your strengths (not weaknesses)
When you fail over and over at something that seems easy to others, it’s nearly impossible to believe in yourself.
Struggling with confidence, you tend to focus on things you can’t do. That’s because you feel weaknesses more keenly. They are painfully highlighted in your mind, symbols of shame, weakness, and failure.
“I’m bad at this,” quickly escalates to, “I’ll never be good at anything!”
The good news is that everyone has weaknesses — and strengths.
Maybe you know some of your strengths. To get some ideas, think about how people might describe you:
- Always has a grand vision, big-picture thinking
- Notices the little things, detail-oriented
- Loves learning and research
- Good communicator
- Never gives up
- Hands on and action oriented
Talk to your family, close friends, and colleagues about what your strengths are. What are some things they come to you for help with? You’re not fishing for compliments, though sometimes this exercise can come with a confidence boost.
Knowing your strengths will allow you to put more of your effort into areas you’re already talented in. You can grow in the ways you’re naturally inclined.
Once you are working from a base of strength and belief in your abilities, you can find resources to tackle anything.
Recognizing your natural abilities (and inabilities) gives you permission to stop banging your head against a wall. You can do what you do best, and find workarounds for the rest.
Be your own coach – believe it
If you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t believe someone who is cheering you on from the sidelines. That’s why a great small business coach leads their clients to success not by cheerleading, but by developing talent.
According to Gallup’s research, great performance is a result of managers who empower employees. Managers who focus on developing talent get outstanding results.
Great coaches, and managers, lead by empowering people to succeed with the right tools, education, and resources to become excellent. They interact with people using approaches like Conversational Intelligence to put people at ease and bring out the best in everyone.
The research shows that positive thinking, goal setting, and performance reviews don’t create results on their own. When you don’t believe you have what it takes, none of those things are a magic bullet.
So how can you take advantage of this knowledge, and coach yourself?
Seek out the tools and education to develop your talent. Take action.
Each step you take, moving closer to your goal, is evidence of your ability to succeed. Believing in yourself will become easier and easier, the more you see your success reflected back to you.
Set one big goal at a time, and break it down into smaller parts. Succeeding in taking each small action step, no matter how tiny, leads to visible progress.
Ultimately, these consistent small successes add up to self-belief and massive confidence.
Over time, you start to see that you can achieve anything you put your mind to — because you are already doing it.
Embrace who you are
How can you have faith in yourself when you don’t know who you really are? Or worse, you are trying hard to be someone you’re not.
Self-confidence comes from embracing who you are and what’s important to you. It does not come from being inauthentic or trying to impress people.
Easier said than done.
The pressure to fit in, to “be normal,” is strong, and it starts early. That’s fine if you want to live an unremarkable life. But you’re here, reading this article, because that’s not the life for you. You want something more.
To start believing you can have the life you want, you must dig deep to discover what that will look like for you. You must understand what makes you unique, and celebrate those things.
When you begin living true to your identity and core values, you will start believing in your worth, your abilities, and your human potential.
Believe you can and you will
Your belief is the single most powerful tool you have. You can completely change your life just by changing your beliefs.
It’s not wishful thinking — believing something changes the way you see the world and yourself.
You either see possibilities, or insurmountable obstacles.
Which will you choose?
To start believing in yourself, you have to stop believing you are stuck with the skills and abilities you have right now. This is called a fixed mindset, which is a limited thinking pattern that’s fatal to your success.
Instead, start believing you can change. This way of thinking is called a growth mindset. It means that you believe change is possible.
It may be true that you don’t have what it takes to accomplish your goals — right now. But if you believe you can improve, develop, and learn, then you will get there — even when nothing goes right.
You will grow.
Deeply believing that you and your life can change for the better is the driving force behind all of your efforts. You will then be more willing, and even excited, to put in the work required to make those changes.
There is no greater confidence booster than seeing the results of your work. But you must believe it’s worthwhile or you will never put in the effort.