How to believe to yourself

How to Believe in Yourself

This article was co-authored by Guy Reichard. Guy Reichard is an Executive Life Coach and the Founder of HeartRich Coaching & Training, a professional life coaching and inner leadership training provider based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He works with people to create more meaning, purpose, well-being, and fulfillment in their lives. Guy has over 10 years of personal growth coaching and resilience training experience, helping clients enhance and transform their inner worlds, so they can be a more positive and powerful influence on those they love and lead. He is an Adler Certified Professional Coach (ACPC), and is accredited by the International Coach Federation. He earned a BA in Psychology from York University in 1997 and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from York University in 2000.

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At times, it can be hard for you to believe in yourself, especially if you have developed doubts about your self-worth. If you are having trouble seeing all the amazing things you possess and all the beautiful things you could offer to make this world a better place, there are simple things that you can do to start believing in yourself. You can take stock of all the things you have already accomplished, set goals for the future, make new friends, have good discussions, get a fresh perspective on things, look for opportunities to use your skills, and take good care of yourself to help rebuild your confidence.

9 Of The Best Strategies To Believe In Yourself

Do you know what it means to have faith in yourself?

There’s more to believing in yourself than paying yourself compliments, thinking positive thoughts or faking it ’til you make.

Self-belief means you can recognize the truth of who you are and what you’re capable of.

Ironically, true humility (that virtue that makes people wiser and more likable — and has nothing to do with false humility and self-deprecation) requires a healthy degree of self-confidence.

And self-confidence is belief in yourself and your ability to do what needs doing.

It’s when you learn how to believe in yourself that you begin the process of becoming the person you were born to be.

What does it mean to believe in yourself?

Let’s start with what it isn’t. If you say “I believe in myself,” you’re not saying, “I can do anything I want to do, as long as I set my mind to it.”

Case in point: you can go on American Idol believing that you have the ability to sing well enough to make it to the final round, but if you’re tone deaf, you can’t believe your way out of that.

Because you don’t even realize you’re tone deaf until someone else points it out (and sometimes even then, if those after-performance interviews have taught us anything).

So, when I tell you, “Always believe in yourself,” I’m not telling you “You can do anything.” I’m telling you, “You can do what you need to do to become the person you want and were born to be.”

Maybe that doesn’t involve becoming the next American Idol or becoming the governor of the first settlement on Mars. Not all daydreams are meant to be lived. Not all of them deserve that level of commitment.

But you becoming the person you want to be and contributing in the way you were born to contribute… that’s worth the commitment. And it starts with believing in the truth of who and what you are.

9 Of The Best Strategies To Believe In Yourself

1. Remember your successes.

Make a list of every success in your life — everything you’ve done that makes you proud, including the little things. Your list might include the following:

Whatever you think of that makes you proud of yourself, write it down. And if you think of something later, add to your list.

Make this list visible — at least until you become more self-confident. Put it somewhere you’ll see it every day, and make it easy to add to it. Because you will.

2. Spell out your doubts — and ease them.

Doubt is a natural response — like fear and joy. Don’t try to “beat it” as if it were your enemy. Like fear, doubt can sometimes save your life (as in “I have my doubts that this person is safe.”).

Some self-doubt is reasonable:

What these doubts have in common is their grounding in scientific fact — or what we’ve learned about the strength and durability of human leg bones.

Where you get into trouble with self-doubt is when it’s based on assumptions or on limiting beliefs that have no basis in fact. Those assumptions and beliefs help you to avoid new challenges that confront you with the possibility of failure.

But they also prevent you from learning the truth of who you are and what you’re capable of. You can’t believe in yourself and hold onto these assumptions that others have passed down — about the world and your place in it.

So, start facing those doubts with some pointed questions:

3. Give yourself permission to fail.

Self-doubt is essentially about the fear of failure, and when you practice self-confidence and move forward anyway, you build on that confidence — just as you build courage the more you step up in the presence of fear.

The most successful people have failed more times than most people even try. There are some cases where failure can result in death (e.g., botching a life-saving surgical operation), but when it comes to trying something new, the stakes aren’t usually that high. The danger is mostly to your ego, but that can recover.

Give yourself permission to fail in an endeavor that could lead to something great; if you don’t make it the first time, you get to learn from what you did wrong. Then you can try again at that same challenge or pivot and apply what you’ve learned to another one.

4. Give yourself permission to learn from your mistakes.

When you fail — and if you’re actually trying and taking risks, you probably will — don’t focus on the failure itself but on what led to it and what you can learn from the experience.

Those who become the people they want to be choose to focus on what they can learn from their failures instead of getting stuck in a “failure is inevitable” mentality.

What this mentality says is “Maybe other people could succeed at this, but not me. Whatever I do, I’m bound to fail.” But again this isn’t based on fact but on a fear-based assumption.

The fact is that if you survived this failure, you can learn from it and do better next time – at the same challenge or a different one.

And you owe it to yourself to keep moving in a growth direction.

You are not your mistakes. What determines your outcome and the person you become is how you handle those mistakes and what you do with the lessons you learn from them.

5. Stop listening to people who doubt you.

It’s hard enough dealing with the voices of self-doubt inside your head; you don’t need to be around people who reinforce those thoughts.

Just because someone else hasn’t dealt with their own self-doubt doesn’t mean they get to drag you down with them.

If they’re stuck in a defeatist mentality, try to avoid conversations that will lead to negative rants about their potential or yours.

In some cases, you’ll need to simply avoid these people as much as you can. Every conversation turns into a negative monologue, (or you) down. Don’t give them the opportunity.

Instead, hang out with people who build you up, who are unabashedly self-confident, and who set an example of growth that inspires you to keep moving forward. Spend more time with people whose belief in themselves is contagious.

6. Give yourself a vote of confidence.

Be your own loudest voice of confidence; don’t wait for someone else to pick up the pieces and tell you that you’re enough and “you can do this.” You have a responsibility to yourself, as well as to others (as a member of the human race).

Take responsibility and tell yourself you’ve learned and mastered things before (walking, reading, preparing food for yourself, etc.), and there’s no reason you can’t continue learning and mastering new things.

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Think of what you’ve already accomplished, and tell yourself, “There’s magic on the other side of fear (and I choose magic).”

You can do more and become more than you can probably imagine right now; you’re not limited to “the way things have always been” or to “what you’ve always known.”

Remind yourself, you were made to live fully and intentionally until the moment you die. You owe that to yourself — and to the people you care about. Your self-confidence is your birthright.

7. Stop worrying about “being realistic.”

Even as a child, you probably heard grown-ups tell you, “Be realistic” — about your gifts, about your potential, about whether you can earn a good living with something you love, and about “how the world works.”

Only “crazy” people think they can change the way the world works, right? But how many people does it really take to start a groundswell of new thinking and new behavior?

Change doesn’t have to happen all at once for it to matter or to be significant. Just changing how you live — how you nourish yourself, what you do with your free time, what you do for others — can dramatically change your life and the lives of those closest to you.

So, stop worrying about what others tell you is “unrealistic.” Keep working on yourself, and the change will flow from you.

Who knows what people will consider “realistic” 100 years from now, or even ten? The notion of what is realistic has changed over the years — with technology, with scientific discovery, and with the risk-taking of the few who dared to challenge the norms.

8. Focus on what you want.

This brings us to the next point: focus on what you want rather than on what people tell you — and what you’ve learned to tell yourself — is “realistic.” Focus on the life you want for yourself and for those you care about.

Don’t worry about how it will become reality; just allow yourself to imagine it and to feel what you will feel when it becomes your reality.

Where do you want to be three years from now? How about five years? Ten?

Do you want to be where you are now? I hope not. As long as you’re alive, you should want to continue growing, experiencing new things, and contributing in a meaningful way.

So, ask yourself the following:

9. Take baby steps.

Instead of telling yourself, “This could never happen for me,” ask yourself, “What can I do to bring this closer to me?”

It doesn’t have to be a huge step. You don’t have to make it happen all at once. But do something — at least one small thing — every day to get closer to the life you want. Do one small thing to get closer to being the person you want to be.

In order to do this, you need to get clear on the end goal.

So, make a list of why you want something, get committed to the end goal, and then get clear on what small steps you need to take each day to get closer to it.

Every day that you make a small step is a success! You’re proving to yourself that you can do it when you want the end result badly enough to commit to it.

And in so doing, you build up your self-confidence. Other people’s limiting opinions on what you’re capable of no longer have any power over you. And neither do the limiting thoughts you used to have.

Believing in yourself means taking action.

Believing in yourself doesn’t mean saying, “I’m 100% finished with my self-growth, and I don’t need to change anything or learn anything new.”

When you know the truth about yourself, you know that you were born to keep growing, keep learning, and keep contributing.

When you believe in yourself, you know you’re worth the investments you need to make in your personal growth.

You know you’re smart enough, strong enough, and capable enough to do what you need to do to become the person you want to be.

It doesn’t mean you’re not enough as you are. Being enough doesn’t mean you have permission to stop growing; it means you have what it takes to keep growing.

Because you do. Believe in that, first of all. Then build on it.

And may your courage and unshakable belief in yourself influence everything else you do today.

If you found this post helpful, please share these helpful ideas on believing in yourself on your preferred social media platform with others who need this.

10 Ways To Believe In Yourself Again When Life Gets Rough

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It is a very well-known fact that if anyone wants to succeed in life, they must believe in themselves. We have to believe in ourselves and in our abilities because our inner faith will create our external results.

People easily lose faith in themselves when encountering setbacks, failure and fear. When you lack confidence in yourself, others will pick up on that and won’t take you seriously.

Not many people live the life that they have always wished to live; they give up on their life goals as soon as they encounter the first setback. One of the main causes for this is that they do not believe in themselves.

“Believe in yourself, and the rest will fall into place. Have faith in your own abilities, work hard and there is nothing you cannot accomplish.” – Brad Henry

The world that we are living in is extremely competitive and challenging, and people start to doubt themselves and their abilities when they come across failure. But a few failures are not the end. You must get back up again.

Here’re 10 ways to believe in yourself again:

1. Accept Your Current Situation

The first thing you need to do if you want to get back up and start believing in yourself again is to accept your current life situation. You have to make peace with how your life looks at the moment and what led to this situation that you are in.

Fighting with your situation won’t do you any good. Being resistant is pointless, so we must accept first. Only then will we have enough energy to change our life.

“First, accept sadness. Realize that without losing, winning isn’t so great.” – Alyssa Milano.

2. Think About Your Past Success

If you are feeling down and out, use your past to get motivated again. Remember the time when you used to just kick butt. When you were awesome and you used to rock it! Put yourself in that past and think about the awesome things that you used to do.

Now remember that you can do it again. It is easy to think about the times when you got hurt, but it is just as easy to think about those times when you were successful as well. Use your past to your advantage.

“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failure behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day.”– Bob Feller.

3. Trust Yourself

This is one of the most important things that can help you get that belief and confidence back. All the energy, power, courage, strength and confidence is within you.

Spend time with yourself to access it, whether it be through meditation, journalling, or activities that make you trust in yourself again.

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.” – Rumi

4. Talk with Yourself

We are the ones who create who we will become. We do that every day by our daily beliefs and self-talk. It’s really important that we talk to ourselves and motivate ourselves.

We don’t ultimately need others’ approval. You deserve your own self-approval and supportive self-talk.

“The brain simply believes what you tell it most. And what you tell it about you, it will create. It has no choice.”
“If you tell yourself that you cannot, what can the only outcome be?” – Shad Helmstetter.

5. Don’t Let Fear Stop You

Fear stands for False Evidence that Appears Real. It is the main thing that holds you back from believing in yourself again more than anything else.

How to walk the freeing path of believing in yourself

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We can be our biggest cheerleaders — or our biggest critics. And the difference between the two options matters. Believing in yourself is crucial to succeeding.

Let’s take a lo ok at how to believe in yourself, and why it’s important to have faith in your abilities.

The benefits of believing in yourself

Self-belief is the formula to personal and professional success.

Do you berate yourself when you make a mistake? Do you, for some reason or other, think negative self-talk will make you a better person?

Making mistakes is one thing. But at some point, you have to forgive yourself and move on. Otherwise, that energy will only hold you back. It’ll prevent you from taking risks and stepping up to achieve your goals.

At the end of the day, you have to believe in yourself. Doing so will bring you one step closer to manifesting a better life.

Here’s why you should believe in yourself and your instincts:

1. If you don’t, who else will?

Maybe you have a system of people who love and support you, and that’s great. But at the end of the day, only you can act on the opportunities in your life. At some point in your life, you’ll have to take a leap of faith. And you’ll have to trust in your ability to survive it.

2. You’ll fail more gracefully

3. Being follows doing (sometimes you have to act positive to get positive)

If you don’t believe you’re worthy, neither will other people. You have to suspend your disbelief and take the leap to act like you believe in yourself, first. You’ll see yourself through new eyes and so will other people.

Negativity begets negativity. That’s why you should flip the script. When you show more positivity, you’ll attract more positive people in your life.

4. You’ll inspire yourself to keep going

You’ll encounter all sorts of obstacles in life. You’ll feel tired, wary, and want to quit. But if you believe in yourself, you’ll look back on all your previous successes and remember that better is possible.

5. You’ll start reaching your goals

How can you reach your goals if you don’t even think you can? Your successes shouldn’t be a surprise, they should be a validation of your belief in yourself. Believing in yourself helps you focus and increases productivity. Positive thinking is infectious, and it’ll spread to others, inspiring them to believe in themselves.

The magic happens when you have a belief in self. Of course, it isn’t magic — it’s your potential. And shifting into a more positive growth mindset isn’t a process you have to handle alone: BetterUp coaches are here for precisely this reason. You matter, and we want to help you realize more of your potential.

3 common roadblocks

Positive self-talk is easier said than done. You must control your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Rewiring your brain to think positive thoughts in the place of criticism is tricky.

Three common roadblocks people face regarding self-belief are:

1. Comparison

Perception is everything. Seeing someone else thriving doesn’t mean you aren’t.

Remember, what you see on social media is what people let you see, and they don’t tend to advertise their struggles. It’s like that old saying: Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outside.

Plus, there’s room for both you and your peers to thrive. Feel proud of friends and colleagues that are doing well, without succumbing to envy.

2. The past

There’s some truth to the phrase, “The past can haunt you.» It’s hard to shake off a rough childhood or an unhealthy relationship. Self-reflection is good, but not at the expense of your mental health. Talking to a mental health professional is a great way to work through your past struggles and stop them from affecting your present.

3. Current relationships

How to overcome roadblocks

Remember, roadblocks aren’t permanent obstacles — there’s always a way past them. Try these strategies:

7 strategies that will help you believe in yourself

Don’t let the obstacles discourage you. Below are seven ways to make a change and feel better about yourself :

1. Create healthy routines

Living well is critical to loving yourself. Feeding your body with healthy food and drink, exercising, sleeping, and taking breaks amidst your work schedule are all important. Your anxiety will decrease, and you can tackle each day with more strength. Self-love is all about maintaining a balance and doing all you can to set yourself up for success.

2. Surround yourself with good people

Public speaker an d self-help guru Tony Robbins says, “Proximit y is power.” There’s truth in that. The people you spend time with have an impact on your mindset and your motivation. Seek out people who inspire you to be your best self and the ones who help you get there.

Encouraging individuals will keep you going when things get hard, and they’ll challenge you, too.

3. Feed your mind

What you fill your mind with influences how you see yourself and the world around you.

Seek out inspiring and uplifting media, from books to movies to social media accounts. Frequent exposure to uplifting and supportive material will slowly condition your brain to think differently. Limit your time with overly pessimistic or cynical perspectives. While it’s important to be realistic and embrace the ups and downs of life, cynicism erodes your belief in others, destroys your motivation, and takes away your hope for the future. It doesn’t help how you feel about yourself, either.

4. Don’t let your fear stop you

5. Draw on your inner strength

Sometimes pushing through is all you can do. Just because you fail at a task doesn’t mean you ‘re a failure. D ig deep for grit, and keep going even in challenging moments.

6. Acknowledge your victories

7. Work on your strengths

When you’re feeling down in the dumps, it’s common to focus on your weaknesses. Instead, work to identify your strengths. It can help to ask others for feedback. Then, focus on honing those skills — it’ll help you feel more capable.

The bottom line

Self-care is often put on the back burner in favor of other responsibilities, but believing in yourself is just one aspect of our well-being.

Everyone is unique, full of possibility, capable of self-improvement, and worthy of self-belief. Using technology, world-class coaching, and evidence-based behavioral science, we strive to help every individual unlock their greater potential and purpose.

BetterUp can be the trusted guide and accountability you need as you learn how to believe in yourself. If y ou’re willing to do the work, we’re there for you step by step.

How to Believe In Yourself – 10 Simple Tips

“You can make a billion dollars”

What ran through your mind as you read this sentence? Was it any of these:

Or did you hear your inner conscience say, “Of course, I can do it”?

Whether you want to make a billion dollars or not is beside the point. You can tweak the question to an audacious goal you’re interested in and your thoughts wouldn’t change by much.

“OK, I get it. But why should I be worried about my thoughts when I cannot control them?”

Two things on that.

Right thumb up, one, your mindset towards a big hairy goal directly determines how much effort you’re willing to put in to achieve it.

Index finger up, two, you can train yourself to believe any gargantuan target is within your limits. In this article, we will discuss the reasons why we lack belief in ourselves and ways to change such a mindset and learn how to believe in yourself.

Why we lack belief in ourselves?

1. Upbringing:

No disrespect to our parents here, but everyone has their own limiting beliefs. Though the mother and father do their best to instill confidence and encourage their children, their actions, words, and behavior influence how a child thinks.

A variety of research shows how a portion of a child’s mindset is shaped by how parents treat them and some carry those perceptions for the rest of their lives.

For example, when parents explain to their young child why they cannot afford an expensive car, the little one believes such luxury is beyond his reach even in the future. The parents weren’t lying. They were only explaining their circumstances with utter honesty, but the child assumes he’s limited by the same boundaries.

2. Society:

Society itself isn’t very keen on promoting an elite mindset. Schools, parents, elders, and many others pass the message that the bigger goals are for the extraordinary.

“No, I disagree. Schools encourage students to do their best,” you retort. I hear you. I am not saying schools verbally discourage children to chase massive goals or by any other direct means. But our society has built processes which guide pupils to chase the traditional goals – score good marks, get into a college, find a job which pays reasonably well, get married, and buy a house. By the time, children grow into adults they believe such goals are the benchmark.

You toil day and night to achieve such targets even if they don’t make you happy. Therefore, instead of putting your best effort, you put the least effort necessary to sail through. Due to your half-hearted effort, you fail in your attempts and believe that you don’t have the skills to achieve the goals you desire. Such an approach forms a loop of its own where your lack of belief causes mediocre effort which leads to poor results.

3. Past failures:

The human brain is the most powerful learning tool. A newborn baby who doesn’t understand any language manages to speak by self-learning. Could you learn German only by listening to german words without knowing what they mean? I doubt it. You’d need a book or a translator in a known language which helps you make sense of the whole vocabulary. Yet, every baby achieves such a feat without any such assistance. Such is the power of your brain.

Your brain learns from your experience whether you choose to or not. You repeat your successful moves and avoid your mistakes. If you aim for a goal and fail at achieving it, you try another approach. But, unfortunately, repeated failures can pass the wrong message to your brain. You start thinking, “This is too tough for my skills.”

How soon you allow your brain to get influenced depends on you. Some lose all the motivation after the first attempt and never try again, whereas some others persist for decades until they find a way that works.

4. Your self talk:

We constantly talk to ourselves. If you do it loudly in public, others think you’re bananas. But when you do it in silence in your head, we call them “thoughts.”

Your thinking wavers through various areas like planning, brainstorming, improvement, worry, anger, and whatnot. Amidst all those, you spend a good time talking to yourself whether you realize it or not.

As surprising as it sounds, your mind believes what you tell yourself. For example, if you repeatedly think that you won’t grow in your career because others are more talented than you, over time, you put in lesser effort. “What’s the point of working hard when it won’t yield any results”, you tell yourself as you lie on the couch with a bag of chips.

As a result, the pessimism about yourself turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy where you fail to grow in your career. This further strengthens your belief about others being better than you, but in reality, it was your lack of effort which caused poor results.

5. Fear of Failure:

The fear of failure is the tendency to do nothing due to the worry of failing. This fear stands like a tall wall between you and your goals preventing you from taking any action. Psychology calls it atychiphobia.

As a human being, your brain worries about what could happen if things fell apart. For example, if you want to start a new business, you visualize your business failing, people mocking you, the struggle to find a new job, possible bankruptcy, and more. The horrific images paint a picture so terrifying that you never even try.

You worry more about the pain of failure than the joy of success. While taking a risk, you give more weight to the consequences of failure than the results of success.

But here’s the kicker. You’re not alone. Statistics have shown that fear of failure is twice the fear of ghosts. Unbelievable, right?

How to believe in yourself:

1. Take the first step no matter how small

When you look at a goal as an end result, you feel overwhelmed. “How do I get there? I don’t even know where to begin,” you say as you pull your hair.

But, the best antidote to the fear of achieving a difficult goal is to take the first step, no matter how small.

I wanted to write a book for a long time, but my fear had always stopped me one way or the other. “I don’t know how to make it Kindle-friendly. I’m not good at marketing. What if all reviews are bad?” Those were only a few of my worries.

But one day, I sat down to complete the overall concept of my book. The next thing I know, I was drafting a skeleton for different chapters. Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, …. Not long after, my first chapter was taking shape. Fast forward 4 months, I self-published my first book ‘The Magic of 2 Seconds.’ None of my worries came true.

As per a study, 80% of US people want to write a book, but only a handful do. The rest don’t even begin.

Once you take your little first step, you will get a dopamine rush that motivates you to keep going. So, you take another step. Then another. Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Before you realize it, you’d have come a long way.

One of the most powerful ways to believe in yourself is to get started and build momentum. The rest will follow.

2. Identify and write your limiting beliefs

If you have a limiting belief, sit down in silence by yourself and write it down. For example, let’s say you want to save money, but you’re unable to.

Write down what’s stopping you from saving money. Maybe unexpected expenses come up each month. Maybe you buy stuff on impulse from Amazon. Maybe you don’t earn enough to save. Maybe you have a debt to pay off.

Make a list of all your reasons even if they don’t make logical sense. Don’t be shy. You don’t have to print those in the newspaper after all. The purpose is to help you overcome the problems you’re facing.

Once you have your list, identify one solution to each of them without evaluating the practicality of implementation. For example:

Once you’ve identified a possible solution to your limiting belief, go back to the previous tip – ‘Take the first step, no matter how small.’ Sooner or later, you’ll see that the problem takes care of itself.

You often fail to find a solution to your existing problems because of the limiting beliefs in your head than the circumstances causing the problem.

3. Build a system

When you have a difficult goal to chase, you begin with the thought, “OK, how am I going to achieve that?” The moment you ask yourself that question, you’ll realize you have to go through a series of difficult steps over an extended period of time. You feel overwhelmed and don’t take any action. You either procrastinate your goal or give up assuming it’s too difficult.

In the book, The Motivation Myth, the author Jeff Haden suggests a unique tip to fix such a mindset. Instead of looking at the result, once you’ve decided on a goal, forget about it completely. Simply focus on a system where you put in consistent effort without considering the final target.

For example, when Arnold Schwarzenneger set his eyes on Mr. Olympia, he did not think of different ways to achieve that goal every day. Instead, when he stepped into the gym, all he thought about was reps and reps alone. He did not worry about winning the bodybuilding championship while working out. Yes, he wanted to win Mr. Olympia, but on a daily basis, he stuck to his system.

No matter what your goal is and what your circumstances are, build a system. Will you come up with a perfect plan? No. Will you know all the details beforehand to build the right system? No. Is your system guaranteed to achieve the results you desire? No.

Yet, using your system you will make mistakes, improvise, and inch closer towards your goals. Isn’t that far better than aiming for a goal and doing nothing about it?

4. Mingle with people who believe in themselves

The power of belief is contagious, but it applies to both positive and negative thoughts.

Walk into a room full of successful people and you’ll feel an adrenaline rush to achieve great things. Hang out with a bunch of complainers and you’ll leave with the feeling that the world is a horrific place.

Pause for a moment and think.

The reality remains as is. Your emotions do not change the world around you. They only change you.

Do you feel positive and energized each day? That’s on you. Do you feel helpless and incapable of achieving your goals? That’s on you too.

How you feel about your situation is a choice you make. That choice influences your actions. Those actions influence your results.

Who you mingle with has a direct influence on your mindset and therefore your actions.

5. Develop a growth mindset

A person with a fixed mindset believes skills and abilities are fixed. For example, he assumes his intelligence is constant and he can only reach a certain level of success with what he has. He believes he cannot grow beyond that point because his talent limits him from doing so.

A person with a growth mindset believes that by putting in the effort to learn and practice, he can grow better at any skill. His opinion is that any person can achieve unlimited success and that the scale of achievement depends on how much work one is willing to put in.

Developing a growth mindset is a separate topic on its own which is closely related to believing in yourself. Here is a detailed guide.

6. Take the time to learn the skill

As human beings, we want to achieve our goals as soon as possible. As per Brian Tracy, the best-selling author, most people don’t have the patience to wait due to the expediency factor. When we look at the hanging grapes like the wolf did, we want them right away. We jump a few times and give up.

That’s because we tend to look for the fastest and easiest path to reach our goal. Unfortunately, such an approach rarely helps us achieve the target.

If you want to achieve a difficult goal, take the time to master the skills necessary to get there.

7. Explore unknown territories

If you lack self-belief, little boosts of confidence can transform your mindset over time. Therefore, you must look for every opportunity to do so.

At first, you’ll be hesitant about stepping into an unknown area due to the fear of failure. It’s like looking at a mountain with a pair of binoculars. From a distance, everything looks scary and it probably is. But, the only way to overcome the fear is to experience it. Even if you’re capable enough, your brain creates anxiety which stops you from trying. The only way you can free your mind from such thoughts is by succeeding.

Explore the unknown and put yourself in situations that you don’t know everything about. Will you make mistakes? Yes, you will. But, you’ll learn from them and come out stronger.

The next time you face a challenge, your brain will remind you, “Look, we dealt with an obstacle before and came out victorious. We can do it again.”

A minor shift in your mindset can make a major shift in your actions.

8. Find a mentor

If you have trouble believing in yourself, find a mentor who can share wisdom and guide you on the right path. Lack of confidence only gets worse when you suffer in silence. If you share your challenges with the right mentor, you’ll hear examples where other people endured similar difficulties and managed to find a way through.

You’ll feel more confident about yourself when another person has your back. Besides that, your mentor will help you avoid mistakes. When you’re on a journey on an unknown path towards your destination, two perspectives will yield better results than one. A mentor is the appropriate person to offer the second line of thought.

9. Set attainable goals

One of the most common motivational advice you hear is “Dream big”. Even I advise the same and I have written blog posts on the same topic.

But, when you dream big, keep the duration long enough to get there. Setting massive short-term goals is a recipe for disaster. Not only will you fail to achieve the goal, but also demotivate yourself in the process. You also end up chasing different goals hoping to succeed at one.

Every failure dents your self-confidence and with enough repetitions, you stop believing in yourself. On the other extreme, you might even resort to unethical practices just to reach your target.

The above two are extreme examples to convey the point. In real life, many people set one unattainable goal, try and give up, and then chase another. After 5-10 such attempts, they give up trying. Don’t be that person.

Your dream can be unrealistic as far as your plan to get there is realistic.

10. Use the cookie jar method

David Goggins, the man who ran a 100-mile ultra-marathon without running a 25-mile marathon ever before, devised the cookie jar method. His technique involves recalling a past victory or a situation where you overcame an obstacle.

By instinct, we tend to recall all our failures first when we face adversity. The cookie jar reverses that approach by reminding yourself of your victories instead. When you look at your prior wins, no matter how small, your brain starts thinking, “OK, I can do this. I’m not that bad.”

For example, if you are on a trek and cannot muster the energy to proceed, you have to recall a past challenge you successfully completed. Such a thought will motivate you to push your body to the limits.

A small dose of confidence is all that you need to overcome the barrier in your head.

Conclusion

Your lack of confidence starts and ends in your mind. It takes effort to begin, but once you’ve gotten started, the momentum will keep you going. It’s no different than rolling a large boulder. You need to put in a lot of energy to make it budge the first time, but once you do, you need far less effort to keep it rolling. Likewise, once you start believing in yourself, your mindset changes and so do you.

References:

Chris. (2015, March 31). Expediency Factor – Why most of us Never get Anywhere. Where it all Starts. https://cristivlad.com/expediency-factor-why-most-of-us-never-get-anywhere/.

Maccoby, E. E., & Psychology, E. E. M. D. of. (n.d.). Parenting and its Effects on Children: On Reading and Misreading Behavior Genetics. Annual Reviews. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.1.

Sciences, N. A. of, Engineering, & Medicine, and. (2016, November 21). Parenting Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices. Parenting Matters: Supporting Parents of Children Ages 0-8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK402020/.

Haden, J. (2018). The motivation myth: how high achievers really set themselves up to win. Portfolio/Penguin.

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