I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times. Believe in yourself. Follow your dreams… It’s about as ubiquitous as love yourself and follow your bliss.
Having been a self help junkie the better part of my life, I am well aware of the importance of believing in myself and loving myself.
The problem is that without having an actual practice of believing in yourself, those are just empty words.
It’s like repeating the affirmation I am rich, while the bills are piling up and you’re about to lose your house.
If you don’t really believe it you’re just wasting your breath.
Dealing with self doubt has come to the forefront of my mind lately as I’ve been trying to build an online business.
For over 15 years I dreamed of having the freedom and flexibility of having my own business.
I listened to the big gurus and took massive action for years, but nothing panned out for me. Eventually I became extremely demoralized and had to step back.
I stopped trying to find the absolute actionable path to success and really worked on believing in myself.
Only then did I start to see results.
While my life has changed immeasurably, I still practice believing in myself on a daily basis.
This doesn’t mean that I doubt myself in all areas of my life. I believe I am proficient as a musician and writer. I also know I am a good partner and that I have had many successes in my life.
The reason I mention this is because when most of us ask “How can I believe in myself,” we are usually referring to a particular area of our lives that isn’t working out the way we want it to.
Why it’s so Important to Believe in Yourself
Belief is the primary difference between people that succeed and people that don’t.
Success has very little to do with intelligence, or looks, or even discipline or determination.
You can take all the “right” actionable steps, but you will not succeed if you don’t believe you can. While someone who believes in themselves can find success on any path.
That being said, here are practical ways to believe in yourself when you don’t…
1) Focus on your Successes
When you are focusing so hard on a goal you haven’t been able to achieve it is easy to overlook previous successes and simply label yourself as an unsuccessful person.
You can actually start to block out any memories of success.
As a goal oriented person, I used to feel like acknowledging my previous successes would be like resting on my laurels.
I was afraid that thinking about things I had already succeeded at would somehow make me lazy and slow down my progress to the next goal.
The opposite is true.
Acknowledging areas of success can give you the momentum and energy necessary to the next goal.
Are there areas of your life that have always worked out that some people struggle to achieve?
It is easy to ignore areas of our lives that are actually working out, especially if it didn’t take a struggle to achieve.
Write down your Successes
Find a piece of paper and write down areas of your life where you are currently successful.
It can be anything, such as an acquired skill or a good relationship.
Then write down times where you were able to achieve something you didn’t previously think was possible.
The point is to train your brain to look at success rather than failure.
Just because you haven’t acquired a million dollar empire or found the perfect relationship, doesn’t mean that you don’t have something other people have strived and struggled for their whole life, and not been able to achieve!!
2) Look at your beliefs
Ask yourself honestly why you don’t believe in yourself. Is it because you don’t think you’re smart enough, or attractive enough?
A feeling of unworthiness is usually at the core of not believing in yourself. It can create a vicious cycle where you want something but don’t believe you are worthy of it.
While it is not easy to just flip a switch and feel worthy, acknowledging that belief and having an intention to change it is the first step in overcoming it.
3) Create the Feeling of Success
If you have spent a long time not believing in yourself, then most likely the feeling of success is unfamiliar.
It may take a lot of time and energy at first to conjure this feeling, but it is well worth it. You cannot believe in yourself and feel like a failure at the same time.
Oftentime people who don’t believe in themselves try time and again to make something happen in hopes that they will feel successful.
The problem with this is that if you feel like a failure, you will unconsciously sabotage any efforts of success.
In order to feel successful it is necessary to take your mind off the areas of your life that are not working out and focus on conjuring a feeling of success.
So many people overlook the importance of emotions, but it is actually why we want anything. I first learned the importance of emotions in reading Abraham Hicks.
I had been trying to make things happen in my life for years without any success. It wasn’t until I addressed the way I was feeling that things finally started to shift.
“Everything we want to do or be or have is because we think we’ll feel better in the having of it.”
– Abraham Hicks
To this day, I continue to make my state of mind the most important priority in my life, because it is absolutely essential to success.
Methods to Conjure a Feeling of Success
Meditation:
Find a time and place where you can block out the “outside world” and conjure a vision of the world you want to live in, where you believe in yourself and are able to achieve your dreams.
Ask yourself what it would feel like to have those things.
I find guided meditations invaluable for this. There are many across the internet, so I would recommend trying out different ones and seeing which one works best for you.
My personal favorite one is the Joe Dispenza meditation from “Breaking the Habit of Being yourself.” I have been listening to it almost daily for over a year and it has made a huge impact on my life. You can read my full experience here.
Daydream
When you are able to do so, gently allow your mind to contemplate having the things you want and being able to achieve them.
If you pay attention to your thoughts you will notice when you are thinking thoughts of failure and disbelief. It will become apparent where you are putting your energy.
It is so easy to focus on things not working out. It takes effort to shift your mind to thinking positively about the things you want to have.
4) Don’t compare yourself to others
Try hard to not compare yourself to other people who have achieved the things you want.
If someone achieved something at a younger age, that doesn’t mean they are better.
Everyone is born with a unique set of advantages and disadvantages in this life.
Someone born into a family of actors has a disadvantage in that field. The same goes for music etc.
It is easy to not believe in yourself if you are comparing yourself and then get disheartened and give up.
Even if someone doesn’t seem to have any unfair advantages on the surface they may have been brought up in an environment that fosters creativity and exploration and an innate expectation of success.
In an ideal world, we all would be given those circumstances, but for most people it is work to overcome limiting beliefs that were passed down to us. Noone is innately better than anyone else.
It is especially important not to compare yourself to others in places where you feel like you have failed.
5) Leave age out of the Equation
People in the United States are obsessed with age. There is a negative ubiquitous opinion about age that is hard to ignore.
Unfortunately, for many people, it is hard to foster a belief in their dreams after a certain age because of the beliefs that we have been spoon fed.
I’ve met many people in the field of acting and music particularly, who have lost all belief in themselves because they are over the age of 25.
Age has nothing to do with success. If you believe in yourself you can achieve success in these areas.
6) Find Outliers
If you don’t believe in yourself because of a certain limitation, for example a disability, look for outliers who have achieved what you want to achieve.
Some people have ridiculous reasons for not believing in themselves. I have heard every reason from not thinking they’re smart enough to having too big a nose to ever make it in show biz.
The list goes on and on. If you don’t believe in yourself because of a particular limitation, actively seek people who have achieved things despite having that limitation.
If you absolutely can’t find someone, then be the first one for others to follow! The outliers achieve what they did by ignoring everyone else’s opinion.
7) Set Smaller, less Resistant Goals
If you have a large goal that you have a hard time believing you will ever achieve, break it down to smaller steps that you know you accomplish.
Make sure you give yourself credit for those accomplishments.
For example, if you are trying to lose 70 pounds, you will have an easier time setting a smaller goal like losing 5 pounds and acknowledging and rewarding yourself for your accomplishment.
We’re often conditioned to only give ourselves credit when big goals are accomplished, such as a promotion, or graduating, etc.
I for one was afraid that if I acknowledged my smaller feats it would make me lazy and I would lose ambition to accomplish the larger feats.
The opposite is actually true.
By giving yourself credit for accomplishing something you are telling yourself that you are a capable person, and giving yourself the energy and momentum necessary to reach the next step.
8) Stop taking so much Action!
If you don’t really believe in your ability to accomplish something, then banging your head against the walls trying to find the path to success will not work.
There are a million and one gurus and experts selling their personal path to success.
I’m not saying that they don’t work. They may actually be selling the path you need to follow, but if you haven’t lined up your energy and found some way to believe in yourself, then no amount of action will work.
I’ve read tons of business books and taken all kinds of “Massive Action” but the only time I actually started seeing results was when I gave up trying to take action to accomplish things, and worked on my beliefs.
Abraham Hicks explains the difference between inspired and forced action.
Forced action is taken as a result of misalignment. If you have been taking action after action without getting any closer to your goals, then you have probably been taking forced action.
The problem with this is that it reinforces a feeling of not believing in yourself.
This is because the more you want something and take action, but don’t succeed, the less capable you feel.
Inspired action, on the other hand, comes as a result of believing in yourself and trusting that the path to your desire will show itself.
It feels fun and natural.
Learning to believe in yourself doesn’t often happen overnight, but I have found employing the methods mentioned has personally helped me to rework the framework and has resulted in massive changed in my own life.
I hope that this has been helpful to you. If you have found other way that have helped you to believe in yourself, please leave it in the comments!
I am now offering one on one life coaching sessions. Feel free to e-mail at aglassofcheri@gmail.com with any questions.
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