In this piece, we will look at the process of creating self-belief. I have written earlier on this blog about the importance of self-belief and why believing in yourself in important.
However, I have been thinking a lot of new questions lately:
Where does self-belief come from?
What is the process of creating or developing self-belief?
Why do some people have more belief in themselves than others?
If you and I are just starting life off, how do we believe in ourselves?
Those are some of the questions this article will explore.
Watch this video, where Cristiano Ronaldo says he is the best player in the world, long before he became the best player in the world:
Where does this self-belief come from?
How did he believe that he could be the best player in the world, ahead of legends like Diego Maradona or contemporaries like Lionel Messi?
I don’t know. That’s what we are trying to explore here?
The problem statement in this article is “why do some people believe in themselves, and others don’t, and what can we learn from those who do.”
Self-belief can also be understood as self-efficacy, as psychologists call it.
“If you think you can, you probably can. If you think you can’t —well that self-limiting and self-fulfilling belief might well stop you doing something you’re perfectly capable of doing.” – Albert Bandur
The process of developing self-belief:
1. Believe in yourself because there is evidence that those who believe in themselves- succeed
Just like the video shared above, where Ronaldo says he is the best player in the world, everyone, who has done anything worthwhile in the world, have done so, because they believed they could.
There is no other way. When you believe you can do something, you will put in motion a set of actions and thoughts to support that belief. When you believe you can’t do something, you will put in motion a set of actions to support the failure outcome.
No one really achieved anything worthwhile, unless they completely believed they could do it.
Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”
Everything depends on your belief system. If you think you can do it, you will do it, you will figure a way out.
2. Use your inner strength and will power- process of creating self-belief
There is no reality. Our thoughts make it so. Yes, there are some truths like all of us are going to die one day. However, while we are alive, we can choose to believe in something, and make it happen through hard work, and persistence.
3. Create small victories- The process of creating self-belief
In order to believe that you can achieve big things, work on achieving small wins. For example, did you learn how to drive? How did you do that? You managed to learn how to drive by believing that you can drive.
A lot of people actually don’t drive, or can’t drive, because they don’t think they can drive. Getting into the traffic, and dealing with the chaos is too much for them, and they think they cannot handle it. I know a few personally. I am sure you do as well.
If you think you can’t drive, you can’t drive. Millions of people around the world do drive though, but you aren’t one of them, because you think you can’t.
4. Continuously challenge yourself to take on difficult projects/goals
Let’s say you set-up a goal to do something really hard, like deadlifting over 100 kilograms. Now, you don’t deadlift event 50 kilograms right now. How would you believe that you can deadlift over 100 Kgs?
Now, if you list 50 now, 70 a month later and 90 in 2 months and aim for 100 and make it, you have a foundation for future to do physically hard things. You know you did something really hard once and you can perhaps do it again. It’s not only a physical challenge, but a mental one as well, because you are constantly telling yourself in your mind, that you can do it. You are prepping yourself mentally to do it, and voila, you end up lifting 105 or 110.
5. Look for role models who have achieved what you are trying to achieve
The good news about the world is that a lot of things you may want to do have already been done. Somebody did it for the first time, and made it easier for everyone else. Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister ran the first 4-minute mile in 1954. It hadn’t been done before, so Bannister had to believe that he could do it.
As per Wikipedia, Bannister did this with minimal training while practicing as a junior doctor. The record lasted only 46 days, since once Bannister proved that it could be done, the world got on to the bandwagon.
It needed one person’s belief to move the humanity forward intellectually.
How do entrepreneurs create things out of nothing?
Every start-up that becomes a big company is after all, a thought in the mind of the entrepreneur. He thinks and believes he can do it, and then he goes about and does it. There is no evidence that it can be done. There is only belief. Think of world beating companies like Google, Amazon, or Apple.
They were once only thoughts in the minds of their founders. They believed in their vision, acted on it, and it became a success.
6. Work on what you are really good at- The process of creating self-belief
Life is short. Do not waste it on your weaknesses.
In order to believe you are good at something, you need some evidence. Now, as people, we are naturally good at some things, which we are gifted with, and we aren’t good at other things.
Start with what gives you happiness and joy, and work really hard at it. If you are really good at something, and inherently know it, you will be able to believe that you can achieve a big goal in that particular domain, if you work for a long time on it.
You would have a history of achieving small victories in that area in the past already, so there would be some evidence.
In order to improve your chances of success and self-belief, work on what fires you up.
7. Process of creating self-belief- the story of the little engine that could
While doing my research for this article, I came across the story of the little engine that could. I am reproducing it as is:
“The story goes that when all big engines refused to pull the train over the mountain because they thought it was too hard to do so, the little engine said, “I think, I can, I think, I can.” The little engine carefully pulled the train and saved the day by delivering presents to children in time. The moral of the story is that the successful accomplishment of a task depends on believing in oneself and showing determination to accomplish it.”
8. Talk to yourself like a winner
How you talk to yourself has a huge impact on your levels of self-worth. Self-worth feeds belief. If you value yourself as a person, you will take high quality decisions that improve the quality of your life. You will believe in yourself that you are capable of doing so.
You will believe what you tell yourself about yourself, more than what others tell you about yourself. Talk to yourself like a winner.
9. Treat your words sacred- mean every word you say to believe in yourself
Here is the thing. If you say you are going to do something to yourself today, over the next one month, do it, no matter what happens. Every time you don’t do what you say, you will end up questioning yourself and reducing a bit of the belief that you have over yourself to achieve anything.
Watch the commitments you make to yourself, scrutinize them extremely carefully, and then meet them. Treat aberrations like that, aberrations and ensure they don’t repeat.
Your self-worth depends on the fact that you mean what you say. The higher your self-worth, the higher your self-belief to achieve what you want to achieve.
10. Surround yourself with positive people, who lift you higher
Surround yourself with people who you are better than you- people who have extremely high levels of self-belief. They won’t be critical of you, when you say you are going to achieve big dreams, because they know that if you believe in something, and work hard towards it, you can achieve anything.
Do not run into pessimist losers every now and then. They would pull you down to their levels.
11. Commit to your goals
If you go back to Ronaldo’s video, where he said he is the best player of all time, that belief wouldn’t mean anything, if he didn’t commit to what he is saying. We need total commitment to what we are trying to achieve so that we keep going in spite of setbacks. The only failure, really is giving up. If you don’t give up, you haven’t failed.
We can be sure that Ronaldo would have had countless set-backs on the road to realizing his belief of being the best football player ever, but he didn’t give up. He believed he could do it, and he is still on it, at the time of writing this article. Thanks Ronaldo, for inspiring.
12. The process of self-belief- a case study
Let us consider a hypothetical situation. Let us say there is a race in a school where students from standard 5th to standard 10th are competing. John is in standard 5th and he wants to compete. His classmates tell John that he is a fool because students who are elder to him are bigger and can run faster, so he doesn’t have a chance.
But his classmates don’t know that John comes from the countryside where his father raises cattle and he had been running after cattle ever since he was 3 years old, and he is a natural runner. John has high levels of self-belief, although he is nervous because he hasn’t run in a competitive situation before. So, he trains for a week checking his timings regularly. His self-belief improves because his timing is great.
John competes among 10 participants. He beats the runner up by 5 minutes. His classmates are dumbfounded, while he isn’t.
Just like the little engine, John knew that he could do it. He prepared for it on the basis of his initial self-belief being a natural runner, which strengthened his belief, and he won because he thought he could.
In Conclusion
In summary, let us briefly look at the sources of self-belief, which you and I can tap into, to have a higher level of self-belief before starting and during important endeavours:
- Start with small wins- every time you do something you say you will, your confidence, and your self-belief grows
- Surround yourself with people with high levels of self-belief. They will inspire you to believe in yourself in hard times
- Believe that you have it in you to achieve your dreams, or achieve anything you set your mind to. Use evidence from the small wins
- Commit and do not give up, if you think you are on the right path. Setbacks are not failures
- Remember the story of the little engine that could
We have learnt here that self-belief is the most important ingredient of success. Yes, everyone tells you to believe in yourself, but what we have done in this article is to define a process of creating or developing self-belief.
There needs to be a foundation of self-belief basis the environment and some natural talent. Beyond that, we need to talk to ourselves as a winner and take focused steps to achieving whatever we are trying to achieve with total commitment.
I won’t tell you to believe in yourself. Rather, go through this process over and over again, to achieve anything you set out to do. If I have missed anything, please help me in the comments, and I shall update in the post.
I want a happier world, where people believe in themselves and are able to achieve their dreams. Here is the process of developing self-belief.
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The purpose of this blog is to help you find your happiness. Please read the other posts on the blog, and follow so that you get updates when new posts are published. Please share the post with your friends so that they can also find their happiness. If you have any feedback for me, please leave it in the comments and I would be happy to work on it. If you would like to support my writing and this blog, you may please send a donation through PayPal here.
I appreciate the time you spent in reading the blog and wish you happiness.
Love,
Amarvani
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