It’s Time to Start Believing … In Yourself
You’ve probably heard the saying, America is a land of opportunity. Who grabs that opportunity and runs with it? People like you and me.
Some people settle for whatever life gives them. If they’re happy that way, that’s fine for them. Others have dreams and go after them. They plan and work hard until they succeed. What’s the difference between these two groups of people? One personal characteristic can make a person shoot for the moon: self-belief.
Is self-belief innate? Can we become people who believe in ourselves more strongly than before? Certainly, we can improve on many aspects of ourselves. Why not work on your self-belief?
Ways to Boost Your Self-Belief
If you doubt your ability to be an impactful person with impressive achievements, you can work to improve your level of self-belief. Journaling about your dreams, goals, and progress can help you see change while using the following practices:
- Build your self-confidence by challenging yourself.
Try something new, something you wouldn’t normally do. Choose something slightly out of your comfort zone at first, then push yourself further. Once you get the idea you can learn and succeed, you can make the challenges about specific goals for your future.
- Accept failure as learning.
Everybody fails. Watch award-winning chefs on television cooking competitions, and you’ll find that they make a lot of mistakes. Often, they come back later to cook failed dishes a second time, proving that they can do better. Practiced experts believe in themselves enough to learn from their failures and continue on successfully. You can learn to do the same.
- Surround yourself with positive people.
Consider your friends and colleagues. Do you support and encourage each other? If so, those are the positive people you want around you. It’s not always possible to avoid the negative neighbor, especially at work. When possible, limit your contact with people who bring you down and counter their negativity with your own positive attitude.
- Flip your internal script.
Practice positive self-talk. Turn off your inner negative commentary. If you say change isn’t possible, stop right there. Tell yourself it IS possible to change and take the steps required. Also, don’t compare yourself with others. Your moon, no matter how big or small, is your moon, not theirs.
Keep up with your journal, including notes on the strides you’ve made and the skills you’ve gained. After six months, review your first few entries, and you’re likely to be surprised how far you’ve come.
Becoming a Self-Believer
Boosting your self-belief isn’t a one-and-done project. You must work on it continually through the ups and downs of life, especially the downs. Once you have a good foundation, you’ll find that you identify more opportunities to shine and will use your foundation of self-belief to achieve your dreams.
Paula Morand is an award winning entrepreneur, author, philanthropist and speaker who is passionate about helping others to dream big and be bold as they lead intentional and productive lives in service to the greater good. paulamorand.com