Do You Believe In Yourself?
"I believe in you!" Maybe a close friend or relative has told you this before you are about to take on something challenging like an exam or an interview for a new job. However, the phrase "I believe in me" doesn't seem as common in everyday life. Self-belief is confidence in your own abilities. How would you rate your self-belief out of 10? Well, we are going to discuss how to improve our self-belief and why it is so essential in life.
Why self-belief is important. Self-belief is a major motivating factor that causes us to try and do new things. However, we can develop self-doubt, which will restrict us doing this. These doubts may consist of thoughts such as 'I'm not the kind of person who could do that' or 'other people are better than me at that'. We may also worry about what other people think of us if we try a certain thing out. However, we are not born automatically with self-doubts, these are created as we grow up and we can almost train ourselves to limit our abilities. Let's see how we can deal with these negative feelings.
Battle self-doubt. Sometimes self-doubt can come in the form of that consistent inner voice telling you your not able to do things. As we spoke about earlier though, that inner voice wasn't with us when we were born, but instead has been created by our surroundings and even the people around us. So next time that voice says 'your not capable of that' or 'you'll make a mistake', think about where the voice originated from. Maybe you had a bully in your past who made you feel insecure, or a schoolteacher who told you that you would not amount to much. Let that be the drive to prove them wrong! Focus on the fact that it is not your own personal voice and ignore its attempts to stop you reaching out for new challenges.
Weaknesses v Strengths. Sometimes our weaknesses are more obvious to us then our strengths. Yet when we are choosing to only see our weaknesses, we miss opportunities to put our self-belief in action. Of course, there is always room for improvement. But instead of just dwelling on your weak points, you can work out ways to overcome then instead and put more focus on our existing strengths as well. Also, try and look at one of your weaknesses in a positive light for once. For example, if you are a shy person,
you may see this a negative quality you need to overcome. However, shy people tend to be more observant then outgoing people, and also tend to better listeners. Therefore, this perceived 'weakness' can be used to your advantage. Let it build your self-belief instead of break it down!
No one's perfect. We're not telling you to ignore every time you make a mistake, but then again we're also reminding you that we are all imperfect. Self-belief is all about seeing what you can achieve and what you can become in the future. Its's about being able to get things wrong and not giving up afterwards. You can simply learn from these mistakes and become a better person. As your self-belief grows, you may find ones around you also believe in you more then ever before. May all of us continue on the long journey of believing in ourselves, ignoring those annoying negative feelings and learning to love our strengths and weaknesses!