Believe In Yourself

Believing in yourself is essential to ensure success. It’s always surprising when people get involved in self-development and “do” all there is to do in order to get what they want, but sometimes we don’t actually end up with what we want. In fact, sometimes we end up with very little, or nothing at all. We become disillusioned and believe that this self-help stuff just doesn’t work!

But that may not empower you, because believing in yourself is an essential requirement for success. A better solution is to learn from the past, self-reflection is a powerful tool.

In the field of self-development, there are many who believe that if you repeat something often enough, even if you don’t believe it at first, eventually your mind will begin to believe it as the truth and I agree with this way of working. However, this process takes time, and if you have set yourself a goal to achieve something in a few weeks it may not work that quickly.

So watch your thoughts, and watch what they do to you internally too. When you think about your goal and you have a small thought of not accomplishing that goal, how does that make you feel? If it brings up fear, doubt or any other negative emotion then acknowledge it, please don’t hide and pretend it isn’t there.

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they’ll become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.

In self-development, the first step to overcoming negative emotions is to acknowledge their existence. Acknowledge it and ask yourself “What do I fear about  this issue?”

As an example, if you ask the question What do I fear about (your issue) and you get the answer “I am afraid to fail”, then with the second question “How can I work towards creating a different outcome?” you may come up with different things that will support you in avoiding failure

• Remember that failure is only feedback
• Surround yourself with people who can support you
• Plan and prepare at every stage
• Understand that all successful people have failed at something this is what made them successful.

Your belief system shapes who you are, it defines who you will become in life. Stop and take a look at your life right now, What is missing for you, and what have you not achieved? Then take a look at your beliefs about what is missing and what you have not achieved. What you will find (in most cases) is that internally you do not believe in your ability to achieve it.

As within, so without! This is a great saying and means exactly as I have stated above. If within you, within your belief system you do not believe you can achieve then your outer world, your reality will support that belief.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to find a way to interrupt the negative pattern. When you hear the negative voice in your head then stop yourself by shouting “STOP THAT!” Shouting out loud is the best way to do it, but if you are in public and not that self-expressed you may just want to “shout” it in your head!

Shout really, really loud. “STOP THAT!” Then end with a message such as “ I choose to think and believe in my ability to achieve” Those are my words, try to make up your own, whatever works for you, just remember to keep the sentence positive, and forward-thinking. Focus in this sentence on what you WANT not on what you DON’T WANT.

When you feed yourself negativity or doubt in your ability then your mind inputs the data like a computer. It does not have the capacity to discern whether what you are saying is the truth or not, or whether you are “just joking”. Your mind has no judgment on what you say it will happily accept it and create a world in which what you say is what you experience. Now that you know that, why would you want to input anything but positive life-affirming messages?

Your emotions are tied to your thoughts. Don’t believe me? Well stop immediately and think about a tragic event, what does that do to your emotions? Now cancel that and think about a happy event, pick up your emotional state right now.

Let’s check out this sequence, your thoughts are negative, you don’t believe you can achieve something (you not only think it, but you also speak it “I’m just not very good at that”), and this impacts your emotions, so now you don’t believe you can achieve something and you don’t want to try doing it, this, in turn, impacts your actions, so now you don’t believe you can achieve something, and you don’t want to try doing it, and you do nothing!

So now you have shouted “STOP THAT” You are choosing to believe in your ability to create or complete something. You affirm that you may not have all the answers but you believe in your ability to attract the right people and things to support you. You tell yourself that “although in the past I didn’t believe I was capable of achieving something I have decided to believe that I am capable from this day forward.” Whatever it is you need. Create your own words.

What does it do to your emotions just reading that? Begin to feel the spark of belief that you could actually achieve what you have set out to. Now that you have your thoughts and emotions working take action, do something. This is critical. Nothing can work without action. Who do you need to talk to? Who can help you? What first step can you take? Get your mind searching for answers for you.

Still, confused? Check out this amazing story of Maria learning about Leadership here  “Short Stories On Leadership”

Your mind is a powerful tool. It will help or hinder you depending on the instructions you give it. You have the power and ability to choose at any moment what you feed into your mind. What’s your choice now?