believing yourself essay

Student Essays

5 Essays on Believe in Yourself | Self Belief, Meaning & Importance

Self belief is the most important thing in life which helps a person to fight against all odds and achieve success in their lives by leading a happy and contended life. Self belief does not come overnight, it comes with efforts and then only you can achieve your goal easily. Read the following short and long essay for students on self belief.

Essay on Self Belief | Meaning, Importance of Self Belief For Children and Students

Self belief is defined as a feeling or consciousness of one’s own powers or of reliance on one’s own efforts. In simple words, self-belief is a strong faith and confidence in yourself.

If you have self belief then others will believe that you can achieve anything what ever you want to do. You will feel strong and active within yourself. You will be able to face any difficult situation or circumstances with courage and confidence. You will not lose hope in your abilities and skills even if you face many hurdles on the way.

However, if you lack self-belief others will not have faith in you. You may not be able to make a success of your life because of lack of motivation and strength from within. In other words, this means that the road to success is only for those who do have a strong belief in themselves. Self-confidence without self-belief is of little use.

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Self belief is important for all of us because nobody can succeed without it whereas success is the only thing that can bring self-belief in you which will help you to cope up with any difficult situation.

Importance of Self Belief in Life

Five major reasons why self belief is important in life are:

1) Self Belief is important for a student because he has to work hard and get good grades in order to get a good job. In this competitive world, an average or below average student cannot find a suitable job easily. If you have strong belief in your abilities then you will have confidence in yourself that you can achieve anything what ever you want to. It is the self belief that makes a student responsible for his actions and decisions because, without having trust in oneself no one can be brave enough to take decisions confidently.

2) Similarly, when it comes to choosing a profession or taking any important decision in life, self belief is an important criterion. It will help you to take firm decisions and achieve success in your career by leading a happy and contended life.

3) If you have a strong belief in yourself then it will be easy for others to trust you because they know that whatever promises you make them, whatever tasks assigned to you, you will accomplish them successfully.

4) Self-belief is also helpful in making sound decisions because it gives courage to handle any situation that may come up during the course of your life.

5) Successful people have a strong belief in themselves and others too believe in them so they get success easily. They have the ability to influence and motivate others to work hard and achieve success.

Thus, we can say that having a strong belief in yourself will help you to build strong relationships with your family members , friends and colleagues which will give support to each other and result into achieving greater heights of success.

Self Belief for Students

Successful students are always confident and have a strong belief in themselves. They do not allow their failures to discourage them from achieving their goal or goal. They wait for the right time, gather all resources and then make a plan to achieve success. Successful students learn from their mistakes and never waste an opportunity given by god because they know that opportunities are rare. A person who does not have self-belief always makes excuses for his failures and blames others for his shortcomings.

In an era where competition has become cut throat, it is very important that a student believes in his own potential and abilities to achieve high scores. If he lacks self belief then he will make mistakes which will decrease his percentage. And often this

Conclusion 

To conclude, it can be said that having a strong belief in oneself is very important because if you have a strong conviction about yourself then nobody will be able to discourage you from achieving your goal. If you want to achieve success in any field of life, all you have to do is to believe in yourself and gather all the necessary resources and tools.

What is Self Essay:

Self essay is a form of writing in which an individual shares their personal experiences, opinions, and thoughts. It allows the writer to reflect on their own life and share their unique perspective with others. A self essay can cover a wide range of topics including personal growth, relationships, challenges, accomplishments, and more.

One of the main purposes of writing a self essay is self-discovery. It gives the writer an opportunity to explore their own thoughts and feelings, which can lead to a deeper understanding of oneself. Through self-reflection, one can uncover hidden motivations, values, and beliefs that may have influenced their actions and decisions in life.

Moreover, self essay writing can also be a form of self-expression. It allows individuals to freely express themselves without fear of judgment or criticism. It can be a therapeutic outlet for releasing emotions and processing experiences. Writing about personal struggles, successes, and lessons learned can also inspire and resonate with others who may be going through similar situations.

Self essays are not only beneficial for the writer but also for the readers. By sharing their personal stories, individuals can connect with others on a deeper level and create a sense of empathy and understanding. It can also serve as a source of inspiration and motivation for others who may be facing similar challenges.

In today’s digital age, self essays have become increasingly popular through various platforms such as personal blogs, social media, and online publications. This provides individuals with a platform to freely express themselves and share their stories with a wider audience.

In conclusion, self essay writing is a powerful tool for self-discovery, self-expression, and connecting with others. It allows individuals to reflect on their own experiences and share their unique perspectives with the world.

Essay on Believe in Yourself :

Believing in oneself is often cited as one of the most important factors for achieving success. It is the foundation upon which all other aspects of personal growth and development are built. Yet, many struggle with self-doubt and lack of confidence, hindering their ability to achieve their goals and dreams. In this essay, we will explore the concept of self-belief and its crucial role in achieving success.

What is self-belief?

Self-belief can be defined as having confidence in one’s abilities and worth. It is a deep-seated belief that you are capable of accomplishing your goals and overcoming challenges. It is not about being arrogant or overestimating oneself, but rather having a realistic understanding of your strengths and potential. Self-belief is also closely linked to self-esteem, which refers to how you perceive and value yourself.

The power of self-belief

Believing in oneself has the power to shape our thoughts, actions, and ultimately our destiny. It gives us the motivation and determination to pursue our dreams despite obstacles and setbacks. When we have a strong sense of self-belief, we are more likely to take risks and push ourselves out of our comfort zones. This opens up new opportunities for growth and success.

On the other hand, lacking self-belief can lead to feelings of fear, doubt, and insecurity. This can hold us back from reaching our full potential and living a fulfilling life. Without self-belief, we may settle for less than what we are capable of and miss out on opportunities for growth and achievement.

Building self-belief

The good news is that self-belief is not a fixed trait. It can be nurtured and developed with conscious effort. Here are some ways to cultivate a strong sense of self-belief:

• Recognize your strengths and achievements: Take time to reflect on your past successes and the qualities that helped you achieve them. This will remind you of your capabilities and boost your confidence.
• Surround yourself with positive influences: The people we surround ourselves with can greatly impact our self-belief. Choose to spend time with those who support and uplift you, rather than those who bring you down.
• Challenge negative thoughts: We all have an inner critic that can undermine our confidence. When you notice negative self-talk, challenge it and replace it with positive affirmations.
• Set achievable goals: Setting and achieving realistic goals is a great way to build self-belief. Start small and gradually work towards bigger goals as you gain more confidence in yourself.
• Celebrate your progress: Acknowledge and celebrate your progress, no matter how small. This will help you stay motivated and reinforce your belief in your abilities.

The role of self-belief in success

Self-belief is often considered the key to achieving success because it provides the necessary foundation for taking action towards our goals. Without a strong sense of belief in ourselves, we may lack the courage and determination to pursue our dreams. In contrast, when we truly believe in ourselves and our abilities, we are more likely to take the necessary steps towards success.

Moreover, self-belief also helps us bounce back from failures and setbacks. It allows us to learn from our mistakes and use them as stepping stones towards future success. As famous basketball player Michael Jordan once said, “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”

In conclusion, self-belief is a vital ingredient for achieving success in any aspect of life. It gives us the courage, motivation, and resilience to pursue our dreams and overcome challenges. While it may not come naturally to everyone, self-belief can be developed through conscious effort and practice. So, believe in yourself and your abilities, and you will be amazed by what you can achieve. As the saying goes, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” So, choose to believe in yourself and see how it transforms your life for the better.

Short Speech on Believe in Yourself:

As we go through our daily lives, we encounter various challenges that may seem impossible to overcome. In such situations, it is important to have self-belief and confidence in ourselves. Believe in yourself is more than just a phrase, it is a mindset that can help us achieve great things.

When we believe in ourselves, we are able to push through obstacles and setbacks, and work towards our goals with determination. It allows us to stay focused on the positive aspects of our lives and not get discouraged by failures.

Moreover, when we have faith in ourselves, it inspires others around us to believe in themselves as well. As leaders, it is important for us to instill this belief in those around us, especially in times of uncertainty.

Believe in yourself also means acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses, and constantly working on improving ourselves. It is about having a growth mindset and not being afraid to take risks.

In conclusion, having self-belief is essential for personal growth and success. Let us remember to always believe in ourselves, no matter what challenges come our way. As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.” So let us choose to believe in ourselves and strive towards achieving our dreams. The possibilities are endless when we have faith in ourselves.

If you Believe in Yourself anything is Possible Essay:

As human beings, we all have dreams and aspirations that we want to achieve in life. These goals may vary from person to person, but they are ultimately what motivate us to strive for excellence. However, the path towards achieving our dreams is not always smooth. There will be obstacles and challenges along the way that can make us doubt ourselves and our abilities.

In such moments, it is important to remind ourselves that if we believe in ourselves, anything is possible.

Believing in oneself means having confidence and faith in our own abilities. It means acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses and trusting that we have what it takes to overcome any difficulties that come our way. When we truly believe in ourselves, we are able to turn our dreams into reality because we have the determination and perseverance to keep pushing forward, even when things get tough.

One of the main reasons why believing in ourselves is so crucial is because it allows us to take risks and step out of our comfort zones. Without self-belief, we may hesitate to pursue opportunities or try new things because we are afraid of failure. However, if we have faith in ourselves, we are more willing to take chances and explore different paths. And even if we do fail, we are able to bounce back stronger because our self-belief gives us the courage to keep going.

Moreover, when we believe in ourselves, we are not easily swayed by the opinions or judgments of others. We trust our own judgment and decisions, which allows us to stay true to ourselves and our goals. This is essential in a world where there will always be people who doubt us or try to bring us down. By believing in ourselves, we are able to rise above these negative influences and stay focused on what truly matters.

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In conclusion, if we believe in ourselves, anything is possible. Our self-belief gives us the strength and resilience to overcome obstacles, take risks, and stay true to ourselves. So let us hold onto our dreams and have faith in ourselves, for it is through self-belief that we can achieve great things and make our wildest aspirations a reality.

Q: Why is it important to believe in yourself?

A: Believing in yourself is important because it boosts self-confidence, motivation, and resilience, helping you overcome challenges and achieve your goals.

Q: What makes you believe in yourself?

A: Believing in yourself often comes from self-awareness, setting achievable goals, receiving support, and learning from both successes and failures.

Q: What is believing in yourself summary?

A: Believing in yourself is having confidence in your abilities and worth, which empowers you to pursue your ambitions and face life’s obstacles with determination.

Q: What does it mean to believe in yourself?

A: Believing in yourself means having faith in your capabilities, judgment, and value as an individual. It involves self-assurance and a positive self-image, which drives personal growth and success

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Self Efficacy and Why Believing in Yourself Matters

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

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Self-efficacy is a person's belief in their ability to complete a task or achieve a goal . It encompasses their confidence in themselves to control their behavior, exert an influence over their environment, and stay motivated in the pursuit of their goal. People can have self-efficacy in different situations and domains, such as school, work, relationships, and other important areas.

Self-efficacy is important because it plays a role in how you feel about yourself and whether or not you successfully achieve your goals in life. Continue reading to learn more about this concept that is central to Albert Bandura’s  social cognitive theory , which emphasizes the role of  observational learning , social experience, and  reciprocal determinism  in personality development.

Quick Self-Efficacy Assessment

When facing a challenge, do you feel like you can rise up and accomplish your goal, or do you give up in defeat? Are you like the little train engine from the classic children's book ("I think I can, I think I can!"), or do you doubt your abilities to overcome the difficulties that life throws your way? If you tend to keep going in the face of obstacles, you probably have a high degree of self-efficacy.

Self-Efficacy Basics

Albert Bandura defined self-efficacy as "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." Put simply, it is a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation. Such beliefs play a role in determining how people think, behave, and feel.

According to Bandura, self-efficacy is part of the self-system comprised of a person’s attitudes, abilities, and cognitive skills. This system plays a major role in how we perceive and respond to different situations. Self-efficacy is an essential part of this self-system.

Since Bandura published his seminal 1977 paper, "Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change," the subject has become one of the most studied topics in psychology. Why has self-efficacy become such an important topic among psychologists and educators?

As Bandura and other researchers have demonstrated, self-efficacy can impact everything from psychological states to behavior to motivation. Self-efficacy determines what goals we pursue, how we accomplish those goals , and how we reflect upon our own performance.

Our belief in our own ability to succeed plays a role in how we think, how we act, and how we feel about our place in the world.

The Role of Self-Efficacy

Virtually all people can identify goals they want to accomplish, things they would like to change , and things they would like to achieve. However, most people also realize that putting these plans into action is not quite so simple. Bandura and others have found that an individual’s self-efficacy plays a major role in how goals, tasks, and challenges are approached.

High vs. Low Self-Efficacy

Having high self-efficacy is a good thing. People with a strong sense of self-efficacy:

• Develop a deeper interest in the activities in which they participate
• Form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities
• Recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments
• View challenging problems as tasks to be mastered

Poor self-efficacy, on the other hand, can have a number of detrimental effects. People with a weak sense of self-efficacy:

• Avoid challenging tasks
• Believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities
• Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes
• Quickly lose confidence in personal abilities

Self-Efficacy vs. Self-Esteem vs. Self-Confidence

Self-efficacy is sometimes confused with self-esteem, but there are important distinctions between the two. What is the difference between self-efficacy and self-esteem? Self-efficacy refers to how you feel about your ability to succeed in different situations, while self-esteem refers to your respect for your own value and worth .

Is self-efficacy the same as self-confidence? While the two terms are related, there are some important distinctions. Self-confidence is more general and refers to a person's overall belief in themselves in all contexts . Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is more specific and context-dependent. A person can have high self-efficacy in one area (such as in academics) and low self-efficacy in other areas (such as in sports).

Research suggests that self-efficacy predicts self-esteem. In other words, people with high self-efficacy also tend to have high self-esteem and vice versa.

How Does Self-Efficacy Develop?

We begin to form our sense of self-efficacy in early childhood by dealing with various experiences, tasks, and situations. However, the growth of self-efficacy does not end during youth but continues to evolve throughout life as people acquire new skills , experiences, and understanding.

Bandura identified four major sources of self-efficacy. The four ways that self-efficacy is achieved are:

• Mastery experiences
• Social modeling
• Social persuasion
• Psychological responses

Mastery Experiences

"The most effective way of developing a strong sense of efficacy is through mastery experiences," Bandura explained. Performing a task successfully strengthens our sense of self-efficacy. However, failing to adequately deal with a task or challenge can undermine and weaken self-efficacy.

Social Modeling

Witnessing other people successfully complete a task is another important source of self-efficacy. According to Bandura, "Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by sustained effort raises observers' beliefs that they too possess the capabilities to master comparable activities to succeed."

Social Persuasion

Bandura also asserted that people could be persuaded to believe they have the skills and capabilities to succeed. Getting verbal encouragement from others helps people overcome self-doubt and instead focus on giving their best effort to the task at hand.

Consider a time when someone said something positive and encouraging that helped you achieve a goal.

Psychological Responses

Our responses and emotional reactions to situations also play an important role in self-efficacy. Moods,  emotional states , physical reactions, and stress levels can all impact how a person feels about their personal abilities in a particular situation.

A person who becomes extremely nervous before speaking in public , for example, may develop a weak sense of self-efficacy in these situations. However, Bandura also notes "it is not the sheer intensity of emotional and physical reactions that is important but rather how they are perceived and interpreted."

By learning how to minimize stress and elevate mood when facing difficult or challenging tasks, people can improve their sense of self-efficacy.

Examples of High Self-Efficacy

So what exactly does high self-efficacy look like? People may possess a general sense of self-efficacy or in a specific domain where they believe they can do well such as school, work, friendships, parenting, sports, hobbies, and other areas.

Some examples of strong self-efficacy include:

• A person struggling to manage a chronic illness feels confident that they can get back on track and improve their health by working hard and following their doctor's recommendations.
• A student who feels confident that they will be able to learn the information and do well on a test.
• Someone who has just accepted a job position in a role they have never performed before but feels that they have the ability to learn and perform the job well.

You can probably think of some examples from your own life including areas where you feel a great deal of efficacy.

Impacts of Self-Efficacy

The impact that self-efficacy has on your life varies depending on whether your level of self-efficacy is high or if it is low.

High Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy can play an important role in health psychology and how people manage their health, nutrition, and illness. For example, having a strong sense of self-efficacy can help people who are trying to quit smoking stick to their goals.

Maintaining a weight loss plan, managing chronic pain , giving up alcohol , sticking to an exercise schedule, and following an eating plan can all be influenced by a person's levels of self-efficacy.

Research has also shown that when teachers have high self-efficacy, it has a positive impact on academic outcomes. High teacher self-efficacy positively influences student motivation and achievement.

Bandura suggests that self-efficacy can benefit a person's sense of well-being in a number of ways. For instance, they remain optimistic and confident in their abilities, even when things become difficult.

Because individuals with high self-efficacy look at difficulties as challenges rather than threats, they tend to be more intrinsically interested in the tasks they pursue. Difficulty and failure don't mean defeat; instead, these individuals redouble their efforts and look for new ways to overcome.

Low Self-Efficacy

People who are low in self-efficacy tend to see difficult tasks as threats they should avoid. Because of this, they also often avoid setting goals and have low levels of commitment to the ones they do make.

When setbacks happen, they tend to give up quickly. Because they don't have much confidence in their ability to achieve, they are more likely to experience feelings of failure and depression. Stressful situations can also be very hard to deal with and those with low self-efficacy are less resilient and less likely to bounce back.

Learned helplessness is the opposite of self-efficacy. It can occur when people feel they have no power to control what happens in a situation. Instead of looking for opportunities to change the outcome, they give up and behave passively.

Evaluating Self-Efficacy Strength

For a quick, informal assessment of your own self-efficacy levels, consider the following questions:

• Do you feel like you can handle problems if you are willing to work hard?
• Are you confident in your ability to achieve your goals?
• Do you feel like you can manage unexpected events that come up?
• Are you able to bounce back fairly quickly after stressful events?
• Do you feel like you can come up with solutions when facing a problem?
• Do you keep trying even when things seem difficult?
• Are you good at staying calm even in the face of chaos ?
• Do you perform well even under pressure?
• Do you tend to focus on your progress rather than getting overwhelmed by all you still have to do?
• Do you believe that hard work will eventually pay off?

If you can answer yes to many or most of these questions, then chances are good that you have a fairly strong sense of self-efficacy. If you feel like your self-efficacy could use a boost, consider some of the following strategies for improving your sense of efficacy.

There are a number of different scales that are used to evaluate levels of self-efficacy, including the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) and the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire.

Building Self-Efficacy

Fortunately, self-efficacy is a psychological skill you can foster and strengthen. Start by looking for ways to incorporate Bandura's sources of self-efficacy into your own life. Here are a few strategies to try.

Celebrate Your Success

Mastery experiences play a critical role in the establishment of self-efficacy. Bandura actually identified this as the single most effective way to create a strong sense of self-belief.

When you succeed at something, you are able to build a powerful belief in your ability. Failure, on the other hand, can undermine these feelings, particularly if you are still in the early phases of building a sense of personal efficacy.

Set the Right Goals

The ideal types of success, however, are not necessarily those that come easily. If you experience a lot of easy success, you may find yourself giving up more readily when you finally do encounter failure.

So, work on setting goals that are achievable , but not necessarily easy. They will take work and perseverance, but you will emerge with a stronger belief in your own abilities once you achieve them.

Observe Others

Bandura also identified vicarious experiences obtained through peer modeling as another important means of establishing and strengthening self-efficacy. Seeing others putting in effort and succeeding, as a result, can increase your belief in your own ability to succeed.

One factor that plays a key role in the effectiveness of this approach is how similar the model is to yourself. The more alike you feel you are, the more likely it is that your observations will increase your sense of self-efficacy.

Seek Positive Affirmations

Hearing positive feedback from others can also help improve your sense of self-efficacy. For example, your physician telling you that you are doing a good job sticking to your diet plan can be encouraging. Feedback from friends, mentors, and people who you respect can help you feel greater confidence in your abilities.

By that same token, avoid asking for feedback from people you know are more likely to have a negative or critical view of your performance. While positive social feedback can be helpful for strengthening your already existing sense of efficacy, negative comments can often have a powerful undermining effect.

Bandura suggested that social feedback alone is not enough to build your self-belief, but it can be a useful tool when you need a little extra encouragement.

Pay Attention to Your Thoughts and Emotions

If you find yourself getting stressed out or nervous before a challenging event, you might feel less sure of your ability to cope with the task at hand. One way to boost your self-efficacy is to look for ways to manage your thoughts and emotions about what you are trying to accomplish.

Do you feel anxious? Looking for ways to ease your stress levels can help you feel more confident in your capabilities. Do you find yourself dwelling on negative thoughts? Look for ways to replace negativity with positive self-talk that promotes self-belief.

Get Advice From The Verywell Mind Podcast

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares strategies that can help you learn to truly believe in yourself, featuring IT Cosmetics founder Jamie Kern Lima.

Follow Now : Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts

Final Thoughts

Developing a strong sense of self-efficacy can play an important role in almost every aspect of your life. Life is full of challenges and high levels of self-efficacy can help you better deal with these difficulties more effectively .

Your belief in your abilities can predict how motivated you are, how you feel about yourself, and the amount of effort you put into achieving your goals. That makes this belief one that is worth investing time in to develop.

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Hajloo N. Relationships between self-efficacy, self-esteem and procrastination in undergraduate psychology students . Iran J Psychiatry Behav Sci . 2014;8(3):42-9.

Azmi Elshatarat R, Ibrahim Yacoub M, Marwan Khraim F, Taher Saleh Z, Rateb Afaneh T. Self-efficacy in treating tobacco use: A review article . Proceed Singapore Health . 2016;25(4):243-248. doi:10.1177/2010105816667137

Barni D, Danioni F, Benevene P. Teachers' self-efficacy: The role of personal values and motivations for teaching . Front Psychol . 2019;10:1645. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01645

Maier SF, Seligman ME.  Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience .  Psychol Rev . 2016;123(4):349-367. doi:10.1037/rev0000033

Romppel M, Herrmann-Lingen C, Wachter R, et al. A short form of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE-6): Development, psychometric properties and validity in an intercultural non-clinical sample and a sample of patients at risk for heart failure . Psychosoc Med . 2013;10:Doc01. doi:10.3205/psm000091

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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“Your outlook on life is a direct reflection on how much you like yourself.” ~ Lululemon

“My existence on this earth is pointless.”

That thought crossed my mind every night before I fell asleep.

It had been several months since I graduated from high school and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. My future plans were falling to pieces, and everyone around me kept telling me that I needed to start accomplishing things that I had not yet accomplished.

I was not where I thought I should be in life. Everyone had expectations that I hadn’t met. I became too focused on becoming a version of myself that everyone else wanted, and I constantly compared myself to other people who had already taken the dive into the next chapter of their life.

I was relentlessly questioned and judged for my slower progression in life, which convinced me that no one supported me or believed in me. I wondered why I even bothered to exist if I was getting nowhere and disappointing everyone. I began to blame everyone but myself for the state of misery I had fallen into.

My self-esteem began to suffer as the months went by. I felt inferior to everyone and it made me hate myself. I still did not know what I wanted to do with my life—and I was starting to not even care.

But several months and hundreds of needless self insults later, I decided to block out the negativity , both from myself and other people. I silenced the voice in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough and asked myself what would really make me happy.

I’ve always been very creative and expressive. I used to sing, act, and dance when I was younger. But my favorite thing has always been writing.

Some of the happiest moments in my life came from opportunities to express myself or put my heart and soul out for everyone to see. Every path I tried to take always led me back to writing.

I got to a point where I realized that I was only trying to pursue other paths because I thought that’s what other people would accept. I was afraid that if I let my imagination soar to all the different possibilities, people would tear me down or tell me to be “realistic.”

The bottom line is that I became paralyzed with this fear of not being accepted. I was afraid to be different or go my own way and pursue what truly made me happy. I put myself in a box.

One day, I decided that enough was enough. I spent an entire year of my life trying to be “realistic” and conform to the expectations of other people. I realized that you can’t please everyone anyway, so trying will definitely not lead to contentment.

Real happiness comes from being content with and proud of yourself .

I finally decided that I was going to devote my time to learning about writing and working on my writing skills. I am happy with that decision and I feel better about myself because I made it for me.

I have learned a few things about choosing the right path for yourself, focusing on what will make you happy. If you’ve been struggling to make that choice, I recommend:

Drop your worries.

Worry puts a burden on your mind, body, and spirit. They can keep you up all night if you let them. Find comfort in the fact that everything happens for a reason and everything will fall into place at the right time.

During my period of low self-esteem and extreme uncertainty, I relentlessly questioned every aspect of my life. I would go to bed frustrated and upset as I told myself I wasn’t good enough, and that I wished I was like everyone else my age.

By constantly bashing yourself and worrying about every single thing that happens to you, you’re missing out on happiness that you could’ve had all along.

Do not try to please or impress anyone but yourself.

The need to impress, please, and compare ourselves to other people all the time is one of the most common causes of self-loathing. As long as you’re trying to please other people and live up to their expectations, you will not be pleasing yourself.

What I’ve learned is that happiness does not come from pleasing other people. Happiness comes from feeling content with your own life and goals.

Embrace your unique qualities and talents.

Everyone is different. Figure out what you’re good at and what sets you apart from everyone else. Your mission is to create a reason for being here.

Believe in your path.

When you start to figure out what you want in life, there will be obstacles. Do not let anyone or anything discourage you from continuing on. Believe in yourself and believe in your decisions.

Stay positive and keep moving forward.

Take your time.

Life does not come with a rulebook or deadlines for accomplishing certain things. I used to always think that I needed to be at the same level as everyone else my age. Life is not a race or a contest.

Have faith in the fact that you are exactly where you need to be at this very moment in time and as long as you’re content, don’t let anyone convince you that you’re not where you need to be. You be the judge of what you want to change in your life and then do it for you .

Surround yourself with positivity.

Try to limit the amount of time you spend with people who nay-say, judge, or ridicule. Choose to completely surround yourself with positive, inspiring influences. You will feel much happier and better about yourself if you do.

Make a list of sayings or quotes that make you feel encouraged or inspired and keep it where you can see it each day. Try putting the list under your pillow or on your refrigerator door.

The most important thing to remember is that you are worth it, you can go another day, and you can be happy. Life will not throw you anything you cannot handle or overcome.

Once you start to accept and love yourself and your desired path, the smoke will clear and you will breathe easy again. Be kind to yourself and life will be a whole lot brighter.

Photo by QuinnDombrowsky

About Madison Sonnier

Madison is a writer of feelings and lover of animals, music, nature and creativity. You can follow her blog at journeyofasoulsearcher.blogspot.com/ and buy her first eBook through Amazon . She loves making new friends, so be sure to say hi if you like what you see!

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The Power of Believing in Yourself

The love, happiness & success podcast with dr. lisa marie bobby.

It’s the stuff of motivational bumper stickers, but it also happens to be true: Believing in yourself is a prerequisite to reaching your goals and making positive changes in your life. 

But if believing in yourself was as easy as making the choice to trust in your own goodness, resilience, and competence in the face of all life’s challenges, you wouldn’t be interested in this podcast episode, would you?

No. Fundamentally changing your self-concept is a little more complicated than thinking happy thoughts. It involves seeking out new experiences that help you connect with your own incredible power to make good things happen, and then using those experiences to propel yourself forward. This article will show you how.

I’ve also created an episode of the Love, Happiness and Success podcast on this topic. My guest is Elise R., M.Ed., NCC, CCC, LPCC. Elise is a therapist , a life coach , and an expert in holistic life design . She’s helped countless people develop their self-confidence and self-esteem, and then construct their pathway forward with optimism and intention. Now, Elise is sharing her wisdom with you. You can tune in on this page, Apple podcasts , Spotify , or wherever you listen. 

Grow Together

Schedule a free consultation today..

Admittedly, believing in yourself can be easier said than done. Our self-esteem , self-confidence, and feelings of personal empowerment are the result of deeply ingrained mental habits that start forming in early childhood. After decades of reinforcement, you can’t dramatically shift those habits in an instant simply by thinking positive thoughts. 

But you can intentionally form new mental habits that help you believe in yourself, and that will support you in making positive, lasting change . Here’s how. 

Where Is Your Locus of Control? 

Everybody “believes in themselves” to some degree. In psychologist speak, this is called your level of “self-efficacy,” or your internal belief in your own power to create the outcomes you desire. Having a higher level of self-efficacy helps you set ambitious goals (because you believe you can accomplish them), approach challenges with optimism (because you expect you’ll be able to figure them out), and persevere through setbacks (because you believe success is waiting for you on the other side). 

When your self-efficacy is low, you don’t set your goals high enough — in fact, you might not set goals at all. You expect tasks to be harder than they are, and you often don’t expect your efforts to pay off. When setbacks arise, you’re quick to give up. 

Your self-efficacy will be shaped by where your personal “locus of control” lies. People with an internal locus of control believe they’re in control of their own lives, and that their actions will shape their outcomes. People with an external locus of control believe that outside factors have a greater impact on their lives than their own efforts do. 

Shifting to an Internal Locus of Control

Luckily, having an internal locus of control is something you can practice. Taking responsibility is one powerful trick. When something doesn’t go your way, it’s human to look to outside factors to explain it — it’s easier on the ego, and it doesn’t require us to do the hard work of changing our behavior. 

But it also strips you of all your power. If everything is happening to you because of other people or circumstances beyond your control, you have no ability to create positive change. But if you can find one or two things that you could do differently to create a better outcome? Now you have something to work with. 

Taking responsibility is not about beating yourself up . It’s about taking advantage of the opportunities you have to create the life you want. 

Raising Kids that Believe in Themselves

Our attitudes about ourselves usually stem from experiences in our family of origin. For parents , that means that, if your goal is to raise happy, resilient, confident adults , you need to help your children begin to experience a sense of their personal power now. 

There are so many ways you can do this. Letting your kids make age-appropriate choices, and then experience the natural benefits (or consequences) of those choices, is one way to help them learn about responsibility and self-efficacy. You could also look for ways to let your kids have more influence in your family, which will teach them that their thoughts, feelings, and desires are important and that they can create real change. 

When well-meaning parents raise their children in strict environments where being obedient is the most important value, kids learn that how they feel and what they want is irrelevant. They may become disconnected from their own feelings and desires, and develop a sense of helplessness that they’ll carry into adulthood. 

Many of the people reading this article are here to unlearn that sense of helplessness. If you’re a parent who would like to save your child from that task in the future, you can do so by helping them become empowered now. 

Mastery Experiences and Believing in Yourself

Think about someone who you don’t think highly of. Maybe it’s an incompetent coworker, who’s always making careless mistakes that set the whole team back. Or maybe it’s a former friend who proved to not be such a great friend after all. 

What would it take to change your mind about that person? Could your coworker tell you “I’m going to do better from now on, so you can put me in charge of that big, important project?” Could the “friend” simply promise not to put you down anymore? 

No. Your opinion would only change if you could actually experience the other person behaving differently over a period of time. Your coworker would need to consistently deliver good work, probably for quite awhile, before your views started to shift. You would need to see your friend reliably follow through on their promise to treat you better. 

Changing your narratives about yourself works in exactly the same way. You need to have experiences that show you that you are capable of doing hard things and creating successful outcomes in order to form positive beliefs about yourself and your abilities. 

These are called “mastery experiences,” and they’re a powerful tool for building self-efficacy. The concept is simple: To become a confident baker, you need to make a few cakes. To become a confident public speaker, you need to do some public speaking. 

When you take action, see the results, and feel the results, you can no longer tell yourself the same story about not being capable. Instead, the story might become about the steps you could take to do even better next time. Your “locus of control” moves a little bit closer to your center.

Building an Empowered Career

Your level of self-efficacy has a big impact on every corner of your life, but it has a huge influence over your career in particular. 

When career coaching or counseling clients tell the “story of their careers,” and explain where they are now mostly by pointing to external factors (like messages they received from their parents, or the state of the economy, or the actions of a particularly bad manager), that’s a tip-off that they’re not in touch with their true power to build the career they want . 

It’s not that your family, or the economy, or the people you work for have zero influence over the way your career unfolds. But if you believe that your entire working life can be explained by external factors, there isn’t much that even the world’s best career coach can do for you — until you shake that disempowered belief system loose and replace it with something more useful, and more realistic.  

If you’ve had some disempowering experiences in the past, a good career coach can help you reconnect with your ability to strategically forge your career path and design the life you want , regardless of outside obstacles. 

Habits and Self-Efficacy

Habits are one of the most powerful tools in your toolbox for self-development, and having a higher level of self-efficacy can help you tap into them. These little choices don’t amount to much on their own — like brushing your teeth, or putting aside a hundred bucks in your savings account — but when you make these choices a keystone habit , you can exert a major positive influence over your life. 

Without a healthy level of self-efficacy, keeping up your positive habits is a challenge. It’s hard to cultivate the grit or “stick-to-it-iveness” that good habits require if you don’t believe on a deep level that you have the power to shape your outcomes through your actions. 

But even if your self-efficacy is low, you can “fake it until you make it” with your habits. Once you form a healthy habit, the benefits that begin to flow to you make it easier to maintain. You begin to see yourself as the kind of person who’s capable of creating a healthy habit and sticking to it. Your self-efficacy rises, creating a positive feedback loop that makes you more likely to hold onto your healthy habit, and more confident in your power to form new ones. 

Believing in Yourself When You Don’t Feel Like It

We all cycle through moods on a daily basis, and some mood states are more conducive to believing in yourself than others. Being just a little bit tired, or hungry, or stressed out can majorly affect how optimistic and confident you feel about yourself and your ability to make good things happen in your life. 

All this mood variation can feel like a barrier to building self-efficacy. But, since your confidence fluctuates so much depending on your mood, obviously your self-doubt-y or pessimistic feelings are not an objective source of information about your true abilities. You are no less capable and competent a person when you’re a bit sleepy than you are when you’re feeling great. 

And you don’t have to wait until a better mood comes along to begin taking positive action toward your goals . Just taking a small step in the right direction can reconnect you with your feelings of personal empowerment, and a better emotional state will often follow. 

How to Believe in Yourself: It’s Not About Perfection

You don’t have to believe that you’re perfect to believe in yourself. You are a resourceful, effective person who is well-equipped to respond to a wide range of challenges as they arise, and if you look at your life history I’m sure you can think of countless instances when you did just that. 

Believing in yourself is about trusting yourself to figure things out as you go, make mistakes and learn from them, and course correct until you reach your destination. 

I believe you can do that. Do you?

Music in this episode is by Kutandara with their song “Nyungwe.” You can support them and their work by visiting kutandara.org. Under the circumstance of use of music, each portion of used music within this current episode fits under Section 107 of the Copyright Act, i.e., Fair Use. Please refer to copyright.gov if further questions are prompted.

Listen & Subscribe to the Podcast

Free, expert advice — for you., subscribe to the love, happiness, and success podcast.

Lisa Marie Bobby : This is Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby, and you’re listening to the Love, Happiness and Success podcast. On today’s show, we’re talking about the power of believing in yourself and why this is so vital to everything else. Believing in yourself and that ‘yes, you can’ is actually the foundation to being able to do most things. On today’s show, we’re gonna talk about why that is and how you can develop this belief in yourself.

If you can’t stop smiling right now and aren’t sure why there is actually a reason, it is because you are currently basking in the energy of Kutandara. Kutandara is a nonprofit musical education program that is based in my hometown of Boulder County, Colorado, and they are teaching, generally, children and adolescents the art and craft of Zimbabwean music from Southern Africa. 

I had the great pleasure of encountering this collective while out and about one day. They were performing in public. If you can imagine a bunch of 12 to, probably, 17 year old kids, just like 12 of them, like banging away on these xylophones and drums and having the best time, they’re all smiling and dancing and just playing this gorgeous music, and just bathed in their own personal joy and beaming this energy out to everyone in their radius. 

It was the most glorious thing I have felt in a while. Everybody was having the best time. The energy was contagious, and I walked away thinking what a cool experience for these kids to have. They are experiencing themselves doing something amazing and feeling great about it, and that’s the message of today’s show. They believe they can because they’re actually doing it, and you can too with the right mindset, and the right support. 

Also, as an aside, if you would like to learn more about Kutandara and what they do, you can check out kutandara.org , their music, their programs. Also, just a little reminder that you probably have one or more nonprofit music education programs, art education programs, all kinds of other cool stuff in your community that is supporting this kind of development and self actualization in the kids near you, and anything, I think, we can all do to support these programs. Lifts everybody’s boat, so consider it. All right, now, on with the show.

Lisa Marie Bobby : On today’s episode, we’re covering a topic that’s really key to changing anything and everything in your life, and that key is believing in yourself. I know that that sounds super corny, and you may already be starting to tune me out. But, I want you to know that when I’m talking about believing in yourself, this is not going to be like some pep talk where like, love yourself, believe in yourself, we’re gonna stencil that on your wall, and then everything will be great, right? 

Now, we’re actually talking about something that is much deeper, and something that is within your power to create and change. There is no shortage of this power of positivity stuff happening out there. I think that some of that can honestly be a little bit toxic and demoralizing for us if we’re being admonished to believe in yourself and love yourself and all the things and so we’re not doing this.

What we are going to be doing is talking about what believing in yourself really refers to, like in the psychological context and that is something called locus of control. People who have a high locus of control also have something called self efficacy. I know that these are technical, kind of psychological terms, but what they are referring to is the self concept around how much power you feel that you have to have control over and create change in your own life circumstances. 

People who have a low locus of control and a low internalized self efficacy, they feel somewhat helpless in their lives. They feel like they are at the mercy of outside circumstances. Even if they wanted to, they don’t really have the power or the ability to change their circumstances. As a result, they really don’t, because they don’t believe that they can on a very fundamental level. 

So these ideas are elementally important to being able to change anything, from your health to your relationship to your self concept to your career. They’re incredibly important to be able to do when you believe in yourself and your own ability to have power and control over your own life. You can get things done. You’re better at coping with stress burnout. You have more positive relationships, and you also feel happier, not to mention, more resilient. 

That’s what we’re going to be talking about on today’s episode is really like digging into, Okay, all sounds good, but how specifically do I accomplish these things. To do this with me, I have invited my colleague, Elise, to talk with us today on this episode. Elise is an amazing member of our team here at Growing Self. She is a therapist who specializes in career counseling, career coaching, and also I think of it as like life design. 

So personal and professional development, coaching and really, her specialty is helping people come in with this big jumble of who am I and what do I want out of my life, getting it all straightened out and set in a direction to achieve it. She’s here today to share her knowledge with you. So thank you, Elise, so much for being here.

Elise : Yes, I’m so excited. This topic is everything, and so I’m really excited to talk more about it with you.

Lisa : Well, I’m so glad. First, I think, I don’t know, do you feel like we talked sufficiently about how this is really different from the ideas that get conveyed in that toxic positivity realm of like, love yourself, believe in yourself. It’s like, I feel like we hear that so much. They stop being meaningful at all. Have you experienced that?

Elise : Yes. Honestly, it’s this thought that okay, if I’m not positive, then I’m not going to get anywhere. It’s hard to find that positivity sometimes within yourself, and this is coming from me where my top strength from the Gallup StrengthsFinder is positivity. 

Lisa : Really? Is that why you’re so cheerful? Okay, well, we need to talk about this.

Elise : But, I see positivity as something that’s more internal, and that’s why I love that you’re connecting it more to self efficacy today with the power of believing in yourself. Because without that, we’re not going to have that true internal positivity and mindset to allow us to get to where we want to go. So, we have to talk about that.

Lisa : Totally. You do not have to be a positive person to have a strong internal locus of control. You could be a highly negative person. It’s okay, and you could still get things done.

Elise : Yes, and as I think about this topic, too, I always think about how there are so many words that are similar, so we’ve got positivity. We’ve got things like motivation and confidence and self esteem. As I think about addressing just the listeners out there, I want them to know that it’s all of those things that combined to help you have that higher self efficacy. 

But I also wanted to find out a little bit more specifically, because I’ll be using some of those definitions as I go forward. When I think about motivation, it’s this desire to achieve some sort of goal, so think about what is your why, what’s that motivation. That’s still not self efficacy fully, it’s part of it.

Lisa : You can want to do something and still not believe in yourself or that you can, check.

Elise : Exactly, and then there’s your confidence, which a lot of clients come in, and they’re like, I feel confident, like, I feel like I can do this. It’s their belief in themselves, but often, that’s not the full part of the puzzle that gets them to where they want to go, so they still feel stuck. And then with self esteem, that’s more, in my mind, related to where you get your self worth from, and you define it in a unique way for yourself. 

So, that’s going to look different from one person to the next. It’s also where you find that value in yourself, but still is not what self efficacy is. If you’re feeling like you’re kind of in that spot, where you’ve got the motivation, you feel like you know you’re good enough. You’re doing great. You have the confidence, but you’re still getting stuck. That’s where the belief comes from in self efficacy. 

Because it’s really this combination of believing that you’re capable of producing an outcome and accomplishing your goals, and you can’t forget about it, you have to have both sides.

Lisa : Yeah, yeah. Like there’s almost this like, a will component to it, just like believing that it is fundamentally possible, like my actions have an impact on the world. It’s so crazy to think about, but I wonder if we could just talk about this other dimension of it for just a second is because there are a lot of people who arrive into adulthood for a variety of reasons, who fundamentally do not believe that they have power or control over their circumstances and over the way their life trajectory unfolds. 

It’s very much determined by others. Why is that? In your experience, where does this learned helplessness come from?

Elise : Yes, there can be so many things that contribute to that for folks. One of the important aspects that I think needs to be mentioned is that, sometimes, we don’t have a choice of where we come from, or what our background is, or the things that we have experienced in life. We didn’t ask for some of the hardships. We didn’t ask for the location that we grew up, in the family that we were born into. 

Some of those things can absolutely make it feel like we don’t have control over where we’re going. I’m reminded of the quote here. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt. He said, “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” I think the belief part relates to what you’re asking about, it’s kind of that internal narrative about I failed in these aspects, or I can’t quite get past this barrier, and that’s only half of the story. 

The other half is what you’re doing to kind of take more of that control back. Is it practicing a skill? Is it developing some social capital? Is it fill in the blank? Goals can be so, so broad and so general. But belief, I think, is where it has to start and understanding your story, and what that story means and really what you’re saying to yourself and believing about yourself to get you to the halfway part before you start working on what you can control.

Lisa : Actually, I have to tell you something as we’re talking in this. Well, I hope it’s okay for me to share on the air. You are about to be a parent for the first time and I know we have many listeners of this podcast who are also parents. This whole conversation is actually making me think about an experience that I had just yesterday. I was in the grocery store with my soon to be four year old daughter, and I actually had this, because I think about this lot, like people’s feelings of power and control. 

I actually — not saying that I’m like the best parent in the universe. I’m sure many things could be improved upon. But, one of the things that I’ve been very conscious of doing is helping my children feel powerful. They have influence and so it means the silliest example, we were walking past the display, and of course, there was a thing of gummy worms. My daughter was like, “Gummy worms!” And I, originally, had this mom thing, where it was like, “You do not need gummy worms, gummy worms are not on the list.” 

I can sort of feel myself like launching into, like steering that the cart back towards the vegetables, right? But then, I actually had this moment. I was like, gummy worms, yeah. We steered the cart back over and let her pick the little box of gummy worms off the shelf. It was a very deliberate like parenting choice, because sugar and nutritional value aside, like, I want her to internalize this feeling that she can have efficacy. She can have control. 

She’s a powerful human, and she can make things happen, like she just made that happen. I worry sometimes that people arrive in adulthood, particularly in either very harsh or even sometimes neglectful parenting environments, and they did not have that experience. So I mean, do you have any thoughts or advice for people who have really had a lot of life experiences from an early age where, what I wanted, didn’t really matter that much. 

And I tried to make things happen, and it didn’t work. I didn’t have influence. I mean, that’s like foundational stuff, and that’s hard to like will yourself into believing if you have a lifetime of experience where it hasn’t been true. I mean, where would you begin?

Elise : Yes, I’d say it takes a lot of practice. That is absolutely a huge tenant of self efficacy is that we want what’s called mastery experiences, which I hope we get to talk about a little bit more later, but that your mastery experiences absolutely are impacted by past experiences. When you feel masterful, you’re probably going to have a little bit higher self efficacy, because you see success. You’re seeing results. You’re feeling good. 

If you’re not having those mastery experiences, or you’ve been in situations that have led to lower efficacy beliefs, it’s really hard to take that power back because you haven’t had the mastery experience in a way that you could have. And so even experiencing, it sometimes feels like incredibly foreign and different than like, Wait, what is this I’m experiencing right now, when it’s going well. 

I go back to the story aspect. I always go back to what are you believing, and what are you experiencing? Another quote comes to mind, I love metaphors, and it’s related to how you don’t remember what someone says, you remember how they made you feel. I think with self efficacy related experiences, it’s relatively similar that we might not remember all the ins and outs of his situations, but we know how we interpret it in our minds. 

That’s how we create what I like to call our private logic about our life and our own story. Oftentimes, those stories we tell ourselves, even though they’re based in evidence, potentially, and things that have happened to us. They don’t have to define us. They don’t have to be the final thing that allows us to stay where we’re at, maybe not allows us but like, almost forces us or makes us think we have to stay where we’re at. 

But, this is all about taking that power back, and how practicing understanding what your beliefs are about yourself and about your own story can start unlocking those things that are not serving you in this current season of life, and start paving a pathway forward that is a little bit more honoring of who you are now, and also who you want to become.

Lisa : Well, that’s really good advice and so hopeful, because like, I think I’m hearing you say that, yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe you have had life experiences where you haven’t been empowered, and so you don’t feel empowered, and like that can be so subconscious in some ways. Like, we don’t even know sometimes what those narratives are. But if you can realize that you have that deep internal belief of I don’t have any control, nothing I do matters, if you figure that out, then what you can do is begin practicing doing that things and feeling the results and seeing the results.

It’s almost like retraining yourself so that even if you don’t feel or believe in yourself or that you have power and control when you start, the act of practicing and behaving in this way, will kind of reset your clock and put you on the path towards the experience of mastery. Is that it?

Elise : Yeah, yeah. Like how you talked about it in the way of kind of almost reframing. I guess that’s another word I would use to describe that process that, yeah, these things have happened potentially in your past or are currently happening, and what are you subconsciously believing about that, and how can you reframe it with new data and evidence that allows you to take your power back and recognize your internal locus of control, rather than the external ones, which maybe is where some of those beliefs are coming from. 

I always say that we are the masters of our own beliefs, and it can also make us feel not very masterful, because our subconscious can be kind of tricky. Because we’re human beings, we’re wired to survive, but we want to wire folks to thrive. So that’s where the reframing process can be really, really helpful and powerful.

Lisa : Yeah.

Elise : And challenging. 

Lisa : But also, though, just what a compassionate statement and I think that’s so important for us to be talking about explicitly is just what you were saying about survival, right? So I think, like, there are a lot of adults running around out there and not, oh, I don’t believe in myself. I don’t really love myself, like, that’s just another thing to beat yourself up about, right? If you’d like, don’t have that. 

But, can we just like pause and honor what you just said for a second, because like, if you are a child growing up in a family, that is very aggressive. It’s controlling, it abusive, even, if you did assert yourself in that situation, there would have been very severe consequences, right? You couldn’t do that at an earlier stage of life. Or if you grew up in a family where there was a lot of neglect, and there wasn’t anybody there to hear you to try to make that be different would have created an enormous amount of pain. 

So, I just want to honor and like, give a shout out to all those people listening to this, who did exactly what they needed to do. It was the right thing in order to survive those circumstances. Now, in this adult space, you get to decide how much power you have, and that’s different. Thank you for bringing that up.

Elise : Yeah, you get to decide what serves you and what is not serving you any longer, because you still can’t change what happened, but you can change how you think about it. If it’s not serving you anymore, where do you put that? Do I take it with you every day? Hopefully not. That’s what the process of coaching and counseling can really help with is, let’s set some goals. Let’s understand that backstory, and let’s help you build a toolbox that’s full of mastery that allows you to thrive and not just survive anymore.

Lisa : Now, I know that in your career, you’re a career development specialist. So, you’re really working a lot with people who are understanding themselves in that intersection of personal growth and professional development. Can you say a little bit about what you have noticed in your clients when it comes to their career domain between people who have that high self efficacy and internal locus of control compared to people who have low self efficacy or an external locus of control? What does that tend to look like with career?

Elise : Yes, that’s such a great question. Oftentimes, it is very evident when we first start working together where a client might be at in experiencing their own self efficacy. Generally, how I like to start off working with folks is, in a very first session, we do what’s called your career story. Again, that’s a very big theme today with me. I love the narrative aspect, because I want to understand your career beliefs specifically, and where you’re coming from. 

So with that career story, with folks with higher self efficacy, regardless of the ups and downs, the ins and outs of their career, they’re generally feeling excited and hopeful and ready to look for what’s next. That’s generally why folks will kind of come and work with me as a career counselor is hey, I’m ready for what could be next. What do we do? How do we do that? 

So, noticing their beliefs about, yes, okay, I’ve got some hunches about what I might want to do. I just need a little bit more clarity or a little bit of support in this area. Those often lead to higher self efficacy beliefs, and then we get to do some really great work to help them do that in whatever way makes the most sense. In that career story session with folks who might have a little lower self efficacy in career things specifically, I noticed a lot of just pain. 

Honestly, with my backstory is this. I’m only doing this job because it’s what I found. I was job searching during the recession back in the early 2000s, and I couldn’t find something, so I just landed here. Even folks with a pandemic, I haven’t found anything and it’s been months. Isn’t the great resignation a good sign? Why am I still not finding something? So, there’s a lot of that questioning. 

If I’m noticing a lot of that, my spidey senses internally are thinking, we might have some, some negative self thoughts that are impacting this career story, which is a sign of that lower self efficacy.

Lisa : But unlike kind of looking outwards, looking at external circumstances, and so here are all these reasons why I had to do what I did, as opposed to.

Elise : Yes, or oh, I don’t have the right skills on the job posting, so I can’t apply for this job, or I’ve never worked in this industry before, so I don’t think I’m going to be able to find a job. Fill in the blank. There’s lots of different reasons, especially career, which is a huge part of life.

Lisa : Yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. So would you say that those are, because that was another question, I mean, like, for people listening to this, how do you know where you kind of are on that spectrum of efficacy. Like, if you’re on the low end, is that one of the ways you would kind of be able to tell is almost like listening to yourself talk? Like, is it let me tell you about these 87 reasons why I can’t do something?

Elise : That can be part of it. Yeah, and one of the questions I love to ask folks to reflect on more as we begin career specific work, is what are some of your most prized accomplishments in your career? Oftentimes, again, if you have a hard time coming up with those, or even if you say, like, oh, I lead this really amazing training at some point, but then you have 12 reasons why it didn’t go well that follow your story of accomplishment. That can be an indicator of like, there’s something else going on beneath the surface here.

Lisa : Yeah. So you’re saying like, just cracking into that, like that mental filter, that inner narrative, and I’m glad that we’re talking about this too, because it can be very difficult to like know what that is. Like, we’re all kind of simmering in our own broth, and we aren’t like consciously aware of the things that we just sort of automatically tell ourselves. So, it can take some effort, but that’s one of the ways that you can understand how empowered you really believe yourself to be.

Elise : Yes, exactly. I think the other really important aspect to career specific self efficacy is also knowing yourself. If I ask clients, what are your skills or what are your strengths? Tell me about your dreams for your career. If those are really hard questions, then we often need to start in the self clarity phase of career work to understand who you are, and what those most amazing aspects are of yourself that you’re taking with you. 

Because as you get to know yourself, you’re taking your power back. You’re understanding, oh, I really love public speaking. No wonder I love doing presentations in my last job. Whereas before, they might have thought, oh, I didn’t like anything about my last job. So, we’re kind of picking the best pieces, and putting together that new story, while also developing clarity, which will naturally build efficacy and help folks move closer and closer to where they’re meant to be, and get out of their own way, too.

Lisa : I hear you and in that exploration, I’m just curious if this ever comes up. Do you ever find that there’s like a necessary balance sort of between that like self efficacy, believing in yourself, but also having a, I don’t want to use the word self doubt, but like the ability to I mean, because overconfidence is not necessarily good for people either. But, I guess if you had to choose, I’d go with overconfident like you can always back up, right? But how can somebody, I guess, assess between like what they’re thinking about like? Is this a reasonable caution? Is this an obstacle that I need to think about to overcome? Are these doubts that I’m having something that I should listen to? Or am I having self doubts because I feel somewhat helpless on the inside? How can you tell if it’s a reasonable obstacle or one that you’re kind of creating because you expect it won’t work anyway?

Elise : Right. Oh, I think that’s where it’s so tricky, because there might even be both happening. 

Lisa : Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s also true. Spoken like a true therapist. Both is the correct answer to most things.

Elise : Always in the end, right? I would say, honestly, if it’s more of this internal helplessness, that’s gonna show up pretty consistently as you’re thinking about career or about other aspects of your life. If it’s other types of obstacles, you might be thinking about it pretty consistently, but you might have ideas on what to do about it, or ways to learn about it. I guess to give a little bit more background on career specific self efficacy, this might help a little bit. 

There’s four different aspects that I’m usually assessing for and thinking about and whether it’s kind of that like deeper hopelessness, or like, oh, we just have some obstacles to overcome . Those four things are those mastery experiences that we’ve mentioned a couple of times, obviously, successful build it, and failure, or perceived failure will diminish it. If you’re having experiences of mastery, like you write a really awesome resume and you feel good about it, that’s going to help you build a little bit more to go over that obstacle of your resume was an obstacle. 

Another aspect is vicarious learning, which is where we actually form judgments about our own ability to do something based on watching others do it. So if someone has witnessed a parent, a family member or a friend, anyone go through a job search and have certain experiences, you might be taking that on and thinking, well, if they couldn’t find a job, then I’m not going to be able to find a job. 

If they didn’t get a good offer at the end of the interview, then I absolutely will not get a good offer. Or the positive could also be true. If someone has a really great experience and finds this awesome company, another person might say, “Yeah, I can do that. I can find a company like that, too, that fits me.” So, we’re always learning. The next one is social persuasion, which is about receiving feedback from others. 

Again, this can be both positive and negative. You can receive negative feedback that goes more into that helplessness feeling where you were told once that you don’t communicate well, and you feel like well, how am I supposed to interview if I’ve been told that I don’t indicate well, and that can really persuade you from doing what you need to do. Or if you receive great feedback about your communication to stay with the same example, you’re gonna feel like, yeah, this might be an obstacle right now, because I’m nervous going into my interview, but I can do this. 

I know, I can do this. And then, the last one is thinking about your physiological and affective states. So how are you literally feeling? How is your body responding in all of these situations? Sometimes, our body can totally work against us leading to some of that helplessness feeling. Maybe, you have some anxiety surrounding your performance or about your ability to make change, or maybe, you feel very energized by the process of change, but the way that you’re thinking about how you’re responding will also, I think, impact that helplessness versus, okay, that’s just an obstacle.

Lisa : So it sounds like there’s a change process that can happen through these different components of mastery over time. I think I also heard that sometimes the difference between this internalized helplessness versus an actual problem is how global it is. Do you know what I mean? Like, is it coming up in specific circumstances? Or is this what you usually do? Right? 

Like, cause, I mean, just, I was a biology major in college and for a little while, thought about going to medical school like to be a real doctor, which, of course, I didn’t because I do have tend to have like a high self efficacy, like, “Yes, I can.” I also had this realization over the course of obtaining a biology degree that I really probably couldn’t do or be successful, like organic chemistry, like some of the math. 

Like I’m not good at that, I’m good at other things, but it was like, pretty specific to that circumstance as opposed to a global, like, I can’t pursue higher education and go on to help people in a professional role. It was like that kind of difference. But you’re saying too, that the experiences that you have along the way through that mastery process can kind of shape that one way or the other.

Like the experiences that you have learning from other people, which kind of makes me think that you could use those points that you raised to kind of develop your sense of empowerment. Is that another piece of it? Like if you if you’re pretty sure, like, No, I think I probably can, but I’m talking myself out of it. The key would be to try to find that affirming feedback, try to find positive role models, try to find new evidence. Is that what you’re saying?

Elise : Yes, definitely. As I think about the process of self efficacy, especially with helplessness versus obstacles, I absolutely view it as you can be in either one of those books.

Lisa: Elise, where’d you go? Oh. So you guys, going to invite you behind the curtain of podcast production, the good, the bad and ugly. Elise and I were having the most wonderful conversation and continued to have a wonderful conversation without either of us realizing that her audio had stopped recording somewhere along the way, and so this presented an interesting conundrum when we found this out after the fact, because immediately it was like what to do. 

Since we first talked, I’m pleased to report that Elise has had her baby and is currently on maternity leave. So of course, I’m not going to pester her to re-record this with me. Then, I think I had a parallel process. I’m sure many of you are familiar with this experience. So, what do we do? Do we pretend like that was intentional and just roll out a 30 minute podcast, as opposed to our usual longer ones?

Pretend like it was on purpose. But then I thought, you know what, this is such a nice opportunity to really illustrate authenticity, which I know is something that we talk about a lot on the show. Also, I think it really relates to the topic that we were talking about, with Elise around the power of believing in yourself, and the power of being able to have something kind of go wrong. 

Have weird curveballs thrown at you, and really take it in stride. Use it as a learning opportunity. I still don’t know why Elise’s audio stopped working, when I’m going to figure it out. Also, though, that’s this idea, like, the main point of the entire conversation is that it’s gonna be okay. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t know exactly what you are going to be doing all the time. 

Things don’t go the way that you planned , and you can just try things and see how it goes. Just have this general expectation that it’s going to be okay, and that doing something, typically, is better than doing nothing at all. Certainly not trying to hide or avoid, or pretend to be perfect and infallible, rather than rolling with it. So, I trust you guys that you understand and appreciate this show, and everything that we’re doing here and are not going to judge me for not being perfect. 

So, I really appreciate that about our relationship, thank you. But, I also really wanted to communicate to you guys the rest of what Elise and I talked about. Elise had a number of really amazing points after the audio stopped rolling, and so went back through and thought about what we discussed and wanted to share the rest of it with you so that this episode is complete for you. Ideally, the way we do these is for them to be genuinely helpful for you. So, using my own imperfection as a model here.

The next thing that we talked about, interestingly, is that self efficacy is not about needing to be perfect, or believing that being good enough is actually about being perfect, right? True self efficacy and believing in yourself is believing that you have the ability to figure things out as you go. You do not have to have everything all planned out in advance. You don’t need to know exactly what is going to happen before you start taking steps forward. 

It’s like driving a car. You can only see a certain distance in front of you. You can’t see the whole route ahead. But, you trust that there’s a road ahead and if you encounter an obstacle or need to course correct, you can when you need to. You don’t need to spend a ton of time or energy thinking about what exactly is going to happen or how you’re going to handle it ahead of time. When you trust yourself of, “You know what, I am generally competent person.” 

When circumstances present themselves, I trust myself to be able to handle whatever those are in an appropriate way , so I’m okay. I could just stay in the present, because to get too future focused creates a lot of paralysis, right? When we are trying to close loops, when we are trying to make decisions about things that we legitimately don’t have enough information about yet, when we’re trying to solve possible problems far in the future, we cannot and it creates paralysis and a lot of self doubt and anxiety in the present. 

So, today’s podcast is a great example. I had no idea that was going to happen and it doesn’t matter. This can still be a nice episode for everybody anyway, right? The goal here with believing in yourself is really believing in and intentionally cultivating the ability to be flexible, to not fall apart when weird things happen, and to adapt to changing circumstances. So, that’s something that Elise and I talked about and I think is something worth reflecting on further as you’re listening to this today is, how do you feel, typically, when things don’t go as planned?

Do you feel like that creates a huge obstacle? Do you kind of fall apart and stop? Does it create paralysis? Or are you able to be like, alright, well, that didn’t work, what else are we gonna do, and kind of create an alternate route to the same destination. So, just thinking about how you typically handle those things will give you some insight into your current level of self efficacy, right? 

People who believe in themselves find another way when the door is locked, and therefore we will go through the window. That kind of mindset, which is worth cultivating. Really, I think spending time maybe thinking about moments in the past when you have been resourceful, when you have encountered an obstacle and figured it out. Maybe, it wasn’t the perfect outcome and it was still okay and that is meaningful. 

Thinking about resilience, I think is an important part of believing in yourself, how it’s not about avoiding problems or preventing weird or non ideal things from happening. That really personal power is being resilient in the face of them. Everybody experiences failure, rejection, disappointment, things not working out the way they hoped, and it is about managing that and being okay, anyway, that of certainly we can have feelings about those things. 

I will not lie. I had a surge of “Oh!” I found out the audio was broken, but, we recover. We move on. These are all ideas that you can really intentionally practice and cultivate. What is really neat is if you get in the habit of doing this, that every obstacle, setback, disappointment becomes an opportunity to increase your skills and competence and comfort and capacity in these really important areas. 

So, we are reframing this as a positive thing as Elise so insightfully shared in our conversation. Another really important thing that Elise and I went on to talk about, is around the power of habit, believe it or not, habits meaning the things that we do routinely, on purpose, sometimes not on purpose, the things we do routinely, and how they contribute to our feelings of either empowerment, or disempowerment. 

We talked about the fact that our habits are made up of these tiny daily choices that seem inconsequential on their own, right? Do you spend three minutes thinking about what you’re doing before you sit down for the work day? Do you put your clothes in the hamper or leave them on the floor of your closet? I mean, like, what do you do, tiny little things, and the extent to which they impact not just our life circumstances, and not just the way we feel, but really, over time, aggregate and accumulate into situations that have the power to shape our future and to shape our reality. 

Stay with me. But if you have low self efficacy, if you sort of believe that nothing matters anyway, and it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, then it is difficult to have motivation to maintain very small healthy habits. Because if they feel genuinely irrelevant or inconsequential. You don’t believe in your power to create the outcome that you want. So for example, there is no magic bullet when it comes to really creating big, long term, permanent changes in your life. 

So, health would be a good example. You could walk every day. You could eat a generally healthy diet, and really objectively not experience much of a difference in the way you feel day to day. Maybe some improvements but, you’re not going to miraculously drop 80 pounds overnight, right? And so, there isn’t a lot of evidence that what you’re doing is having much of a positive impact when it comes to stuff like that. Many things are like that. 

Relationships, you can deliberately try to be nicer and kinder and more polite to your partner in small ways for a couple of weeks. Particularly, if you have been in a negative relational system with them for a long time, it’s not really going to create a lot of immediate change, because they are stuck in a very powerful narrative about who they are and who you are, and what this is. 

It takes a long time to change that, or the support of a professional to kind of break through it more, more quickly. But if you don’t really have that confidence, and understanding in your own ability to create big changes through playing a long game , and have that ongoing confidence that the small things you do every day do actually matter, they do accumulate. They do create powerful change over time like that drop of water dripping on a rock, like a couple million years from now, will actually have enough power to create a canyon where that little drop of water is that sense of self efficacy. 

That power of believing in yourself is very much connected to these ideas of grit, of continuing to try in the face of not having a lot of immediate positive reinforcement, not having things be immediately gratifying. The other piece of this is that it’s very well known that accomplishing any long term goals requires little increments of work every day to create these outcomes rather than these big sweeping changes that rely on you doing extreme things or having these big bursts of motivation. 

But the other thing that is true, it is very much related to the self efficacy idea is that you can fake it till you make it with your habits. If you are intentionally cultivating a positive habit that you know is going to create positive change in yourself and your circumstances in your relationships over the long haul, you will be able to attune your thinking to see the small, incremental, very subtle changes that do actually happen day to day, and that are very easy to miss, if you are have already decided that it doesn’t matter anyway. 

In very real ways, we all choose what we want to see. What we experience, typically, matches our preconceived ideas of what is going to happen, right? So when you are cultivating a mindset of self efficacy, and an internal Locus of Control, you are kind of programming yourself to see these very small steps forward rather than interpreting the same situations as obstacles as setbacks. 

We’re seeing the positive impact of our efforts as opposed to the negative, and that’s really powerful. The other thing, the other reason why this is very, very important is that we change our perceptions of ourselves, through our behaviors and through our experiences. To a degree, we have to decide what we want to believe, right? Because we can’t do anything without having some of that. 

But, these decisions are supported by the things you observe yourself doing, and the things you experience is happening. It’s through these behaviors and beliefs that you change your story about who you are, like what kind of person you are and what you are capable of doing, because you are doing it. This is something that Elise and I talked a lot about, and and one of the resources that we mentioned in our conversation was the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear. 

Fantastic book and he talks a lot about this idea around how our behaviors really do change our self concept over time and that it is through our habits that we practice being the person that we want to be. So, behaviors have a lot of power. The point of that is that just taking action and doing the things that you would like to do, even if you don’t feel completely aligned with it. Just like that drop of water over time, it will change your self concept. 

It changes your ideas of who you are and what you’re capable of, so it’s incredibly powerful. I just offer that because many times with my clients that I see in therapy, or coaching, and Elise has the same experience. There’s this belief in our culture, this myth, that you have to feel positive. You have to want to do something. You have to feel good. You have to believe that you can, before you take action. 

That prevents a lot of people from taking action and therefore, becomes an obstacle to their experiencing themselves in a more empowered way. So just wanted to mention that. Related to that, Elise and I talked a lot about emotions and self efficacy and how they’re not the same thing. Feeling a certain way is not the same thing, and believing in your own power and ability to influence circumstances in your life. 

You don’t have to change the way you feel before taking positive action. You can feel really bad and do the right thing anyway, in every domain of your life. It’s okay to start by taking positive action, because a better emotional state will typically follow. Even if you’re a little dubious that it might, particularly, if you turn things into habits, and so you’ll feel better. Again, as we were talking about a minute ago, we will be changing your self concept in the process. 

I can be afraid and do hard things anyway. When you observe yourself living as a brave person, as evidenced by these behaviors, you become a brave person. It’s really cool, and it’s easier. It’s easier than we think, because it’s really rooted in behavior. Another thing is related to this. We also do need to find a balance between emotional self care and pushing ourselves too hard.

So right now, we’re talking about kind of one side of the coin, believing in yourself, doing hard things anyway, because they’re the right things to do. This also does require sometimes a great deal of discernment, and really like self awareness, to know whether or not the things that we want to do or want to achieve are actually in our best interests, and are actually the correct course of action.

Sometimes, the bravest and wisest and most important thing can actually be taking a step back to reevaluate our circumstances get reconnected with our values. Take a look at our habitual behaviors and our patterns to see and just double check. Are these in alignment with who I want to be? Are these going to carry me to a place that I want? Or have I accumulated over time a series of habits or mindsets that maybe are linked to action? 

Maybe, they’re doing something, but is it the right thing for me, and where it starts to get complicated is that we evolve over time. We change and our values change. The things that are important to us as people change. So, it is also very easy to get into habits, patterns, mindsets, that were very true for us at an earlier period of life, and that served a very positive purpose earlier in life, and that might not any longer. 

The things that were important to me and that carried me forward, and that brought value and meaning into my life in my 20s are extremely different than what is real for me in my 40s. You know what I mean? So, being able to slow down and take stock of that is also a very important part of believing in yourself, because when we’re checking in with ourselves: How do I feel? What do I want? Is this right for me? Where do I want to go? What do I need to do to get there?

When we’re having those conversations with ourselves, we are building trust in ourselves, not just to create positive outcomes, but like any relationship. When we’re asking ourselves, how do we feel? Is it good for you? Are you in the right place? What else could you be doing? What do you need to stop doing? Right? 

It’s like the experience that we have when we have an honest and emotionally intimate conversation with another person. When we feel heard, and understood, and people are being validating and responsive, it builds trust and security. We hope for that in our relationships with others, but genuinely believing in yourself and trusting yourself, requires you to be having those kinds of conversations, and understanding yourself on that level. 

That can be accomplished through things like journaling. It is also a huge component of therapy, or really meaningful coaching is that as you tell somebody like me, how you’re feeling, what you want. I’m asking you questions, kind of elicit that information. You’re not really telling me about those things. I am listening, of course. I’m receptive, but what I’m really doing is giving you the opportunity to hear yourself talk, to be understanding yourself in a different way, as you’re saying things out loud to me. 

So yeah, that’s a lot of the value of personal growth work and cannot be underestimated. So, I would encourage you to be spending time in that space. If your hope is feeling more confident and empowered and able to create positive change does need to be the right change. Then very lastly, the other thing that Elise and I talked about, was this idea that self efficacy is connected to compassionate self understanding. 

Like, we were talking about earlier in our conversation, you do not have to be a positive person. You do not have to feel good. You do not have to know exactly what’s going on. You can not be any of these things that I think we kind of hold as ideals, sometimes in our culture, and it’s related to this. Being an empowered person with a high Locus of Control, who believes in themselves has nothing to do with rejecting or pushing away any negative feelings that might come up for you. 

Through this process, it’s okay to have negative beliefs, to have this little voice in your head that tells you you can’t accomplish your goals, to feel overwhelmed, feel discouraged. Like, that’s all part of the experience. So, we’re not pushing any of that away. It’s about listening to those thoughts and feelings and attending to them compassionately, like understanding why they make sense, understanding where they come from, and also understanding that the things we think and feel don’t need to necessarily control us. 

We can have thoughts. We can have feelings, and we can decide to take various courses of action that are connected to our values and connected to our desired outcomes. That may be different than what our thoughts or feelings are telling us. It’s really that self compassion, that understanding of what are my habitual thoughts. What do I know are those old loops that I play in my head? And what have I learned over time is something that I habitually feel or think that may not actually be true? 

I don’t have to make myself stop thinking that but, I think I’m probably not going to let it control my behavior or my decisions. And then related to this, too, is really making an intentional choice to support yourself or surround yourself, rather, with supportive people who believe in you. The people that are around us, the things that are reflected back to us through our relationships are enormously powerful, and we tend to rise to the level of the people that are around us. 

So, to have people who believe in you, who believe in themselves, who communicate positive expectations of you, who would know that you’re capable of so many things will help you grow in that area and I think also help you develop a more compassionate and really respectful relationship with yourself. Of course, not everybody in our lives was gifted by virtue of their own life experience with that kind of ability that they probably didn’t get the support and compassion that they needed in certain times of their life. 

So maybe, they do have a more negative, self critical mindset that they then kind of project onto others. So, it is also not that we need to reject those people. We can also have compassion for them. But if you spend time with them, do have internal boundaries. Maybe, you’re still with them, and still love them and want to have a relationship with them, but be making kind of empowered decisions about how much influence you would like their perspective to have on your self concept, your life choices. 

If you don’t have a lot of that in your life right now, look for some. We started this episode with the most inspiring music Kutandara here in Boulder, and that is what they’re doing. They’re taking these groups of kids and like, here’s a xylophone, here little xylophone hammer things, and here’s how you do it. Yes, you can. They have that experience of being around supportive people who say, yes, you can. 

We’re going to teach you baby steps, here’s what to do. And then, they have experiences of witnessing other people around them doing it and being successful. They start experiencing themselves as doing it. And then all of a sudden, they’re part of this magnificent group who’s really creating beautiful music, not perfect music. Maybe sometimes, they get there and they don’t feel like doing it, and then they do it anyway. 

But over time, it really does shape their self concept. They feel empowered. They feel stronger. They feel more able, because of what they choose to do. So, I hope that this episode was helpful to you and thank you for rolling with me through the imperfection of this process, but this is what we do. This is what we all do. So, thanks again and I’ll talk to you next time. Bye bye.

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified coach, AAMFT clinical supervisor, host of the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast and founder of Growing Self.

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How to Believe in Yourself

Discover science-based tips to start believing in yourself..

Updated December 12, 2023 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

When we believe in ourselves, it can help us achieve our goals , manifest our dreams , and increase our well-being. But the flip side is also true. Lack of belief in ourselves means we are less likely to act, to change, or to push to make things better. In fact, when we expect we will fail, we are actually more likely to fail (Bénabou & Tirole, 2002).

That means that believing in ourselves is kind of like the key that turns the ignition and starts the car. We can't really go anywhere without it. Try as we might to push ourselves forward, we're blocked because our thoughts, attitudes, and actions aren't in alignment with our goals. So, we either don't do what we need to do or we sabotage ourselves along the way, sometimes in obvious ways and sometimes in unconscious ways.

So, how do you believe in yourself?

Believing in yourself includes things like self-worth , self-confidence , self-trust, autonomy, and environmental mastery.

• Self-worth is the sense that you have value as a human being.
• Self-confidence is a positive attitude about your abilities, qualities, and judgment.
• Self-trust is faith that you can rely on yourself.
• Autonomy is feeling able to choose and direct your own behavior.
• Environmental mastery is your belief that your efforts will result in the changes you desire.

These are some of the key components involved in believing in yourself. Maybe you struggle with just one of them or maybe you struggle with all of them. By understanding where your struggles lie, it'll be easier to start shifting your attitudes about yourself.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Ask yourself these questions to better understand if there are things that are getting in the way of you believing in yourself:

• Self-worth: Do you value yourself as a human being? Do you agree that you're no worse than any other person?
• Self-confidence: Do you feel good about your skills, strengths , and abilities? Do you feel good about your personal qualities? Do you feel good about your judgment and level of indecisiveness ?
• Self-trust: Can you rely on yourself? Can you trust that you'll do what you say you'll do?
• Autonomy: Do you feel free to do what you want to do? Do you believe that no one can stop you from reaching your dreams ?
• Environmental mastery: When you take action, do you believe that it will lead to the results you desire? Do you believe that you're able to get the things you want?

If you answered "no" or were leaning towards "no" to any of these questions, those are likely the areas that thwart your ability to believe in yourself. Spend some time thinking more about how you might shift these self-beliefs to believe in yourself more.

Change your self-talk

Once you've identified your unsupportive self-beliefs, question these beliefs by talking back to your inner voice . If you feel like you have no value, tell yourself, "You are a valuable, amazing, person who deserves to live a good life." Or, if you don't feel confident, remind yourself of your positive qualities and skills.

Positive self-talk like this has been shown to improve our performance (Tod, Hardy, & Oliver, 2011). By saying positive things to ourselves, we can start to rewrite our internal scripts. We can slowly but surely start to develop new scripts in our minds that are a bit more like cheerleaders and a bit less like jerks. And this helps us shift our beliefs.

Build self-trust

We often think of trust as something we have for others. But we can also have trust in ourselves. Having (or not having) this trust in ourselves has similar implications as having (or not having) trust in others. For example, when we trust someone, we're honest with them, we can count on them, and we are confident in them doing what's best for us.

So what might it mean when we don't trust ourselves? Well, maybe we don't want to be honest with ourselves because we're not sure what we'll do with that information. Maybe we can't count on ourselves to do the things we tell ourselves we'll do. Or, maybe we're afraid that we'll do things to harm ourselves instead of help ourselves.

It may sound odd when spelled out like this, but many of us do indeed have self-trust issues. For example, maybe we've told ourselves a thousand times that we are going to start exercising... but we never do it. So how likely is it that we'd trust ourselves to start a new exercise program? Not very likely.

Here are some tips to start building trust within yourself:

• Do what you say you're going to do. Maybe this means reducing your number of commitments, learning to say "no," or setting stronger boundaries . Experiment if you need to see what you need to do to stick to your word.
• Be honest with yourself. Engage in self-reflection to get to the truth of what you really think, feel, and need in life. Try not to focus so much on what other people want you to do.
• Do what you believe is right. Live your values and follow your inner compass. If you're on a path that is true to you, then it'll likely be easier to believe in your ability to walk it.
• Be clear. Get clearer about who you are and what you want. Know the things you are willing to do and the things you are not. That way you can trust yourself to make good decisions and communicate them effectively.

Believing in ourselves involves a bit more than just forcing ourselves to develop self-love and start pursuing our goals. It's more a matter of seeing where we're stuck and compassionately exploring how to get unstuck. Hopefully, these were some useful tips to get started.

Adapted from an article published by The Berkeley Well-Being Institute .

Bénabou, R., & Tirole, J. (2002). Self-confidence and personal motivation. The quarterly journal of economics, 117(3), 871-915.

Tod, D., Hardy, J., & Oliver, E. (2011). Effects of self-talk: A systematic review. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(5), 666-687.

Tchiki Davis, Ph.D. , is a consultant, writer, and expert on well-being technology.

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Self-Reliance: Believe in Yourself Essay

Self-reliance is a phenomenon where we can have personal decisions without external inference (Williams 26). It is the freedom to sustain ourselves and make personal actions without being forced to do so. In our lives, we do not usually have a free choice to rely on ourselves: We have laws to control us. Society gives traditions upon which our lives should be controlled. Our minds are usually subjected to the rules of society and thus we never follow our own instincts (Bloom Para.3). However, we need to realize the significance of self-reliance in order to realize our personal abilities.

Believing in my own thoughts is what I came to note as very important to determine my intelligence. Speaking out my covert opinion may one day be accepted by the people as a virtue. I have realized I don’t have to buy the ideas of previous humans; I can give my own idea. Ralph Emerson gives an example of Plato, Moses, and Milton whose ideas have been accepted the world over. Yet they were just humans like me. He writes, “We ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought” (Para.1). By avoiding depending on thoughts made by others, I attempt to make my own initiatives and reflect on my good decision.

Self-reliance has helped me to avoid imitation which has been killing my power to try. I have gained my confidence and I have learned that God created me for a reason. I have known that my expressions are equally important as it is God’s intention that I try new things without fear. Self-reliance is important because it helps me to relieve myself. I decide to think for myself, in innovation, and thrive with peace of mind. Emerson noted, “ man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best, but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.“(Para.2). although we have to accept our natural being, it is important that we confide our abilities within our minds. Despite this chaotic world, I shall advance to vast lengths because I have self-reliance.

When we are young, we are usually configured to principles we would otherwise oppose. Our elders usually think we are powerless. They fail to understand that we could still grow up to support ourselves so they feed us with societal norms. In turn, we never realize the need to pursue our thoughts. With self-reliance, I can rise above the desperate life that most people live. I can manage to avoid consumerism, which our society is so deeply plunged, and instead embrace nature. Emerson writes again that we need self-reliance, “so as to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…” (Para. 22).

Self reliance gives me a healthy attitude towards nature. As little boys would often do; I try out new things without considering the impact of my actions. Yet I remain independent in whatever I say. In a recent article in Living magazine, Anita Dembele (27) wrote that children, not knowing what others feel about it, usually have no fear to make their abilities put on trial. They often would play with sticks; build miniature houses with wires and even climb tall trees. In this case, they are not intimidated by the dangers of falling or being pricked- as their parents have warned them. With time, they learn that such attempts are not after all dangerous. They gain the confidence that I have found in the recent past.

To have self-reliance, we desist from conforming to delimiting conventions. Such are the prisons which everyone is barred from making free choices. Ralph Emerson (Para.7) adds, “Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.” Self reliance can free us to understand that we are our own nature whose control is our own conscience. To determine what is wrong from what is right; we only need to invoke our personal principles. We can wade through worldly antagonism by refusing to be misused by constricting customs of our society. “A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if everything were titular and ephemeral but him.” (Emerson Para. 8) In deed, self reliance has given me free mind and I live without regretting my decisions.

We can identify ways of living a unique life. Further still, Emerson (Para.11) continues, “It is harder because you will always find those who think they know what your duty is better than you know it.” Although it may be difficult, considering those who may always want to dictate what you should do; it is better to identify our own independent thoughts even when we live among a large population. This is how self-reliance helps can help us to create a niche of our own. We usually fear to adopt independence because our society judges us through past acts: We want to live by the way the society has always been. However, wise people must always try to seek successes through new ways. Self reliance can help us to adopt this innovation. Jeannette Williams (72) acknowledges that it can be worthwhile to defy societal values as long as we aim to achieve something. In this case, we realize to stand on our own and avoid following those who make institutions for us to follow. With self reliance, we don’t have to succumb to webs like marriage, schooling, or religion; if we don’t feel like we belong there. After all, Emerson (Para. 32) writes of societal constrictions: “All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.”

Generally, there is no one who can teach us better than what our Creator can do. We need self reliance to progress. Rather than being confined in retrogressive cocoons of principles made by past humans, we need to improve our societies. Self reliance will make us to appreciate what we have and appreciate our abilities to succeed.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. “Out of Panic, Self-Reliance.” The New York Times. 2008. Web.

Dembele, Anita. “What is in self-Reliance?” Living. 2009: 26-28.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” 2006. Web.

Williamson, Jeanette. Society and Individualism. Cologne: Zap Books.

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Essay on Believe In Yourself – 100, 200, 500, 1000 Words

Essay on Believe In Yourself: Believing in oneself is a powerful tool that can propel us towards success and fulfillment. In this essay, we will explore the importance of self-belief and how it can positively impact our lives. By having confidence in our abilities and trusting in our potential, we can overcome obstacles, achieve our goals, and ultimately lead a more fulfilling and satisfying life. Join me as we delve into the transformative power of believing in yourself.

Table of Contents

Believe In Yourself Essay Writing Tips

1. Start by brainstorming your beliefs and values: Before you start writing your essay, take some time to reflect on what you truly believe in and what values are important to you. This will help you to have a clear understanding of what you want to convey in your essay.

2. Create an outline: Once you have a clear idea of your beliefs, create an outline for your essay. This will help you to organize your thoughts and ensure that your essay flows smoothly from one point to the next.

3. Start with a strong introduction: Begin your essay with a powerful opening statement that captures the reader’s attention. You can start with a quote, a question, or a personal anecdote that relates to the topic of believing in yourself.

4. Provide examples and evidence: In order to support your belief in yourself, provide examples and evidence from your own experiences or from the experiences of others. This will help to strengthen your argument and make your essay more persuasive.

5. Use personal anecdotes: To make your essay more engaging and relatable, include personal anecdotes that illustrate how believing in yourself has helped you overcome challenges or achieve success. This will help to connect with your readers on a more emotional level.

6. Address counterarguments: Acknowledge any potential counterarguments to your belief in yourself and address them in your essay. This will show that you have considered different perspectives and strengthen your argument.

7. Conclude with a strong statement: End your essay with a powerful conclusion that reinforces your belief in yourself. You can reiterate your main points and leave the reader with a lasting impression.

8. Edit and revise: After you have written your essay, take the time to edit and revise it. Check for any grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, or inconsistencies in your argument. Make sure that your essay is clear, concise, and well-organized.

9. Seek feedback: Before submitting your essay, ask a friend, family member, or teacher to read it and provide feedback. This will help you to identify any areas that may need improvement and ensure that your essay is well-written and persuasive.

10. Believe in yourself: Lastly, remember to believe in yourself and your writing abilities. Trust that you have the skills and knowledge to write a compelling essay on believing in yourself. Trust in your own voice and let it shine through in your writing.

Essay on Believe In Yourself in 10 Lines – Examples

1. Believe in Yourself is a powerful concept that emphasizes self-confidence and self-assurance. 2. It is the belief that you are capable of achieving your goals and overcoming obstacles. 3. This mindset is essential for personal growth and success in all areas of life. 4. It encourages individuals to trust in their abilities and make positive choices. 5. Believing in yourself can boost self-esteem and motivation. 6. It helps to silence self-doubt and negative thoughts. 7. When you believe in yourself, you are more likely to take risks and pursue your dreams. 8. It is a mindset that can be cultivated through positive affirmations and self-reflection. 9. Believing in yourself can lead to greater resilience in the face of challenges. 10. Ultimately, having faith in your own abilities can lead to a more fulfilling and satisfying life.

Sample Essay on Believe In Yourself in 100-180 Words

Believing in yourself is the key to success in any aspect of life. When you have confidence in your abilities and trust in your decisions, you are more likely to achieve your goals and overcome obstacles. Self-belief gives you the courage to take risks, push yourself out of your comfort zone, and pursue your dreams.

Believing in yourself also helps you to stay motivated and focused when faced with challenges or setbacks. It allows you to bounce back from failures and learn from your mistakes, rather than giving up or doubting your capabilities.

When you believe in yourself, you radiate positivity and attract opportunities and success into your life. Others are drawn to your confidence and are more likely to support and believe in you as well.

In conclusion, believing in yourself is a powerful tool that can help you achieve your full potential and lead a fulfilling and successful life. Trust in your abilities, stay positive, and never underestimate the power of self-belief.

Short Essay on Believe In Yourself in 200-500 Words

Believing in oneself is a powerful tool that can help individuals overcome obstacles, achieve their goals, and ultimately lead a fulfilling life. When we have confidence in our abilities and trust in our own judgment, we are more likely to take risks, push ourselves out of our comfort zones, and pursue our dreams with determination and resilience.

One of the key benefits of believing in oneself is the ability to stay motivated and focused in the face of challenges. When we have faith in our own capabilities, we are more likely to persevere through difficult times and setbacks, rather than giving up at the first sign of trouble. This resilience is essential for achieving success in any endeavor, as it allows us to bounce back from failure, learn from our mistakes, and continue moving forward towards our goals.

Believing in oneself also helps to build self-confidence and self-esteem. When we trust in our own abilities and judgment, we are less likely to seek validation and approval from others, and more likely to make decisions that align with our own values and beliefs. This self-assurance not only boosts our self-esteem, but also helps us to assert ourselves in various situations, stand up for what we believe in, and take control of our own lives.

Furthermore, believing in oneself can lead to increased creativity and innovation. When we have confidence in our own ideas and abilities, we are more likely to think outside the box, take risks, and explore new possibilities. This willingness to experiment and try new things can lead to breakthroughs and discoveries that can propel us towards success in our personal and professional lives.

In addition, believing in oneself can help to cultivate a positive mindset and outlook on life. When we have faith in our own abilities, we are more likely to see challenges as opportunities for growth and learning, rather than insurmountable obstacles. This optimistic attitude can help us to stay motivated, focused, and resilient in the face of adversity, and ultimately lead to a happier and more fulfilling life.

In conclusion, believing in oneself is a powerful tool that can help individuals overcome obstacles, achieve their goals, and lead a fulfilling life. By trusting in our own abilities, staying motivated and focused, building self-confidence and self-esteem, fostering creativity and innovation, and cultivating a positive mindset, we can unlock our full potential and reach new heights of success and fulfillment. So, believe in yourself, trust in your abilities, and never underestimate the power of self-confidence.

Essay on Believe In Yourself in 1000-1500 Words

Believe In Yourself

Believing in oneself is a powerful tool that can help individuals achieve their goals and overcome obstacles in life. It is the foundation of self-confidence and self-esteem, and it is essential for personal growth and success. When we believe in ourselves, we are able to take on challenges with courage and determination, and we are more likely to persevere in the face of adversity. In this essay, we will explore the importance of believing in oneself and how it can impact our lives in a positive way.

Believing in oneself is not always easy, especially when faced with doubts and insecurities. It requires a strong sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance, as well as the ability to trust in one’s own abilities and potential. When we believe in ourselves, we are able to set ambitious goals and work towards achieving them, even when others doubt our capabilities. This self-belief gives us the confidence to take risks and step out of our comfort zones, knowing that we have the strength and resilience to overcome any obstacles that may come our way.

One of the key benefits of believing in oneself is the ability to stay motivated and focused on our goals. When we have faith in our abilities, we are more likely to stay committed to our dreams and aspirations, even when faced with setbacks and challenges. This inner drive and determination can help us push through difficult times and keep moving forward, no matter what obstacles may arise. Believing in oneself is like having a constant source of motivation and inspiration that fuels our actions and propels us towards success.

Another important aspect of believing in oneself is the impact it can have on our mental and emotional well-being. When we have confidence in our abilities and trust in our own judgment, we are less likely to be swayed by the opinions of others or be affected by external factors that may try to bring us down. This inner strength and resilience can help us navigate through life’s ups and downs with grace and poise, and it can help us maintain a positive outlook even in the face of adversity. Believing in oneself is like having a shield of protection that guards us against self-doubt and negativity, allowing us to stay focused on our goals and remain true to ourselves.

Moreover, believing in oneself can also have a positive impact on our relationships with others. When we have confidence in our abilities and trust in our own judgment, we are more likely to attract like-minded individuals who share our values and beliefs. This can lead to stronger and more fulfilling connections with others, as we are able to communicate our needs and desires with clarity and assertiveness. Believing in oneself can also help us set boundaries and stand up for ourselves when necessary, ensuring that we are treated with respect and dignity in all of our interactions with others.

In conclusion, believing in oneself is a powerful tool that can help individuals achieve their goals and overcome obstacles in life. It is the foundation of self-confidence and self-esteem, and it is essential for personal growth and success. When we believe in ourselves, we are able to take on challenges with courage and determination, and we are more likely to persevere in the face of adversity. By cultivating a strong sense of self-belief and trust in our own abilities, we can unlock our full potential and live a life that is truly fulfilling and meaningful. Believe in yourself, and the possibilities are endless.

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Essay Samples on Believe in Myself

How i freed myself from diabetes: strategies and action plan.

Diabetes has become a nightmare for diabetic patients. This menace is making its roots strong in todays world. This disease has been taking colossal amount of national health budget. With the passage of time the number of diabetics are increasing. According to a report, an...

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My father always to say to me: “if you want people to know you without telling them your name, first you must courage yourself to do something that they won’t”. Im too obsessed with that words and that give me courage to myself to further...

Best topics on Believe in Myself

1. How I Freed Myself From Diabetes: Strategies and Action Plan

2. What Does It Mean to Be Successful: a Change in My Mindset

3. Discovering My True Self: Embracing Confidence, Self-Belief, and Personal Growth

4. Life As a Shadow: Being a Younger Sibling

5. Ideal Depiction Of Me: I Believe In Myself On Football Field

6. Believing in Myself and My Dreams

7. My Journey Of Learning To Love My Body And Believe In Myself

8. Importance Of Believing In Myself During My Study Days

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• The Incredible Power of Believing in Yourself

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Nowadays in a world of mistrust, betrayal, and grievances, self-belief plays a vital role in any person’s life.

With huge expectations and trust given to other people, we sometimes rely on the wrong ones and tend to feel guilty for such mistakes.

Fear of being betrayed by those we chose to believe often forces us to rely only on our own hard work, abilities, and potentials.

For achieving success at anything in life, we should focus more on ourselves and develop the strongest self-belief.

Only this can empower the highest level of performance and productivity to help us reach our life goals.

When the belief is strong, we can perform better and smarter.

This applies to every aspect of life (business, education, athletics, relationships, and personal growth).

What we believe will either limit or empower us.

Self-confidence is considered the best way you feel about your skills, behavior or appearance.

Those with high confidence and self-belief levels not only solve problems quickly but also believe that they can complete any assignment to a good standard.

Self-confidence means having a lot of faith in yourself and knowing how to use it to reach your goals and dreams. On the other hand, it can represent the way people project themselves to others.

And what many people don’t understand is the fact that they don’t have to feel too confident in their appearance in order to look confident to others.

Every person has his own fears to deal with – some of them are just hiding it better in need of showing good self-esteem and presenting the more beautiful image of themselves.

By seeming more confident to others, their self-image improves.

This protection method gives people a good feel of comfort and safety even out of their comfort zone.

LACK OF CONFIDENCE

“The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can’t are both right” – Confucious.

The world we’re living in has an epidemic of low self-esteem and a lack of self-belief.

We are all familiar with its effects on how we think about ourselves and the way we approach and react to difficult situations.

At some point in our lives, we allow negative feedbacks and feelings to undermine our confidence and negatively affect our performance or success.

Lack of self-belief and confidence often has many negative consequences, leading to very unpleasant feelings and thoughts. We feel uneasy and shy, sometimes uncertain of what we want or who we are. T

here’s a sense of worthlessness and inability to enjoy and relax in many situations, as we’re losing a sense of direction in life.

Limiting beliefs change our outlook, so everything seems different or unpleasant. Feeling of not being smart or good enough triggers a need for validation in any aspect of life.

Of course, there will always be something to confirm such negative disposition.

We lose the ability to open up to express our opinion, thoughts, wishes or feelings, starting to feel distant and “out of this world”. We remain silent when we shouldn’t, letting others chose our path or determine if we’re good enough or not.

A lack of confidence also leads to mistakes and failures in one’s career .

This keeps people in their comfort zones with little risks because there is no more feeling of safety and privacy out of it.

They become inflexible when it comes to new opportunities and positions.

There is no place for progress and improvement.

It’s a huge risk for a person’s motivation and it kills self-esteem over time. It also becomes difficult to communicate assertively, leading to the minimized effect of what you’re trying to say.

The discomfort during the speech makes you talk too much when it’s not necessary, so others have no time to think of the key point of your idea.

This will not convince people that your idea is worth considering since you sound unprofessional. You can be seen as a weak player.

Moving on to health issues – low self-esteem often leads to mental health problems such as depression or anxiety . Negative opinions about yourself will have bad effects on your relationships, leading to a feeling of loneliness and abandonment.

Not only you are not able to show up as the best version of yourself, but you don’t know what the best self looks like as well.

Maybe you tolerate toxic relationships too long, not standing up for yourself when it’s needed.

But what causes low self-esteem?

We know there are numerous factors, including peer dependence, physical and stage presence, social and status confidence, etc. In some cases, we tend to back up to our comfort zone , feeling disrupted for showing a small lack of confidence or courage.

According to clinical psychologist Dr. Lars Madsen , it’s frequently coming from abusive and dysfunctional early years, which effects can persist even in adulthood.

On-going stressful life events can also be the cause, and the most often ones are relationship breakdowns, financial issues, being bullied and similar.

Here’s a list of the most important consequences of low self-esteem , confidence, and belief, all summed up:

• Negative feelings such as constant self-criticism, sadness, anger, shame, guilt and many more.
• Relationship problems like tolerating all sorts of irrational behavior from a partner, or even being the one who bully or disturb the partner.
• Fear of trying, which means that people may doubt their worth or avoid challenges and problems.
• Becoming perfectionist by pushing themselves to their limits and becoming an over-achiever.
• Avoiding activities that involve other people (this includes all sorts of events), in order to be free of judgment and criticism, because they are afraid they could be negatively judged. These people are always stressed around others and never feel comfortable enough.
• The belief of being hopeless.
• Decreased self-care and neglecting themselves (for example, by drinking too much alcohol).
• Self-harming by eating disorder or in worst case suicide.

It is good to know that a lack of confidence isn’t necessarily related to one’s lack of ability.

Moreover, low self-esteem is often a result of focusing way too much on some unrealistic expectations or others’ standards.

Friends’ social power in shaping our thoughts and feelings about ourselves is sometimes too strong to resist.

WHY IS STRONG SELF-ESTEEM IMPORTANT

“If you believe it, the mind can achieve it” — Ronnie Lott.

By being full of self-belief and confidence we provide ourselves with greater enjoyment of life in general, becoming comfortable within new situations and people.

Facing challenges is then easier and we are getting excited about opportunities like never before.

A great sense of achievement appears, leading to our goals faster and easier. We feel respected by other people and can handle well many social situations by ourselves.

Believing in ourselves helps us feel sure of what we want and who we are anytime.

In fact, since our self-image is usually made of self-confidence and self-esteem, it gets better when we improve these two factors.

Self-image encompasses the impressions and opinions you have of yourself such as appearance, skills, abilities, success, career, intelligence and many more.

Confidence is a key factor in most aspects of life, and that includes our work too.

From those who just started out to those who are running big companies, for every one of their confidence is crucial for career success.

Strong sense of self-belief enables us to be proactive, assertive and focused at the workplace.

This will also positively affect your communication with co-workers and help you sound professional as you are.

Here are some useful tips on how to build confidence at work .

The positive impact that strong self-esteem brings will make you open up for far more life opportunities than ever, leaving you with numerous choices that will determine your future success. The benefits are countless.

As a matter of fact, in order to start making those changes you strive for, you must truly believe in yourself. You’re more likely to accomplish something with a positive mental attitude.

You’ll start making progress once you understand the power of body and mind working in harmony.

The advantage of confidence improvement techniques based on positive thoughts is incredible – you don’t need to know the result of an action; you simply must believe that you can and your body will follow along .

It takes a lot of practice achieving such a connection but the outcome is worth it.

PRACTICE BELIEVING IN YOURSELF

You should understand that nobody is born with limitless confidence.

They all worked hard on building it for years because no skill gets built overnight.

It will take you some time to achieve stronger self-esteem from positive thinking, comfortable relationships and plenty of practice of course.

Source:   The Dunning-Kruger Effect

The challenging world of business and life in general sometimes makes us struggle to obtain these amazing traits.

This is why we offer you a useful guide on how to build your self-esteem and strengthen belief in yourself.

Remove Negativity from Your Mind

People often tend to behave according to their own self-image, so having a negative image of themselves will lead to decreased confidence and self-respect. The only way to fix the problem is to change how we see ourselves.

As we pay attention to the negative thoughts, we should work on turning them around to positive ones.

Affirming ourselves is the best way to achieve this.

Affirmations are positive uplifting statements we can say to ourselves to feel better in any aspect.

They are even more effective if said out loud so that we can ourselves saying it and feel the meaning.

If there is anything from our appearance, behavior or personality we don’t like, we must find a little part of it that we respect or even like, and compliment it.

Our brains accept these positive statements and turn them into a positive image of ourselves.

It is also confirmed that questions about the things we’re good at are more effective than just statements.

So, for example, instead of just saying “I’m a good teacher”, ask yourself “why am I such a good teacher?” When you have to explain to yourself your positive sides, you’re increasing your self-image instantly.

Maintain a Positive Support Network

If negative feelings toward yourself still keep coming, stop doubting your abilities and evaluate your inner circle of family and friends.

Check if negativity is coming from another source.

If some of those closest to you are causing your lack of confidence and self-respect, you may want to step back from such relationships. It doesn’t have to be permanent – just a short break will make a positive step towards building stronger confidence.

On the other hand, connect more with those who make you happy and don’t make yourself question your own abilities or value.

Take some time to think of all the people you know and help you have positive feelings about yourself.

Make a goal to spend more time with supportive and positive friends rather than those who constantly criticize you.

Don’t Let Failure Beat You

Sometimes we all go back to go forward because the road to success is mostly hard and tough.

Don’t give up on every step you made a mistake and accept the failure.

There is a solution for nearly everything, so what makes you think your problem is unsolvable?

Failures are one of the reasons why we stop respecting ourselves.

In those cases, we forget all the things we did well and mainly focus on what went wrong.

This is when our confidence decreases.

But while you focus on your mistake, think of what could have been done to prevent it.

Find a lesson if possible and save it for the next time.

Never let one wrong turn make you think you’ll never have what it takes to achieve your goals and dreams.

Change the Body Language

How you react to different situations, your behavior and body language usually illustrate how much confidence and belief you have in yourself. You can build your confidence by simply changing body language and movements.

If you look more confident to others, you’ll feel more confident yourself.

Start with the right posture, good eye contact, and smile of course.

Smile in combination with shoulders high and back reflects confidence.

Everyone feels more comfortable around those who are smiling – others feeling more pleasant around you is a great confidence booster for you.

Accept Compliments Gracefully

People with very low self-esteem get it difficult to take compliments.

They are not satisfied with their appearance, so they assume that the person complimenting them must be lying just to be nice.

If you find yourself responding to compliments with sarcasm or by rolling your eyes, then you need to work more on confidence-boosting.

But if you can’t find anything valuable on yourself, think of the parts others were complimenting.

Honest or not, take the compliment to your heart and respond positively.

You’ll both feel more comfortable if you let that person know how much you appreciate it. Smiling and saying “thank you” works fine so far.

Help Someone

Helping others in need enables people to forget about themselves and their issues, just by knowing that they don’t have a certain problem another person is dealing with. They feel more grateful for what they have or the problems they don’t.

Also, it’s good to know that you made a difference in someone’s life.

The feeling of someone needing your help is an instant confidence booster. Instead of focusing on your weaknesses, try to help, volunteer, mentor or teach others and you’ll see your self-esteem growing in the process.

Do Things That Scare You

 “If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.” –   T. Harv Eker .

If you think that people who are self-confident are never scared, you’re totally wrong. We all have fears.

Only for some people, they do not represent limits of their abilities or success, but challenges to become a better self in the future.

The best and only way to overcome fear is not running away from it but facing it head-on.

It doesn’t matter if you’re afraid of public speeches, introducing to new people or asking the boss for a raise, this works for all of them.

Do something that scares you every day to gain confidence from those experiences.

It can seem unpleasant or embarrassing at first, but as soon as it’s over the feel of relief and pride will boost your belief in yourself. Get out of your comfort zone and confront what you fear!

Identify Your Talents and Skills

Every person is good at something.

Sooner or later we all find that one thing we’re better at than the others, but it takes some time to look for it.

Think of all your interests, and if you don’t have any, try new things to find what you like. Discover your talents and skills and focus on them more than the rest.

You should give yourself permission to take pride in your talents and express yourself through them.

What you enjoy and you’re good at will certainly help you increase your respect for your abilities.

Through your talents, you’ll feel unique and accomplished because you’re following your passion for the things you enjoy.

And not only that you’ll become more confident, but there are chances you’ll meet compatible people with similar interests, who will have a positive impact on your self-esteem.

On the other hand, skills and talents are not the only things you should be proud of.

Think of all aspects that make your personality great. It could be your empathy, sense of humor, listening skills, ability to work under pressure and many more.

You might think there is nothing valuable about personality, but we assure you that there must be something worth admiring, even if others never get a chance to see it.

Dig deep and find some admirable qualities you’ll be proud of. Writing them down should help focus on them better.

Make a List of the Things You’re Proud of

If you’re feeling overwhelmed sometimes having it difficult to keep up the self-belief, try writing down everything you’re proud of in your life.

It can be a list of the things you are grateful for, or a list of accomplishments, no matter how small they are.

When completed, pin the lists up somewhere close to you, where you’ll be able to see them regularly.

They will remind you of how successful you already are.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

In order to build your self-esteem, you have to focus on improving your life for the better, not on making it more like your friend’s or like those of the celebrities appearing on television.

It’s your life we’re talking about, not others’.

What you must know is that there will always be someone prettier, smarter or richer than you, but also someone less intelligent or attractive or wealthy than you are. It is time to accept that and move on.

You can’t be anyone else but you.

Other people’s lives are irrelevant for your confidence building; what is relevant is caring for reaching your own goals and dreams.

Don’t be convinced that everyone else has better chances of achieving them than you do.

At the end of the day, the only thing that will matter is if you’re happy with yourself and what you achieved.

Additionally, studies have found that spending too much time on social media can encourage people to compare themselves with other users.

They tend to think that everyone is better than them, but the real truth is that we only post our triumphs instead of the realities of daily life.

This doesn’t mean everyone else enjoys life more than you do.

We all have ups and downs, some of us are just hiding them better while others are exposing them.

TEST YOURSELF

How self-confident are you really?

This 5-minute quiz is made to help you determine if you’re having trouble with a lack of confidence and insecurity.

Answer honestly with only YES or NO, count the answers and find your results down below.

Question 1: Do you handle new situations with comfort and ease?

Question 2: Are you able to go against popular opinion if you don’t like it?

Question 3: Do you make big decisions by yourself?

Question 4: Are you comfortable with other people’s achievements?

Question 5: Do you appreciate all your positive sides?

Question 6: Is failure an opportunity for growth and improvement?

Question 7: Do you achieve the goals you set for yourself?

Question 8: Do you feel comfortable giving a speech in front of the camera or a huge audience?

Question 9: Can you tell your boss you disagree with him?

Question 10: Are you OK with being criticized and judged?

The results:

0-3 questions answered with NO:

Strong self-esteem helps you roll over all challenges in life with ease. You’re not easily hurt by negative judgments and won’t get crushed by others’ opinions. You believe that every goal set can be achieved as long as you keep working on it.

Nothing can stop you from getting what you want. But be careful with your courage – before making a serious life-changing decision, make sure it’s a good one.

4-7 questions answered with NO:

You have a lot of confidence and courage as long as you stay in your comfort zone. Once you reach out, they get lost and you forget why you’ve even started. Work less on planning your goals; work more on making them closer.

Even if you’re only taking baby steps, it’s better than just thinking of doing it. Remember that you have all the power you need, just learn how to use it. Work more on your social skills to upgrade your confidence and form a nicer picture of yourself.

8-10 questions answered with NO:

There are certainly a lot of things out there you regret you’ve missed by keeping yourself safe and secure, hidden from the scary, hurting world around you.

Your lack of confidence, self-belief, and courage causes you a lot of stress and panic when you’re forced to make a decision, go against the majority or just approach your future goals.

Stop living the life you don’t feel comfortable in and take some small steps to make it better. Learn what you’ve been doing wrong and do something to change these habits.

There is an infinite number of decisions, meaning that you’re always just one step away from a totally different life. With every new day, you get a new chance to turn things in a different direction.

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