How to Believe in Yourself
It's easier to succeed if you believe in yourself. True confidence can make you resilient to the challenges of life. Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you'll ever have. If you aren't in a place where you are 100% confident in yourself, you can work on it. Below are 10 tips on how to believe in yourself.
Know yourself. To believe in yourself, you must know yourself well to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. If you have not thought about yourself in these terms, you can ask people close to you and perform a personal SWOT Analysis. Before you can sufficiently believe in yourself, you must know yourself well. Here is a link to a personal SWOT analysis worksheet you can fill out: Personal SWOT Analysis Worksheet
Solicit feedback. Feedback is a great learning mechanism, especially if you like to pivot your actions to attain goals. But be careful who you ask for feedback and know where they are coming from. Do not take criticism personally. Instead, use it as a tool to improve yourself. Be wary of anyone telling you flat out that you can't do something or giving you extreme advice. They probably aren't the right people to solicit accurate feedback from.
Healthy perspective about your setbacks. Do not relive your setbacks or failures. This kind of baggage can weigh you down. Instead, adopt beneficial introspective tactics, learn from these obstacles, and improve despite them. Don't allow setbacks or failures to define who you are. When you encounter setbacks, feel them and let them go. Do not carry them around with you forever.
Have high standards. High personal standards are necessary to improve yourself and your life. Remember that you are a human being and thus prone to errors and mistakes. If you can learn from these failures and mistakes, then you win. Don’t get discouraged when you fail. Don’t beat yourself up for making a mistake. It’s part of the process.
Know your value. It's good to remember that you have value even if no one else can see it. You will want to adopt a mindset that places significance on knowing your worth. Remember that your thoughts shape your world, so think about the value you add to the world, your work, your family, and your life. Everyone on earth, no matter their situation, has value—everyone counts, including you. Never sell yourself short.
Not everyone will like you. That's a simple fact. You do not have to assign the people who don't like you more value than they have. We tend to focus on the negative; this is true regarding what other people think of us. I like to remember that if someone does not like me, that says more about them than it does me. That's their problem, not mine. Also, what people think about you is entirely out of your control, so why try to control their perspective? What people think about you is none of your business. Just do your thing; the right people will see you the right way.
Know you have faults. As a human being, you have flaws; we all do. You will also have strengths. There are different philosophies for how to handle our misgivings. What's always worked for me is to focus on my strengths while recognizing that my faults also require my attention. Devising a constructive strategy for how to improve your faults is empowering. Imperfections can be worked on and enhanced with the right amount of hard work and enthusiasm.
Know you are bigger than any setback. It would be best to believe you are bigger than any setback or problem you encounter. This belief is especially true in the midst of hard times. I love words. Words motivate and remind me of my core values and principles, so I use quotes to keep me going during tough times. If you ever come to my house, you'll see I'm a big fan of visual cueing. I often write out my favorite quotes or specific phrases from these quotes on Post-it notes and display these around my house to keep me motivated and inspired throughout the day. These signs remind me of my strength and who I am.
If they can do it, so can you. Remind yourself that if other people can do something, so can you. You may need to figure out another route to succeed than others to get to where you want to be, but ultimately if they can do it, so can you. Be agile in your approach to getting where you want to be.
Define success. What does success mean to you personally? Defining success on your terms rather than adopting societal norms for success is helpful. It's important to define success in your words so you can set your goals appropriately rather than relying on the world to tell you what you must have to succeed. One person's idea of success will differ from other people's. Your version of success should differ from others because it is your own. There is no one size fits all version of success. If your life doesn't mirror other people's lives, that shouldn't bother you because you understand the version of success you're working towards.
