Let me ask you something;

Do you find yourself seeking validation from people around you? How do you respond to the compliments and admiration from your friends or acquaintances? To what extent do the thoughts of inadequacy or incapability take space in your head? How often does self-doubt strike you? How often do you pass on an opportunity saying that ‘I am not good enough for this?’ 

In view of the answer to these questions, you can easily analyze your position on the scale of self-belief to know where you do stand. Let’s get to know about self-belief, where does it originate from, what kind of thought and behavioral patterns degrade it and how we can rebuild our self-belief to ensure success.

What is self-belief?

Self-belief, as the name implies, is about believing in one’s skills, and abilities. It is about having confidence and trust in one’s behaviors for daily life routine as well as in tough situations. It is about how you put faith in yourself to perform well, no matter what the circumstances are. It is your constructive approach to what you are and how you act. In general, people with a strong self-belief appear more confident, resolute, and optimistic. They tend to enjoy more self-reliance and independence.

“With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”

 Dalai Lama

On the contrary, people who lack firm belief in themselves do not get to perform confidently or face challenges head-on. They remain unable to recognize their innate potential to excel in life. They relate to themselves more negatively and consider life events not going in their favor. They start relying on others for their own happiness and success and lose control over their own life.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

How does self-belief influence your health and wellbeing?

Various scientific studies have considered negative thinking and self-blame the main predictors of psychological diseases and cognitive disorders. Not to forget the harmful potential of such chronic problems on physical health and quality of one’s life. You enjoy better overall health when you deal with stress and difficult emotions owing to your self-belief. Consequently, it improves your relationships with others and creates a harmonious environment for you and everyone around you.

How does self-belief influence your decisions and actions?

With self-belief, there comes confidence, self-efficacy, self-reliance, motivation, and hope. Aren’t these the components of a fulfilling and blissful life? When you trust your inner capabilities and don’t fear what is ahead of you, you tend to think clearly, make better choices and act accordingly. Your work performance and commitment to tasks improve. In short, your exponential growth patterns start with your strong belief in yourself that you are capable of being great.

What are the factors that attenuate your self-belief?

If you want to master a trait, learning about the don’ts is equally important as learning about the dos. Given below is the list of a few common factors that shatter or invalidate your force of self-belief.

• Seeking perfection
• Over-thinking
• Self-sabotaging thoughts
• Inappropriate or lousy behaviors
• Over dependency on other/s
• Not taking control of your life in your hand
• Lacking self-compassion
• Being around lazy, uninspiring, or empty-headed people

Practices like these create an illusion in your mind that great things are not for you or you are not good enough to take such a big chance. Thus, you start running in the opposite direction of your actual path and stay unaccomplished.

What measures should you take to cultivate or rebuild stronger self-belief?

Whether you have to freshly cultivate the crop of self-belief or regrow the challenged and weakened plant, it requires some critical steps to be taken in this regard. Let’s dive in.

Change the way you think

How often do you consider thinking other than the way you think? Have you done that lately? Surprisingly, a little change in thinking pattern can give you a whole lot of new perspectives about yourself and other people or situations. Likewise, your self-limiting thoughts, even unintentional, can change your entire reality over time. As Thomas Jefferson’s famous quote goes, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

Altering your thinking pattern and challenging your previous or traditional thoughts can be arduous. But you can start it with empowering self-talk. Ask yourself ‘Is there another way of overviewing this situation?’ ‘What other aspects of this scenario am I missing?’, ‘How can I make something better than before?’ and so on. Learn how to tune in with your intuition because you have all the answers within you. Putting it in the words of Dr. Benjamin Spock, “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”

 By recognizing your thinking patterns and considering changing them, you allow your unpolished self-belief to get adorned and solidified. Let go of the ‘What if it didn’t work or I cannot’ mentality. The major breakthrough will be the realization that it was your weakened belief in yourself and low self-esteem that caused you to undermine your potential and think small about yourself. You will see that this paradigm shift is going to considerably change your results.

Set SMART goals

Goal setting is always a great idea to improve any area of life and get closer to success. With regard to self-belief, goal setting is actually a practical demonstration that you believe in yourself to the extent of making things happen. However, make sure that your goals are SMART i.e. Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. When you are clear about the specific goals that you want to achieve, tag them along a defined timeline, and measure your progress to evaluate your performance; your belief in yourself automatically boosts up. Lastly, make sure that your goals are realistically achievable, or else it will lash back on your foundational self-belief. Unrealistic goals such as revolutionizing your whole organization or influencing global affairs won’t let you get anywhere since they challenge your firmly established self-belief. Instead, goals such as getting done an unfinished long overdue paper and hitting the submit button very likely improve your self-belief irrespective of the response you receive after submitting your paper because you tried at least.

Calmly evacuate your mind of doubts and unproductive thoughts

“No one can make you feel inferior but yourself”

Eleanor Roosevelt

Clearing your headspace of unconstructive thoughts is as important as filling it with empowering thoughts. Because you cannot effectively strengthen your self-belief unless you don’t get rid of the beliefs mentioned formerly. Not only do they hinder your progress but also stop you from jumping onto big opportunities in life. It is those impressions about yourself that rob your self-belief. They can appear in any form, for example;

• I am not worthy enough on my dark days.
• I need to act perfectly, nothing less.
• Everyone’s approval is important to me.
• I need to be worthwhile to love and be loved.
• Since I play fair, I must always be treated fairly.
• I must keep proving myself through my performance. 
• Things should go the way I planned, deviation from which is upsetting.

Clearing such thoughts is a demanding process that requires you to sit with yourself on a daily basis and probe such thinking. Take time to learn how they originate. Pay attention to the current or past experiences that have not been helpful. Find the factors that initiate and help such thoughts grow. Learn how you can prevent them from growing because they do not serve any purpose. Eliminate the negative. If you find yourself ruminating on negative outcomes or instances, break that chain of thoughts right away. Turn to some healthy activity to shift your focus. Read your favorite book, dive into your favorite melodies, or talk to a good friend.

Nonetheless, be aware that it won’t happen in a week or so. It is an ongoing practice of being mindful of your unproductive thoughts and feelings and taking gentle measures to ward them off at the first sign of their appearance. 

“Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”

T. Harv Eker

Practice considering the bright side of a situation while being realistic

Viewing situations the way they are while looking at the positive aspects, is a wonderful quality of real achievers. Through this, you learn to find the blessing in disguise, the gain in loss, and the victory in defeat. For example, you get to focus on the lessons after an unwanted event rather than the unsuccessful outcome. What opportunities does a challenge carry and how can you identify which one is best for you? If you miss a chance or fail in a competition, how do you not let your self-belief get down? Interestingly, this approach towards living delays the emergence of physical health issues and favors inner peace and longevity.

Repeat positive affirmations daily

Reading, listening, writing, or viewing affirmations for success, confidence, and self-belief have always been the impressive habits of elite performers. Positive self-talk and affirmations foster a more optimistic inner voice. There is no single exhaustive list of positive affirmations that fulfills everyone’s requirement of self-belief, the following list, however, can be helpful.

• I am confident and I value my expertise.
• I am learning and growing every day.
• I trust in my skills and abilities.
• I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.
• All I need to succeed is within me.
• I have what it takes to overcome the challenges.
• I let go of limiting beliefs and choose to trust myself.
• My power is unlimited. And so does the opportunities around me.
• I am committed to creating my dream life every single day.
• I am giving my best and I aspire to add more to it.
• I believe in what I have got and express my true self with ease.
• I am in full control of my life and I refuse to do otherwise.
• I do not need validations from others.
• I release negative self-talk and unworthy thoughts 

Express confidence from your actions

It is undoubtedly true that unwavering confidence is the driving force one needs to accomplish almost anything. It is one of the key elements of one’s success, happiness, and well-being. You are highly likely to go far when your masterstroke is backed by eminent self-confidence that, in turn, is backed by strong self-belief. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe says, “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

Here, the question arises; how to bolster self-confidence? The answer is pretty simple. There is no magic formula for improving confidence overnight. It starts with ‘fake it till you make it.’ In the words of William Jennings, ‘The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.’ To enlist the steps; work on your body language and express your self-belief through your actions that. Improve posture and make eye contact. Start interactions with a smile and positive expressions. Be fully present in the current moment and express yourself eloquently. By tapping into your inner self-confidence, you can augment your self-belief and let it guide your way of success.

“It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures.”

Oprah Winfrey

Learn to embrace compliments, appreciation, and appraisal comments wholeheartedly

A common practice has been observed among people that they hesitate, deny, or partially agree when someone compliments them. It also demonstrates little belief in one’s inner capacities. You got to admit what you have got. And that expression has to be out loud. Therefore, next time you receive a genuine compliment from your colleague, confidently say ‘yes, thank you.’ It will train your subconscious mind to strengthen the process of self-belief even more.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reward yourself for the smallest wins

Taking action for accomplishing goals based on your firm belief in your abilities is a great way to strengthen self-belief. To further cement it, start celebrating smaller wins –things you accomplish each day, tasks that you do for yourself and others, finished projects and met deadlines, etc. Each time you accomplish something, it provides a positive reinforcement that changes the way you view yourself moving forward. By rewarding yourself after each accomplishment, your productivity grows along with your self-belief. It triggers the dopamine centers of your brain that are associated with happiness, excitement, and satisfaction. This, in turn, puts you in the cycle of accomplishing more each time you appreciate your performance with a simple reward.

Practice self-compassion

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”

Oscar Wilde

Self-compassion is the trait that goes hand in hand with self-belief. Self-compassion is about developing an understanding and showing kindness for one’s actions. It is about showing love for one’s efforts and encouraging oneself even if the outcome doesn’t fall as has been expected. With self-compassion, you acknowledge your imperfections and positively embrace them. You get along with the fact that perfection is merely an illusion and allow yourself to live a fuller life. You no more limit yourself owing to your shortcomings and leverage your strengths to shine bright.

Final takeaway

To conclude, self-belief starts out small and builds up gradually each time you take a productively courageous step. Each time you choose not to fear, procrastinate, or overthink, you learn to trust yourself. 

Let’s take a decision today to replace our self-sabotaging thoughts with an ‘I got this’ attitude. It is time you break the shell of false and negative assumptions about yourself and start believing what you got. Yes, you have to grab the next presented opportunity to outgrow your older self because now you have a firm belief in yourself.

It is time you explore your potential and use it to the best of your capacity. To your surprise, you have the capacity to amaze yourself with the ability to do great things which you believed you can’t. As Thomas Edison beautifully says, “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”