Should you always believe in yourself?
A surprising number of people might answer ‘no’ to this question. And to me, this is a very sad fact.
I heard a quote not too long ago that I thought was very profound.
“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.”
— Christian D. Larson
I wholeheartedly believe in this.
See, goal setting and achievement is a process that requires us to overcome obstacles.
But some people see the obstacles—and instead of believing that they have the power to overcome those obstacles, they actually stop believing in themselves instead.
So today, I’d like to make a case for why you should actually always believe in yourself, especially if you’re dreaming big dreams, turning those dreams into goals, and then writing them down to create a roadmap for success.
The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of humans are far more capable of BIG success than they give themselves credit for.
I’ve never yet met a human yet who wasn’t capable of doing amazing things.
So when the rubber meets the road, there’s really only one thing that can truly hold us back:
Our own limiting beliefs.
Of course, there are obstacles in life—and some of these obstacles are massive.
Some people have to deal with truly massively challenging problems, hurdles, and barriers in life.
And don’t get me wrong. This can be extremely frustrating, discouraging, and difficult. I would never try to minimize another person’s suffering, because suffering and hardship are very real things that all humans deal with in life to at least some extent.
However, I also firmly believe in the power of humankind to overcome anything we’re willing to work toward.
And in this post, I’m going to give you five reasons for why I believe you should always believe in yourself.
5 Reasons To Always Believe In Yourself
1. If You Believe In Yourself, Anything Is Possible
I truly believe this statement with all of my heart.
Now, keep in mind that there is such a thing as a goal that may be impossible to achieve.
For example—you might say that you believe it would be impossible for me to will my hands to fill magically with goal coins, using nothing but my imagination and the air.
And honestly, I would agree with you!
But this lies at the extreme end of the spectrum.
The other day, one of my students told me a story.
He said that he once met a second-grade student who was passionate about discovering the secret to unlocking human telekinetic powers.
This kid would spend about an hour a day trying to move things with her mind.
She practiced and practiced.
She even got on the internet to research some of the ‘alleged’ cases of other people being able to accomplish this, in the hopes that she might stumble upon the ‘secret’ that would allow her to unlock such a mystical (and obviously useful) power.
But alas. The months came and went—and eventually, the little girl abandoned the goal.
She never said it was impossible. Instead, she described it like this:
“I just got bored and tired of trying.”
To some of us, the idea of unlocking telekinetic powers and being able to move things with our minds may seem like a truly impossible goal.
And maybe it is.
However, people also believed that Galileo, Isaac Newton, and the other early physicists and scientists were completely wrong about everything they believed in as well.
And in the end, these truly visionary people ended up discovering elements of science that we used to truly believe could only be accomplished through an ‘imaginary power’ like magic.
Heck; Galileo was literally arrested and convicted of heresy for teaching his theory that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around.
What I’m trying to get at here is that there’s a difference between impossible and truly visionary.
However, this line is blurry.
And sometimes, it’s difficult to know for sure if what you’re trying to accomplish is actually possible or impossible until you push it far enough that you actually make it happen.
How far should we be willing to go with this?
Well, that’s a question that you can only answer for yourself.
If you have a vision for something, even if it seems far-fetched—and if you come up with a plan that makes it seem like it could possibly be achievable…
Well, then maybe it is achievable.
By contrast, if we never try to accomplish the things we really care about, then we definitely won’t succeed at them.
There’s really a risk-reward analysis to be done in each individual case.
There’s also the factor of ‘passion’ and ‘purpose’ to figure into the equation.
I.e., if you care very much about something, you’re probably going to be willing to risk more to try to make it happen—at least, you’ll be willing to risk more than you’d be willing to risk if you didn’t care about it.
But this risk-reward analysis is up to you.
At some point in our history, someone discovered fire.
They discovered that they could not only utilize fire as a tool, but that they could also create it—seemingly ‘magically’ and from nothing; just by rubbing sticks together.
This probably seemed impossible to many of the earliest of our ancestors.
And yet, someone accomplished it.
And it completely revolutionized our world and future forever.
The moral of the story here is this…
You never know what’s possible if you don’t actually try to see through.
There’s obviously some risk to this—but you may end up surprising yourself.
2. You Can Achieve Big Things In Life
Can you achieve anything if you believe in yourself?
I wholeheartedly believe the answer to this question is yes.
Case in point, I once had a goal-setting student who didn’t believe that he was capable of starting his own business.
Week after week, he would try to get his business off the ground and running.
But his sales were so small and pitiful that he constantly felt like giving up.
Every single week, he would ask himself:
“Should I keep trying to do this? Is it even worth it?”
However, the problem wasn’t that his vision for the business was wrong.
In sitting down with me and going over the issue, it became obvious that the problem was that he just wasn’t applying the proper goal-setting principles to his plan.
See, he had a vision of what he wanted to achieve.
But it wasn’t very specific.
And it also wasn’t very measurable.
He didn’t have a fully fleshed-out business plan, and that really hurt his outcome because he ended up doing the wrong things at the wrong time—which hurt his efficiency.
Plus, he wasn’t placing deadlines on some of the work he was doing, which really hurt his overall progress in the long term.
Why?
Because it led to him not prioritizing the proper things.
When we use SMART goals to help us achieve big things in life, we usually end up making far more progress than we ever thought possible.
So we dove into his goal-setting skills, and set him on the path to setting the proper long-term goals for himself and his business.
We also taught him how to break his larger goals down into smaller goals, and how to use a planner to help him stay focused every day.
Not only did his first business end up being wildly successful within a relatively short timeframe, but he also went on to start a second business—and that business is growing fast as well.
He went from having absolutely zero faith in himself, to succeeding nearly beyond his wildest dreams—all because he learned how to turn his dreams into goals, write those goals down, and create a roadmap to success.
That’s not a bad outcome, right?
3. Limiting Beliefs Only Hold You Back
What would happen if you believed in yourself more?
Here’s the thing.
Some people harbor limiting beliefs about themselves, but they disguise these beliefs in their own minds as them being realistic about the ‘most probable outcome.’
But these are two different things.
Of course, being realistic is useful.
We want to think about the world in ways that make sense.
We want to try to accurately predict what the outcomes of our actions could be—and in order to do this, we have to operate within a basic framework of the rules of our world.
However, it’s also important to understand that limiting beliefs don’t really have anything to do with defining reality.
Limiting beliefs are things that we believe about ourselves, that cause us to take suboptimal action in the pursuit of achieving our dreams and goals.
For example, one very limiting belief that new business owners often have is that they don’t believe that they can charge a higher rate for their products/services than what they charged when they were first getting started.
Small business owners hate raising their rates.
Why?
Because they think that they’re going to price themselves out of everyone’s budget.
However, the fact of the matter is that this fear actually comes from a limiting belief of scarcity.
Whenever you’re pricing a product or a service for business, you always want to think about pricing according to the value it’s bringing to other people.
If you offer a truly life-changing product to someone, you should reflect that value when you choose the price point of the product.
Of course, you need to do some real-world calculations as well.
You need to take your target customer’s budget into account.
You also have to take into account what the competition is charging, how many other options are available, etc.
However, the overarching premise here is that a lot of people struggle with limiting beliefs.
And sometimes, these limiting beliefs even hold them back from making real progress when they do succeed at the things they set out to do.
When we eliminate limiting beliefs in life, we can actually enjoy and benefit from our successes.
Whereas when we place such limiting beliefs on ourselves, we’re going to hold ourselves back.
This can be so frustrating.
And yet, it’s such a big, big problem for so many people.
4. When You Believe In Yourself, You Give Yourself Your Greatest Odds For Success
What are you if you believe in yourself?
Are you arrogant? Or are you actually being positive and optimistic?
Some people really struggle with believing in themselves.
They struggle with the idea of believing that they’re capable of doing big things.
Some of this is due to a phenomenon called impostor syndrome, where people don’t believe that they deserve the success that they could potentially achieve for themselves (or are achieving for themselves).
But some of this is strategic.
For example, sometimes people don’t even try at what they really want to achieve because they don’t believe that they’ll be successful.
The truth of the matter, however, is this:
Yes, there may be obstacles in the way. But if you actually apply yourself and really try to succeed, you’ll also greatly increase the odds that you will succeed.
Far too many people overlook this very common probability shift.
And yet, it’s so powerful.
5. When You Believe In Yourself, You’ll Be More Authentic
There’s an old saying:
“Be yourself and believe in yourself.”
I’m not sure who originally said it, but Bruce Lee was quoted as saying something quite similar:
“Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it.”
What does authenticity have to do with any of this?
Well, when you choose to act authentically in life, you fully utilize all of the unique things about you that make you different from other people.
Some people see this as a weakness and are actually afraid of it.
But it’s actually a massive strength.
Our uniqueness is what sets us apart and makes us different.
And as long as your plan for success encapsulates goals that are well suited to your unique personality, characteristics, talents, and traits—well, that’s really a winning formula for success.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has helped you to understand why you should always believe in yourself, starting today.
Of course, at the end of the day, this is just another part of the larger, overarching process of turning your dreams into goals, and writing those goals down to create a roadmap for success in your life.
This is how you begin your journey to success and crush it.
Need some help? Download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.
You can also sign up for my email list to get a free copy of my Goal Setting Essentials Starter Kit.
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Now it’s time to get to work.
Best wishes…
Jay O’Donnell