Risk Believing in Yourself

One risk worth taking, is to believe in yourself. To believe in yourself does not mean to think you are always right; it does not entail a self-defensive stance of pride, which only gets in your way and masks you from the truth. To believe in yourself does not include feeling superior to others. Actually, believing in yourself prompts you also to believe in others, as well as life.

To believe in yourself means to believe that there is good in you, that you have important qualities and abilities at your disposal, which are still being developed. To believe in yourself means to give yourself new chances, fresh starts to prove whatever it is you need to prove to yourself. And we all have things to prove to ourselves. You do not have to be the best at something to feel self-satisfaction; you just need to give it your best, to do your best.

To believe in yourself means to be your best friend, rather than worst enemy. And at the heart of friendship is the encouragement to keep on keeping on.

The thing is, if you don’t believe in yourself, you will likely not be able to prove to your own satisfaction, what it is you are capable of doing. Success in life is built on faith in oneself. The risk-taking that can lead either to great failure or great accomplishment is fueled by the belief that you can actually do the things you have set out to do. It is fine to fail; we all do. The problem with failure is not failure but the loss of belief in yourself, which would incite you to give up trying. Success is follow-through, which usually begins with false starts and failures.

If you will not believe in yourself, you will not accept anyone else’s belief in you. You may need to become your own mother and father. You may have to risk believing in yourself in ways your parents may not have believed in you. Only by so doing so, can you go forward and become the person it is in you to become.

An untitled poem by Mario F. Fernandez speaks powerfully about taking the risk of believing in yourself:

“What are you so frantically looking for? / Where are you going? / When are you planning to get there? //
If you only knew what is truly right, / If you had the vision and the dedication / If you did not wander away from your path / If you had done this or that… //
What are you waiting for? / Who, if not yourself will get you there? / Who is holding you back? / Why do you rely so much on others/ and not enough on yourself? //
The answers you are looking for are within you. / The strength to go forward is in your spirit. / Do not let it go to waste. / Begin now, this moment. / The next minute in your life/ could be the beginning of a brand new you. // … If you choose.”
One of the songs in the musical, How to Succeed in Business, Without Really Trying, is titled, “I believe in you.” The singer sang it to himself. I confess that I have voiced those words to myself prior to giving a speech. And it actually helped my delivery.

I challenge you to silently voice those words to yourself, until you really believe in you, even if only momentarily. Then go and do. You just might surprise yourself by positive outcomes.