
Believing in yourself:
Believing in yourself is a key factor in staying positive and developing self-esteem and self-love. Use this one question to easily train yourself to…
Automatically bolster your confidence…
Leading to a stronger belief in yourself…
Leading to a deeper love for yourself…
Leading to more success and happiness in life!
And its happiness we’re seeking, right?
Well, believing in yourself gives you a foundation for ultimate success in life because you know you can rely on yourself to do whatever it takes to make your dreams come true…
And when your dreams come true…
You’re happy!
Okay, so what’s the one question that starts the process of instilling more confidence in yourself?
“What did I do right?”
Sounds simple, yet most of us miss it. Ask yourself, “How many times have I automatically ‘apologized’ for myself without thinking twice before the words came rolling out?”
If you’re like most, that answer is a depressing, “Lots of times.”
Yet, you can’t help it because your mind naturally defaults to the negative. Now, I know, that’s not something we want to hear, nor do we want to believe, yet when I heard positive psychology lecturer say that our minds default to the negative…
It made sense. Think about it…
To say good things out loud about yourself goes “against the grain.”
It’s seen as arrogant or prideful. So, we continually “discredit” ourselves to avoid standing out from the crowd…
Constantly apologizing for ourselves “out loud.” This creates an “internal map” of discrediting ourselves because that “internal map” follows what we “announce” verbally to the world…Our brains are also “wired” to think critically…
It’s just the way they’re built.
Which makes the task of believing in yourself take extra focus and effort to cultivate, but it can be done, and we’re going to cover a few things that help you right now.
So, “What Did You Do Right?”
Let’s look at that question, plus a few others, that sets you up mentally to start believing in yourself more and more.
How to really believe in yourself?
Ways To Really Believe In Yourself Change your outlook.
Look at how you talk to yourself.
Reward yourself for your accomplishments.
What are the benefits of believing in yourself?
Advantages of Believing in Yourself
It leads to a focused life
It helps you achieve all the goals
It makes you more productive
It allows you to take risks
It helps you remain positive
Why You Should Believe in Yourself
1. Believing in yourself inspires others to believe in you. 2. Believing in yourself boosts your confidence. 3. Believing in yourself reinforces tenacity. 4. Believing in yourself inspires you to take action.
Believing in Yourself
“WHAT DID I DO RIGHT?”
Now that I’ve brought the “discrediting yourself” issue to your mind’s attention, you’ll be noticing it when you begin disparaging yourself…That’s the first step: To notice…
Step 1: Become aware that you’re about to say something negative about yourself (internally or externally).
Step 2: Stop mid-sentence or mid-thought and ask, “What did I do right?”
Step 3: Congratulate yourself! This is a great exercise to strengthen your “believing in yourself” muscle.
Why?
Because it trains your perception of yourself to “default” to the positive.
For example, if your habit right now is to continually “badger” yourself over something you “perceived” that you did wrong, you are automatically programming yourself to default to not believing you can do something.
By shifting your response to “What did I do right?” you can re-set your default response to an, “I’m okay feeling.”
And when you reinforce it with congratulating yourself, you create a positive mind frame which does two other things…Enhances your belief and confidence in yourself every time, and Puts your mind in a very nice receptive state for another question…
Believing in Yourself
“HOW CAN I IMPROVE?”
Now that you’re in an “I’m okay” state of mind, your “defenses” are down and your creativity muscle opens up…
This puts you in a better place mentally and emotionally to figure out ways to improve. All of this helps in maintaining positive attitude and staying positive, but more importantly, it’s fundamental to developing self-esteem.
You’ll also notice that once you’ve given “permission to your critic” to talk, he/she will be kinder to you…
It’s like you gave your “critic” space to be creative and heard and be a part of who you are instead of letting him/her “run the show.” Your critic may put up a fight because he/she isn’t “top dog” anymore, but that’s okay. Let your critic throw its fit. It’ll get over it.
You’re integrating the different parts of yourself together.
To work as an internal team.
Keeping balance among them.
Believing in Yourself
“WHAT DID I LEARN?”
Life asks us to constantly change and adapt. By asking “What did I learn?” you’re promoting a positive mindset…Which in turn helps you in maintaining positive attitude…
Which in turn helps you in believing in yourself…
Which in turns helps you in staying positive!
It’s a great cycle to get rolling because it will gain momentum.
How?
Your mind will not only learn to default to the positive, but your body will become addicted to the new thoughts. By starting our sequence of questions with “What did I do right,” you’re initiating a positive mind and all of its powers and benefits.
Now when you ask, “What did I learn?” you continue expanding your neural pathways…
Because every time you learn something, your brain responds by building new neural infrastructure to support the learned behavior.
Pretty cool, huh?
Our brains adapt…No matter how old are you, your mind is very powerful and can be reshaped according to what you feed it.
Which means that your brain will continue to adapt as you ask the fourth question…
Believing in Yourself
“HOW HAVE I INCREASED MY
BELIEF IN MYSELF?”
Again, you’re pointing your mind toward looking for and actively searching for the positive, which is building new neural networks to support even more positive thinking and a stronger belief in yourself!
In fact, you’re actually programming yourself to look for ways to “find evidence” as to why you can believe in yourself.
Here’s an easy exercise to do:
EXERCISE:
Once a day (or whenever you need a boost), ask yourself to name five things that you did “right” that day or the previous day…And give yourself permission to find anything at all. Like getting out of bed. Brushing your teeth. Not yelling at the dog! And be aware of the secondary voice that will come up and say, “Oh, of course you got out of bed… You have to go to work, etc.”
Ignore it…
Instead, acknowledge that you got out of bed because you choose to go to work because you choose to have enough money to live, because you want to eat…
Get the point?
Everything is a success in the beginning…. Everything!
All of these acknowledgments are self-esteem affirmations that shape a more positive picture of yourself…
To yourself! And then congratulate yourself. I know it sounds silly, but I’m always catching myself saying, “Good person” It’s automatic for me now.
Don’t wait for others to acknowledge you…
You acknowledge you!
After a while, this process becomes a very fun game. You’ll turn it into a treasure hunt to find better and better things to acknowledge that you did so you can congratulate yourself again!
Once you’re finding really cool things to feel successful about, you can add the other questions I’ve posed above. In the beginning, though, it’s better to just start out with the one question.