“Love is nourishment for the soul. Just as food is to the body, so love is to the soul. Without food, the body is weak. Without love, the soul is weak.” ~Osho
To believe in yourself is to have confidence. When you have confidence, you are able to have faith in your ability to create. If you lose a job and you have confidence, you know that another job that is even better is on the way. If you lose a relationship and have confidence, you know that an even better partner will soon come into your life.
It is when we don’t have confidence that things perceived as negative depress us because we don’t believe in ourselves to create more of what we want.
Believe that you can attract what you want. Believe that you have everything it takes to have what you want. Every single person on the planet is made up of the same “stuff.” We are all made the same way. But the people who have confidence and really believe in themselves are the ones who experience success, wealth, happiness, joy, freedom, and self-love.
So how do you believe in yourself? The good news is that self-confidence can be learned. It is like the example of trying to play golf without ever having a lesson: how do you know where to even start if you’ve never done it?
Belief in YOU Playsheet:
Step 1: Preparing for Your Transformation
The first step involves getting yourself ready for your new level of self-confidence. You need to take stock of where you are, think about where you want to go, get yourself in the right mindset for your journey, and commit yourself to starting it and staying with it.
In preparing for your journey, do the following things:
Look at what you’ve already achieved.
As Tony Robins says, “Success leaves clues.” We need to start focusing on what we want to expand in our lives. Think about all the things that you have achieved up to this point in your life. Write a list of ten of the best things you have already had success with and write them down in a Success Log. It doesn’t matter if it is receiving the highest score on an exam, or simply passing an exam or certification. Maybe it was the fact that you played a key role in an important team, had the highest sales figures during a specific period of time, accomplished a project, or something you did that made a difference in someone else’s life. These are all successes and you need to start recognizing them as such!
Put these successes into a document that you can look at often. Then spend a few minutes each week enjoying the successes you’ve already had! Remember, based on the Law of Attraction, what you focus upon expands. We are so accustomed to criticizing ourselves and rarely give ourselves credit for all that we have already accomplished. When you can witness what your past successes have been, you will attract more of them.
Think about what’s important to you and who you really are.
What do you want to achieve with your life? Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? There is nothing that you can’t be, do, or have. You just have to believe that you can have it. You have to have confidence. Having confidence takes practice. You have to fake it until you make it. The authentic confidence will come!
Ask yourself these questions to take a look at who and where you are:
What are my strengths? (Make sure that you enjoy a few minutes reflecting on your strengths!)
What do I do well?
What unique resources can I draw on?
What do others see as my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
What could I improve?
Where do I have fewer resources than others?
What are others likely to see as weaknesses?
What are my opportunities?
What good opportunities are open to me?
What trends could I take advantage of?
How can I turn my strengths into opportunities?
What are my threats?
What trends could harm me?
What is my competition doing?
What threats do my weaknesses expose to me?
Think about where you want to go.
Setting and achieving goals is a key part of building self-confidence. Goal setting is the process you use to set targets for yourself and to measure your successful hitting of those targets. Goals give your life direction and help to eliminate the feelings of being lost. Having set the major goals in your life, identify the first step in each. A tip: Make sure it’s a very small step, perhaps taking no more than an hour to complete!
Start managing your mind.
At this stage, you need to start managing your mind. Learn to pick up and replace the negative self-talk which can destroy your confidence. When you observe a negative thought, say, “Stop. Cancel.” Then replace it with a positive and empowering thought.
Learn how to use visualization to create strong mental images of what you’ll feel and experience as you achieve your major goals. There’s something about doing this that makes even major goals seem achievable! It’s also a very strong part of the manifestation process. When you can FEEL what it is that you desire, that is when the Universe will match the energy and deliver it to you.
And finally, commit yourself to success!
The final part of preparing for the journey is to make a clear and unequivocal promise to yourself that you are absolutely committed to your journey, and that you will do everything in your power to achieve it. If you find doubts starting to surface as you’re doing it, write them down and challenge them calmly and rationally. Doubts are feelings that come from negative and limiting thoughts and they can be changed.
Either way, make that promise!
Step 2: Setting Out
Here you start, ever so slowly, moving towards your goal. By doing the right things, and starting with small, easy wins, you’ll put yourself on the path to success – and the self-confidence that comes with it.
Build the knowledge that you need to succeed.
Looking at your goals, identify the skills you’ll need to achieve them. Then look at how you can acquire these skills confidently and well. Look for a mentor, coach, or a program that can help you to achieve what you want. If you would like information about Quantum Success coaching, you can email Theresa@christywhitman.com for more information. Everyone who has achieved great success always has a coach. You need someone who will help you get to the next level. You want someone who has a proven system and has already achieved the kind of success and happiness that you desire.
Focus on the basics.
When you’re starting out, don’t try to do anything clever or elaborate. And don’t reach for perfection—just enjoy doing simple things and do the best you can.
Set small goals, and achieve them.
Starting with the very small goals you identified in Step 1, get in the habit of setting goals, achieving them, and celebrating that achievement. Don’t make goals particularly challenging at this stage—just get into the habit of achieving them and celebrating them. And little by little, start piling up the successes!
Keep managing your mind.
Stay on top of that positive thinking, keep celebrating and enjoying success, and keep those mental images strong.
And on the other side, learn to handle “failure.” I put that word in quotes because there really is no failure. “Failure” or “mistakes” are just opportunities to learn and grow. If you look at your life and every situation as an opportunity to grow and expand, you will have a very positive outlook on life. When I was separating from the eight-year relationship with my husband, I viewed it as a success. I grew a lot from that relationship. I worked through a lot of my old issues of abandonment and insecurity through that relationship. In my mind, it was a complete and absolute success. It was just time to move on. From our soul’s perspective, everything we do is an opportunity for us to become more expanded. When we “fail” or “make mistakes,” it’s an incredible opportunity to learn something. But, try not to make a habit out of it. Learn from others who have already learned those lessons. Accept that when you are learning something new, there is going to be a trial and error process. In fact, if you get into the habit of treating “mistakes” as learning experiences, you can (almost) start to see them in a positive light.
After all, there’s a lot to be said for the saying, “If it doesn’t kill me, it makes me stronger!”
Step 3: Accelerating Towards Success
By this stage, you’ll feel your self-confidence building. You’ll have completed some of the goals you started in Step 2, and you’ll have plenty of success to celebrate!
Now’s the time to start stretching yourself. Make the goals a bit bigger, and the challenges a bit tougher. Increase the size of your commitment. Also, extend the skills you’ve proven into new—but closely related—arenas.
