11 ways to believe in yourself
In business and your personal life, self-confidence is a prerequisite for taking massive action. You need to believe in yourself – in your abilities, skills and passions – to take the leap into entrepreneurship or any other aspiration. Believing in yourself is the lynchpin of exceptional leadership, because self-confidence lets you manage and inspire others with assurance and direction.
When you think of it this way, answering the question, “Why is it important to believe in yourself?” is easy: Learning how to believe in yourself is critical to creating the life you desire.
Self-belief requires a holistic strategy. You must take control of your thoughts and feelings so you’re able to reach your peak state. It also entails building up confidence in your abilities as well as falling in love with yourself – the parts of your personality, perspective and experience that make you uniquely you.
1. Change your perspective
At the core of self-belief is realizing that you – and only you – are the driver of your own success. This is where personal power is built: in claiming agency to overcome challenges in your life. Believing in yourself isn’t about uninterrupted success. It’s about being able to move on from failure quickly. To do that, you must change your perspective on failure. Tony has said, “I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.” This is his top tip to believe in yourself: See failures as opportunities, not obstacles. Learn from them, get up and achieve your goals.
2. Conquer your limiting beliefs
Asking how to believe in yourself opens the door for a deeper question: What are the beliefs that are causing these emotions in the first place? Negative emotions like self-doubt or anxiety are deeply connected to the opinions we have of ourselves based on our life experiences. They’re your brain telling you that it’s time to examine these limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones. But that can be easier said than done. One way to get started is to focus on your self-talk – the words you choose when you speak to yourself. According to the Mayo Clinic, positive self-talk can help your coping skills, improve psychological well-being and even increase your lifespan. So the next time you catch a negative inner monologue, change your self-talk by replacing those comments with positive thoughts.
3. Practice self-love
Self-love is the basis of self-belief. If you don’t love yourself, how can you ever learn to have faith in yourself? And if you don’t know yourself, how can you ever fall in love with yourself? To master the art of self-confidence, first master the arts of self-awareness and self-love. Determine your values, and be proud of them. Embrace your strengths and weaknesses equally. That doesn’t mean you can’t work on those weaknesses. It’s about appreciating who you are and what makes you different from everyone else on the planet. When you start questioning your self-belief, remember to love yourself first.
4. Create healthy routines
To get in touch with your personal power, you need to adopt new routines. Consider building a meditation practice into your routine. Mindfulness meditation is shown to reduce anxiety and help you focus on your core competencies. Visualization is used by everyone from Michael Phelps to Jim Carrey, because it works. You can even use incantations – a powerful way to use your body and your voice to set intentions. Or, start your day with priming, an exercise Tony himself uses every morning that’s a combination of all three of these routines. By incorporating how to believe in yourself into your morning routine, you can set the tone for a day filled with confidence.
5. Unlock the power of proximity
Learning how to believe in yourself is like running a race set on an uphill course. You’ll need fuel for the journey. To fuel self-belief, surround yourself with people who inspire and support you. This is the law of attraction – the idea that, as Tony says, “Proximity is power.” Whatever you want to achieve in your life, find people who will elevate you, not bring you down. You can do this by finding a mentor, joining a mastermind group or even through coaching, such as with a Tony Robbins Results Coach. This is different than your group of friends or your family. When you tap into the power of proximity, you’ll gain trusted advisors who can not only support you, but challenge you to be better.
6. Feed your mind
The law of attraction isn’t just about who you associate with. It’s also about how you feed your mind: what you read and watch on a daily basis. Make a point to seek out advice from others who have achieved your goals, even if they are not your mentor or coach. Watch documentaries about people who have done great things in life. Read inspirational quotes and write down your favorites. Learn about new topics that will help you reach your goals, like finance, or that will help you face your fears – like how to be confident or deliver a presentation. You’ll condition your brain to believe in yourself, because it will know that you have the skills you need to succeed.
7. Change your focus
Sometimes, you don’t need to seek support from outside sources in order to believe in yourself. If you’re feeling discouraged, sometimes all you need to do is shift your focus. Instead of focusing on failures or weaknesses, remember moments in your past in which you were successful at a similar task or in which your strengths shone through. Reflect on obstacles you faced and overcame with grace and courage. Focus on all the things you have to be grateful for, instead of what you don’t have. By focusing on the positive, you can change your mindset from one of negativity to one of abundance.
8. Face your fears
It’s human nature to experience fear and anxiety. But when you believe in yourself, you realize that those emotions are there to encourage you to take action, not to hold you back. You’re able to take a deep breath and control your emotions, then shift your focus and turn fear into action. Face your fears by creating goals that are connected to your overall purpose in life. Setting and achieving goals that help you overcome your fears will give you a sense of accomplishment. Your goals don’t have to be huge – taking small steps that add up to big results will improve your confidence and boost your ability to have faith in yourself.
9. Develop a growth mindset
If you’re struggling to develop self-belief, it’s likely you’re focused on mistakes you’ve made in the past. The Association for Psychological Science studied brain activity to observe what happens when someone makes a mistake. Researchers observed one reaction when participants realized they’d made a mistake, and a second when they went to fix the mistake. After, they asked the participants what they’d learned from their errors. Here is where knowing how to believe in yourself came into play: Participants who believed they could learn from their mistakes improved their performance on tasks they completed after they made the mistake. This is called having a growth mindset, and it’s essential to believing in yourself. When you know that you can learn from your mistakes, you’re much more willing to make them.
10. Learn a new skill
One way to begin to develop a growth mindset is to challenge yourself to learn new things. Whether you learn how to write code or how to play the piano, learning a new skill can increase your feelings of self-efficacy – your belief in your abilities to execute tasks, control your own behavior and attain your goals. Research has even shown that learning is directly related to happiness – it releases dopamine in the brain, known as the “reward molecule.” You’ll make new neural connections, strengthen your decision-making skills and more. You’ll begin to have faith in yourself, one new skill at a time.
11. Draw on your inner strength
Why is it important to believe in yourself? Self-belief is about finding your inner strength so that you can embrace the journey that is life, with all its ups and downs, and realize that each challenge brings new skills, understanding and strength. We all have times when we just don’t think we can do it. The most important thing is to never give up. You’ll inevitably encounter obstacles, but it’s how you react to them that matters. Believing in yourself is all about digging deep and realigning your focus on what you really want in life: discovering how to believe in yourself. It truly is within your reach.
Ready to achieve all of your goals?
Learning how to believe in yourself is within your reach. Get the support you need with Tony Robbins’ Limiting Beliefs Guide.