Believing in yourself is perhaps the hardest and gnarliest thing to accomplish in your life. This antagonizing process takes years and even decades to accomplish and can be shattered in mere seconds. But those moments where you are confident with who you are bear fruits of pure contentment.
Reaching out to your inner self and invoking that sense of belief is a tardy process. It requires consistency which you cannot expect to achieve with just a snap of your fingers. Like a child yearning for his/her mother’s undivided attention, you need to remain firm when believing in yourself. To not stumble, let alone fall, at the sight of negativity.
Here are some things that you need to implement in your life to reach that point; to believe in who you are.
Respect and care for yourself
What shatters your self-respect and self-worth is when you let comments from vicious people who want to see you stumble, get to you. The sad truth is that such people will always exist. You can either let their words bite you till you bleed, or you can stand your ground and deal with them head-on.
The key is to respect and care for yourself. Prioritizing yourself and your mental health is the first step you can take, as no one else will do it for you. When someone goes out of bounds and willingly takes steps to shatter you, the act of standing up for yourself speaks volumes.
Giving people unprecedented space ultimately leads them to cross boundaries. They start to weaponize their words to demolish your self-respect, which leads you to not care for your well-being. The process of believing in yourself is acknowledging which actions do not sit well with you. It will help you to build endurance and rebuke the remarks that once caused you to lose your ground.
In the face of adversity, you can either falter at every malicious word or take a step forth and revoke such comments. Respect and care: these two things will give you all the clarity you need.
Know your accomplishments
We are prone to focus on our failures. We lament over them, letting them dictate our talents and strengths. It is essential for you to understand and implement this very simple but powerful fact: you are allowed to make mistakes!
Mistakes and failures are what make us human overall perfect deity-like beings. It is a natural part of our lives and is precisely what pushes us to learn and do better. But letting them fester and tromp upon you takes your focus away from that core belief you need to invest in. Unrealistic goals are one thing; not reaching that goal in a minimal amount of time is another. Set realistic goals for yourself.
To counter the looming dark shadow of your failures, start focusing on your accomplishments. Your accomplishments are the light that can suppress this shadow and give. They prompt you to believe in yourself and say, “I did this before, and it was a success; what is going to stop me from doing something similar again?” You need to give yourself that space to fail, tell yourself that it is okay if you do, and come up with ways to venture on a path of success.
Focusing and acknowledging your accomplishments boosts your confidence.
Focus on your strengths
We all carry with us traits and characteristics that make us different, traits that help us find our strengths, which enable us to lead a life of success. Sadly, we, as humans, tend to focus on our weaknesses rather than cherish what makes us wonderful.
Weaknesses do not define us but are mere distractions that drive us away from our real goals. Weaknesses are made to be assessed, calculated, and worked on. You can transform them into your strength.
All that you need to do is focus on bringing them out. Certain qualities within you make you an awe-inspiring figure. If not to the crowd, then maybe your sister, brother, or child. Assess and see what makes you become a guiding light in a group. Focusing on your strengths and letting them motivate you to do better and be better is the crux of believing in yourself.
Surround yourself with positivity
Negative remarks are a part of life. They come and go, leaving no rock unturned in demotivating a person. However, what you do to overcome negativities is up to you.
You could spend your life letting those words pull you down, diminish every speck of confidence within you, and ultimately cause you to fall. On the other hand, you can surround yourself with positivity. Positive people, remarks, moments, and thoughts. You can find positivity in a smile, in a word, in music, and through yourself.
These become a motivator for you to keep going and keep working.
So what did we learn? The art of believing in yourself is not an easy thing to master. The aforementioned 4 elements are, however, crucial to taking that first step. But it does not stop there. To reach the heights you are destined for, you need to implement them into your daily routine. People will continue to make hurtful remarks and will continue to push you down. This is a sad reality of the world that you cannot change. But you can believe in yourself, and remind yourself that the destination ahead is far better than where you are right now.
