How to Believe in Yourself

By Leo Babauta There was a long time when the lack of belief in myself was a major factor in my life. I didn’t pursue an ideal career, or start my own business, because I didn’t think I could. I didn’t stick to habits because I didn’t really believe I had the discipline. I was shy with girls, I had a hard time making new friends, I didn’t assert myself in the workplace. I didn’t push past my comfort zone. All because I didn’t really believe I could. While I’m not free of self-doubt these days, I can honestly say I believe in myself like never before. That doesn’t mean I think I’ll never fail or quit: I will. Probably often. And that’s OK. The trick is that I learned it’s completely fine to try and fail, to put yourself out there and not be perfect, to say hello to someone and have them not instantly love you, to create something and have people judge you. Failure, not being perfect, mistakes, not having people agree with me, not being completely accepted: these are not negative things. They’re positive. How is failure positive? It’s the only way we truly learn. For example: you can read a book on math, but until you try it and fail, you’ll never see where your lack of understanding is. The best way to learn something is to study it a bit, then try it, take practice tests, make mistakes, then learn some more. How are mistakes positive? They’re little pieces of feedback necessary to ...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs