Believe in yourself

Hey,

 

So today's post is about self belief and why i believe it's so important to ones life. 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 study hard to gain the qualifications for the things I wanted to achieve - all because I didn’t think I could. I didn’t stick to good habits, because I didn’t really believe I had the discipline. I was shy with people, 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, I learned it’s completely fine to try and fail, to put yourself out there and to not be perfect...to say hello to someone and have them not instantly love you, to create something and have people judge you.

It's ok to fail, not being perfect, making mistakes, not having people agree with me, and not being completely accepted: these are not negative things. They’re positive.

So you are probably thinking how can i say that a failure is a positive? Well, here's how I think of it, it’s the only way we truly learn. For example: you can read a book on maths, 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.

So how can i say making mistakes is also positive? Well, it's because I believe they’re little pieces of feedback that are necessary for you to be able to grow and learn.

I also see being rejected as a positive - to me it means I’m growing beyond the socially acceptable realm. The best people in history were not socially acceptable - truth-tellers like Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi, Proudhon and Bakunin, Martin Luther King Jr., women’s rights activists, abolitionists, and many more.

These are things we’re afraid of - when really they’re actually desirable. As humans we need to learn to see them that way, and embrace them, letting go of the fear is something that I see as important. We can do this. 

When we can get better at this - which takes a lot of practice - we can start to remove the things that hold us back.

I've recently made myself push past my discomfort. Put myself out there, and it's okay not knowing if people will accept me. I try to stick to good habits, ignoring all the negative self-talk which usually holds me back. I am sticking to the choices I've made and learning to trust myself. I've learnt that it's okay to go into situations, and not know what the outcome will be, and I've learnt to be okay with that. 

I've learnt through repeated attempts that it’s okay to fail, that i can be okay in failure, so you can too! 

So, to conclude, I believe that you can learn through repeated experiments that you are stronger than you think, that you are more capable and more tolerant of discomfort than you think. And, you will find yourself through practising and then suddenly realise that you were great and strong all along.

Take care of yourself and the rest will just fall into place.

Thanks for reading 

Lau XxX