Want to know how to improve your self-belief? Having self-belief is key and no matter where you are starting from you can always build more self-belief. So keep on reading to find out 4 different ways to improve your self-belief.
4 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF-BELIEF
Self-belief in relation to setting, and achieving, goals
Henry Ford once said
“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”
When it comes to setting goals believing you can or can’t achieve the goal makes a massive difference. If deep down, you believe you can achieve your goal then you’ll approach the goal with the right attitude and take the necessary actions. If deep down, you don’t believe you can achieve the goal you’ll approach achieving the goal with a different attitude. In most cases you’ll be tentative. You won’t commit 100%, you want look at every possible route to achieve your goal and inevitably end up failing and then saying “I knew it wasn’t possible”.
1. Acknowledge your limiting beliefs
The first thing you need to do in order to improve your self-belief is acknowledge your limiting beliefs. A limiting belief is a belief that you hold that limits you. An example of a limiting belief would be “I’m bad at maths” or “I’m too old/young to do X” or “Bad things always happen to me”.
Having limiting beliefs is perfectly normal and the reality is everyone has limiting beliefs. However, some people decide to acknowledge and address their limiting beliefs whilst others ignore them. Ignoring your limiting beliefs won’t make them disappear. So the best thing you can do is acknowledge them.
In many cases we take a limiting belief to be fact and that is where they are dangerous. For example, maybe in your early 20s you build up credit card debt and even since then you’ve said “I’m awful with money. I can’t save”. You’ll believe that what you are saying is true even though it isn’t. In reality you were bad with money in the past. However, your past does not dictate your future. Just because you got into debt in the past doesn’t mean you can’t save now or in the future.
One of the tricky things about limiting beliefs is recognising them. In many instances they will feel like a fact rather than a belief to you, so you have super aware and challenge what you are saying and thinking about yourself.
A great way to identify your limiting beliefs around achieving your goals is after you’ve written down a goal to think to yourself “What are all the possible reasons that I can’t achieve my goal?”. You’ll want to write down all of the reasons and push yourself to come up with as many possible answers. Even if it feels ridiculous write it down.
Then take your list of beliefs for why you can’t achieve your goal and then write a counterstatement for each that disproves your belief and shows it to be a belief rather than a fact.
Find out more about how to overcome limiting beliefs here.
2. Practice affirmations
A great way to address your limiting beliefs and build your self-belief is by practicing affirmations.
Affirmations are positive phrases or statements. They are usually created to change a person’s thoughts/beliefs or to motivate them. An affirmation will state something as a fact even if it hasn’t happened yet.
Some examples of affirmations are:
- I am powerful
- I am strong
- My net worth is growing daily
- I am an unstoppable force of nature
- I can be whatever I want to be
- I am getting healthier every day
- I am in charge of my happiness
In this instance you aren’t making affirmation just for the sake of it. You want to be specifically creating affirmations that will help increase your self-belief in relation to achieving your goals. So you can look at the list of counter statements you made and turn them into affirmations.
Then you have a few options with how you can practice your affirmations. You can read them, say them out loud or listen to them. I go into more detail about each of the different methods in 3 ways to practice your affirmations.
3. Write a list of your accomplishments (especially the goals you originally thought were impossible)
A great tip for improving your self-belief is too look back and remind yourself of all the things you’ve achieved in the past and especially the achievements that felt impossible when you originally set the goal.
The likelihood is I don’t personally know you, but I’m sure that you have achieved so many great things in your life. The average person is too harsh on themselves and forgets just how amazing they are. It is easy to forget everything you’ve achieved. So often we achieve a goal and then set a new one and move our focus to that.
Now is the time to reflect and look back and write down your achievements. This should become a list that you keep on adding to. It is so much easier in the present to write down your achievements so start the list off by looking backwards, but then keep the list somewhere when you can add to it.
4. Regularly push yourself outside of your comfort zone
When was the last time you pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone? If you are spending all of your time operating inside of your comfort zone, then you are limiting yourself. Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone gives you an opportunity to rise to the challenge and grow as a person. Every time you push yourself you are proving to yourself that you are capable of more. Over time you’ll become more confident in yourself and belief that even when someone feels a stretch you have what is necessary to rise to the challenge.
That’s it! You now know 4 different ways to improve your self-belief.
Improving your self-belief will have a drastic impact on the goals you set for yourself and what you achieve in your life. So I really hope you take the time to follow the steps I have recommended.
In the comments I would love to hear what you are going to do as a result of reading this blog post.
