I have really enjoyed studying the topic of “believing in yourself” this week.  I have learned a lot and have reconfirmed some of the thoughts and feelings I have had around this topic.  Some of the main “aha” moments for me are captured below

• Having a humble but reasonable confidence in your own purpose will allow you to have faith in my abilities.
• Letting go of the pressures I feel to be recognized allows me to be more open and able to simply live my truth and be myself
• I know where I want to go and I know what is true for me.  This allows me to be free to be what I want and have faith in myself
• Knowing that I have the power and ability to handle each situation provides me with belief and faith in myself
• Once I start believing in and having faith in myself…I start to embody and embrace these feelings.

As we close out this week I wanted to share a post I found  on www.selfawake.com . It is written by Samir Kunvaria and is a great summary of the power of believing in and having faith in yourself.

“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” Norman Vincent Peale

 Many times in life we face situations when everything is uncertain. We feel like we are lost in the dark and there is no hope to get out of it. We desperately need help from other people to take us out of dark, but we forget that we have light with us, within us. That light is nothing but belief in yourself. Belief that I can handle this and everything will be fine.

“The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.” Frank Lloyd Wright

Every one of us has faced a phase where we start doubting our self. We start questioning what if I can’t do this. This is nothing but negative voice inside us. We have to replace it with positive strong statements like I can do it or I deserve it. It is said that you win half the war when you start believing that you can win it.

“You can have anything you want if you will give up the belief that you can’t have it.” Robert Anthony

Let me share a story of magic of belief which I read on Wikipedia. George Bernard Dantzig was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics. An event in Dantzig’s life became the origin of a famous story in 1939 while he was a graduate student at UC Berkeley.

Near the beginning of a class for which Dantzig was late, Professor Jerzy Neyman wrote two examples of famously unsolved statistics problems on the blackboard. When Dantzig arrived, he assumed that the two problems were a homework assignment and wrote them down. According to Dantzig, the problems “seemed to be a little harder than usual”, but a few days later he handed in completed solutions for the two problems, still believing that they were an assignment that was overdue. 

Six weeks later, Dantzig received a visit from an excited professor Neyman, eager to tell him that the homework problems he had solved were two of the most famous unsolved problems in statistics which were not solved by Einstein as well.

“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.” William James

Success is only possible if you believe that you can achieve it. Nobody will invest in you if you don’t believe in yourself. You have to remind yourself to keep trust on your opinion and judgments. Situations and world might be against you, but you have to keep faith in yourself. Losers are not those who failed, but who didn’t try.

It is common that we normally lose faith in adverse time. We can always cherish time when we conquered all the consequences. It will shift your thinking from depression to joy.

What lessons have you learned this week about believing in yourself?