What Happens When You Believe in Yourself

You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.

Dr. Robert Anthony

Believing in yourself (or not) literally makes or breaks your success in life.

It’s that critical in our personal development journey.

But despite knowing that self-belief is crucial, we all carry lingering doubt and insecurity about ourselves all the time.

Few of us fully believe in ourselves, while most of us let our tenuous self-belief stop us from going places we want to go. 

Through this post, I want to explore what happens when you believe in yourself and remind you of the importance of self-belief. 

At the end of this post, you’ll gain clarity on self-belief, prime yourself to improve it, and feel motivated to give it your all in pursuing ambitious goals and achieving success in life.  

Flocking to the Gym

As a species, we are not so different from one another. Just look at a January spike in gym membership: we flock to the gym with gusto. 

We all want to be healthy and lose weight. We think about doing an exercise throughout the year. 

But it’s an entirely different matter whether we actually do it or follow through on what we’ve started.

Which explains the sharp decline in gym membership in the coming months. 

Self-Belief and Action

Every action we take reflects our self-belief. We act according to our belief system. 

For the simplest thing, like getting up at 5 a.m., if you think about it, all it takes is whether you believe you can wake up at 5 a.m. or you can’t. 

You either say,

“I can wake up at 5 a.m”. Then you wake up at 5 a.m. 

Or

“No way: I can never wake up at 5 a.m..”  Then you don’t. 

It’s as simple as that. 

It doesn’t matter what your goal is: to wake up at 5 a.m., lose 10 kg, start a new business, go skydiving, or climb a mountain.

Bottom line, as Henry Ford said, whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re undeniably right.  

Your belief system determines action, hence the result.

What Happens When You Believe in Yourself

Since our actions mirror self-belief, several things happen when we believe in ourselves. 

1. Believing in yourself makes you a go-getter.

Self-belief inspires you to see the world as full of possibilities and an abundance of life.

You believe in reaping rewards and claiming what’s rightfully yours. In your mind, the moment you set your mind to it, it’s yours. (Isn’t it wonderful?)

This healthy dose of entitlement comes from self-belief and gets you to achieve lots of things; you become a go-getter. 

2. Believing in yourself makes you proactive. 

We know we can’t control everything that happens to us. But we also know there are lots of things we can control. 

And life rewards us when we’re proactive and concentrate on what we can do. Believing in yourself allows you to focus on the things you can control and therefore be proactive.

Examples are building emergency funds in the bank, establishing healthy eating habits, or doing daily exercise. 

3. Believing in yourself makes you positive.

Believing in yourself produces an essential by-product for success: a positive attitude.

A positive attitude lets you dream the impossible, which leads to a positive result more often than not.

You look on the bright side of every circumstance and make the most of the things that turn out, even when things turn out bad.

4. Believing in yourself makes you goal-oriented. 

Believing in yourself means you have confidence in your ability to achieve your goals. 

Setting goals and achieving them becomes your second nature, resulting in a perpetual sense of achievement and fulfilment.

With each goal accomplished, your self-belief increases. The positive cycle creates a positive loop between goals and self-belief.  

5. Believing in yourself makes you responsible. 

Believing in yourself makes you take ownership of the situation—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

You either fight the circumstances and bend them to your will or let go of things outside of your control.

You have a firm grip on what’s going on in your life, believe in yourself to shape your life, and take full responsibility for the outcome.

6. Believing in yourself makes you appreciate every win.

Failure is part of life’s experiences, but when you believe in yourself, you’ll likely experience more wins than failure.

You appreciate every win as a foundation to build on, therefore, take each as a milestone.

When you believe in yourself, every victory is a testimony to your belief system, so take every victory seriously and with appreciation. 

7. Believing in yourself makes you generous to others.

When you believe in yourself, you develop a steadfast confidence within you.

External motivation, such as competition with others, means little to you. Instead, you value sharing and collective improvement, helping one another wherever you can. 

Believing in yourself makes you generous with your time and talent.

8. Believing in yourself makes you kinder to yourself.

Believing in yourself encourages you to be kinder to yourself.

We’ve been told many times to treat others as you’d like to be treated. The same thing can apply to ourselves.

Believing in yourself allows you to highlight the good things about you and the accomplishments you’ve achieved. You become that much kinder to yourself.

9. Believing in yourself makes you start.

Talking about 100+ ideas is easy, but unless we explore the ideas, that’s just it: talking.

Turning one idea into reality is far more valuable (to you and others) than having 100+ ideas in your head (and later trapping them in the grave forever).

Doer is the one who believes in herself and thus starts. 

10. Believing in yourself makes you finish. 

Imagine you’re on your 100 push-up challenge. About 70 percent in, you feel like giving up and switching to some other form of exercise. 

You jump from one project to the next instead of pushing past the pain point above 100, where you can see the real growth and judge the result fairly.

When I’m tempted by some other project, I ask myself before jumping ship, “Did you give 100%?” The answer is almost always no. So I stay put until I see it through with 100% effort.

11. Believing in yourself makes you motivated.

Our goals vary at each stage of our lives. But the more goals you achieve, the stronger your self-belief becomes and the higher your motivation gets.

One action continuously fuels another, creating a positive loop.

You enjoy challenges, come up with higher goals, stay motivated to achieve them, stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone, and keep growing as a person.    

12. Believing in yourself makes you resilient.

Life throws a curveball at us all the time.

And a dogged, quiet resilience comes from believing in yourself and never giving up.

Can you imagine picking yourself up when you fall without self-belief? It’s practically impossible.

Our falls are a godsend to strengthen our character: get up, shrug off pain and suffering, and keep walking.

13. Believing in yourself makes you feel satisfied and fulfilled with your life.

When we believe in ourselves, we set out to achieve all our personal goals, work on them diligently, and pursue them relentlessly.

Life is not on autopilot. We actively pursue what matters to us and design the life we see fit for ourselves.

When we exercise autonomy, fuelled by self-belief, our life satisfaction and sense of fulfilment skyrocket.

14. Believing in yourself makes you confident.

Every goal, small or big, is a promise you make to yourself.

When you keep the promise you make to yourself, your trust in yourself will naturally elevate; you will become more confident in your abilities and have a high level of commitment because your inner strength compounds with each promise met.

Self-belief and confidence feed each other in a good way.

15. Believing in yourself makes you attractive.

When you believe in yourself, you have a clear path in life.

You’re comfortable being you, carving your own life path, exuding quiet confidence without pretense, and feeling fulfilled.

You interact with others in a relaxed and pleasant manner that makes others feel drawn to you and love your company.

Final Thoughts

When you believe in yourself, so many things happen simultaneously. 

You gain more confidence, develop a positive mental attitude, set a series of ambitious goals, lay out strategic plans to achieve them, be proactive, prepare yourself for life’s unpredictability as best you can, enjoy challenges, take ownership of your life and so on.

Self belief enhances every aspect of your life and ensures you get everything you want in life. Begin your self belief journey today with 9 ways to make believing in yourself easy.

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