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Three Great ways to Start Believing in Yourself
By Helena Nyman

Have you spent much of your life

dismissing your talents and doubting your capabilities as many people do

unfortunately? Then believing in yourself can seem to be an almost impossible

goal. Since believing in yourself is such a vital part of goal achievement, you

have to overcome your doubts and disbeliefs! It is crucial if you want to

improve your life.

Negative thinking is a

habit.

Believing in yourself is a simple

matter of changing the way you think about yourself and your

capabilities. 
 
Three steps to develop a strong belief in

yourself:
 
face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Acknowledge your talents and

potential
You assume you cannot succeed at your goals because you

haven't succeeded at many things before, or your successes were not acknowledged

by anyone around you (including yourself). You assume you have no talent because

your second-grade teacher or your coach once told you so. You assume you are

destined for a mediocre life because nobody ever pushed you beyond your

limits.

It's important to understand that

your assumptions are not necessarily true! You have accepted these assumptions

as truth. But have you considered all possible angles? Be willing to revisit

your assumptions and challenge them.

Just do it
Many

people don't try to do anything in their lives because they only look at what

could go wrong, or they imagine how they will fail doing it.

Starting right now, make a pledge

to give everything your best shot from now on. Don't worry about whether you've

failed in the past or whether you've got what it takes to succeed this time

around. Focus on the outcome and strive forwards!

Make a promise to TRY - no matter

how many obstacles there could be in your way.

Prove it to

yourself
A colleague of mine had a great idea. Here it is: If you

really want to shatter your illusions of inability, take a sheet of paper and

make a list of all the things you believe you cannot do. They can be little

things or big things; it doesn't matter. Just write down every single thing you

believe you are incapable of doing.

Make it a point to prove yourself

wrong by going out and doing them. Notice I didn't say "doing them well." I said

simply, "doing them."

You'll never know until you

try!

One word of caution with this

method: be sure you don't sabotage your own efforts in order to prove yourself

right. For example, perhaps you believe you can't get a better job than you have

now. In order to "prove" that your belief is right, you go out and apply for

jobs that are far beyond your skill or experience level. Of course, you don't

get called for interviews since you weren't qualified for those jobs, and you

conclude that your original suspicion was correct.
Don't do that to yourself.

The idea is to move slightly beyond your comfort zones, not to overwhelm and

sabotage yourself.

With every positive result you

achieve, you will eventually build up a stronger belief in yourself, and you can

keep expanding your comfort zones to achieve more and more!

To sign up for Helena's weekly href="http://www.helenanyman.com">Motivational Newsletter, or for her href="http://thebalancedexecutive.com">bi-weekly Executive News.



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