Believing in yourself – this is one of the “biggies”
of creating your dream life – the life that inspires you and makes
you happy!
Believing in yourself is a process and a journey,
rather than an activity that you can switch on when you want to.
You may have had an excellent childhood, with
wonderful parents who cared for you and loved you, friends who
supported you, and a network of people in your life to give you
values and ideals that make you feel that you belong and give you
meaning. If this is you, then I am happy for you because you are
doing better than many other people in the world! It’s much easier
for you to believe in yourself because you have the background that
makes self-belief easy.
However, if, like me, you had a childhood where a
member of your family or your classmates at school were not friendly,
treated you badly, teased you and bullied you and said that you were stupid,
then you will have a much harder time believing in yourself than
someone who did not have those problems.
To start believing in yourself, you need to
recognize that it doesn’t matter how people have treated you or what
has happened in your life – YOUR VALUE is YOUR VALUE. It doesn’t
change based on what other people think or whether they accept you or
reject you.
When you were small, you didn’t understand what you
understand now. You were just a young child, open to love and be
loved. When that didn’t happen, you thought there must be something
wrong with you if your basic needs were not being met.
Well, you thought WRONGLY. Actually, there was
nothing wrong with you – there was something wrong with them. You are
not to blame for the way you were treated. You were left feeling, “I
was robbed!” Yes, you were, but since when does that make YOU
the bad guy? If a bank gets robbed, who’s the bad guy – the bank
manager or the bank robber? What if the bank manager says, “Oh,
no! My bank got robbed! I’m such a BAD bank manager. I’m a terrible
person. My life sucks! Now I hate myself and I want to die.”
Won’t his staff say, “What’s this? You didn’t do anything wrong!
It was the robber who stole the money!”
Understand that this is the way you thought when you
were about 7 years old or even younger, but that it doesn’t serve you
now that you’re older – and it doesn’t even make any logical sense!
Then you were a victim, but now you’re a survivor.
So start with that, and begin thinking differently!
You will find that a lot of your lack of self-belief is rooted in
this thinking you’ve had in your mind since childhood. Believing in
yourself is a big topic but this will start you off for now! I hope
it can grant you the beginning of a new life, re-examined and
re-evaluated, that gives you a solid foundation to build your dreams
in the future!