Greetings my fellow comrades!

It gives me great joy writing inspirational and motivational articles. I always feel happy seeing the level of confidence that has been reposed in me. Most times people ask how I write this articles. Honestly, I can’t really explain how I do what I do, but I do know, I’m creative writer and God has been so kind to me in giving me inspirational topics of interest to write on every week. Belief in Yourself. Today, we shall be discussing about the hallmark and mother of motivational articles and speeches. Believing in oneself is the best thing that can happen to anyone. Regardless of how well a motivational speaker may speak or write, if you don’t have believe in yourself there’s little or nothing a motivational article or speech can do to inspire you. It’s just like taking a pill when you are sick, if you don’t believe in the pill or doctor, the medication and treatment won’t work. Faith works with believe. If you are sick and a powerful minter of God prays for you, if don’t have faith in the prayers, the prayer won’t be of any value. You are the true version of yourself. Believing in yourself is the first key to success. During the course of this article, we shall be looking at how believing in oneself can be a spring board and catalyst to success. Due to how broad and impactful this topic can be, I decided to split it in part 1 and part 2.

During the course of this article we shall be discussing about how believing in oneself can affect not only your success, but how it can create opportunities which will make you grow. We shall also be looking at the component and relativity part of believing in oneself. Each and everyone one of us desire to be successful in life, but the big question is are you willing to pay the price for success? According to Robert Coller, “Your chances of success is any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself”.

Believing in oneself doesn’t only entail being an expert in a particular major due to your academic qualifications and trainings, it also relates to achieving success when no one believes in you. It’s on this this note we shall be discussing the believing in yourself. Believing yourself in this context is about self -confidence. In order to be successful in life, you need to believe in yourself. You must have self-confidence. A lot of people suffer from low self-esteem. The highest point of believing in oneself is believing in yourself when one believes in you. The art of believing in oneself and having confidence work together. It doesn’t take much to believe in yourself. According to Barrie Davenport “Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered–just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better”.

Believing in oneself is the best thing that can happen to anyone. It’s like a mystery which cannot ordinarily be understood by anyone except by the concerned person. It’s just like one who has been injured and feeling pain in his or body no one will feel the pain more than the victim.

A major difference I’ve observed between successful people and unsuccessful people isn’t intelligence or opportunity or resources. It’s the belief by successful people that they can make their goals happen. We live in a society where we experience fear, failures, uncertainty and vulnerability, but what keeps some of us the believe we have in our abilities which makes us to believe that somehow, we’ll figure out a way any challenge that comes to us. In order to truly succeed in life, you must know yourself. Know what your passionate about and what truly makes you happy. A good way to know how to achieve success is by asking yourself, what is the one thing I can do that I will never fail if I do it? If you can answer this question, you are half way to identifying your passion.

When you believe in yourself in addition to knowing who you are , other people’s opinion about you is irrelevant. It’s quite unfortunate a lot people believe negative words and opinion of other people and this has really affected their productivity. Stories abound of so many people who dared to succeed and eventually succeeded. A typical example is Oprah Winfrey who was told by her boss she’s not good for the screen and was thereafter fired from her passionate job of being a media personality. Oprah Winfrey believed in herself and later on went to work on herself and her passion and was able launch Oprah Winfrey Network.

Another story of interest is Tony Blair and Ben Carson. According to Tony Blair, he said, his teacher used to call him a failure. Ben Carson on his part failed several times in when he was in middle school, but his mum really encouraged him and he believe in himself. Today he’s a success. According to Hary Eker, “Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.”. I don’t know what your story is, but continue striving for success, one day it will pay off and you’ll have cause to celebrate.

Let’s look at the components of Believing in yourself

Being Unique: According to John Maxell, “Imitation is limitation”. A lot of people fail to achieve success in life because they try to imitate other people instead of being themselves forgetting that the beauty of life is originality. Few years ago, I published an article The Relativity of Success . In that article, I stressed the point that success is relative and one individual definition of success might be different from another individual’s perspective. The true definition of success is conquering yourself by challenging yourself to be better than you were yesterday. A great way of achieving this success is by being creative, unique and having a firm believe in your ability or any product you may have. We live in world where most people are judged by the content of their skin and color as opposed to their competency and character. In the pursuit of success, you don’t really need the affirmation of people, yes, they are relevant, but they are not the yardstick to be successful. They can act as inspiration, but what’s essential is the believe you have in yourself. Other people’s opinion of you is not relevant. Personally, I have faced many obstacles in my personal and professional life, I have been able to overcome this challenges due to the belief I have about myself. I know myself and I do know my capability and vision in life. Nobody can limit me and nobody knows me better than I know myself. You don’t literally need to prove yourself to other people. Its fine for them to have whatever perception and opinion about you, but that will never define you. According to Jodi Picoult “When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.”

FEAR AND DOUBT: Fear and doubt are the two most militating factors preventing us from succeeding in life. In order to succeed in life, you must have the mindset to overcome your fear and doubt. You must continually doubt your doubts and overcome your fears, and the only way to achieve this great feat is by believing in yourself. According to Honore de Balzac: “When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.”. F.E.A.R can be defined as False Evidence Appearing Real or Face Everything and Run. It’s up to you to choose the one you want. Fears are like impostors, they make you see the impossibilities while shielding the possibilities from you. Fear says you can’t do it. You are not good enough for the job, you can’t succeed. You’re going to fail. How about we kill our fear by saying, I can do it yes, I will overcome, this is a mere temporary challenge. According to Marianne Williamson “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?”

On the other hand, self-doubt never disappears, you just get better at dealing with it over some period of time with constant practice. Self-doubt normally taunts you whenever you set a goal. It criticizes you when life gets difficult. It beats you down when you struggle to stand up against obstacles. In order to kill fear and self-doubt, we need to believe in our ability. According to William Jennings Bryan .”The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you”. Let me share a little experience with you “When I was in New York Law School studying Taxation as a graduate program, I was torn between quitting the program and studying a less challenging program. I had fears I won’t graduate because I never had accounting and finance background, neither did I have tax background. I also doubted my ability to compete with the white guys who work in the big law firms in addition to having some of experience in the major. However, at the end of the day, I was able to overcome my fears and doubt when I told myself, your desire for success should always out weigh your fear for failure. At the end of the day I was able to graduate with a decent grade.

OPINION: A great way to forge ahead in life is to have your head straight on the goal. Whenever you are in a race, it doesn’t make sense to stop and look back at your counterparts to see how far or close they are from you. Doing so will limit your strength and productivity. The opinion of other people concerning you is not relevant. It’s quite unfortunate a lot of people listen to the opinion of other people. The only time you should listen to the opinion of other people is when they criticize you constructively in order to make you a better person. In that instance it is not a criticism, learn from it.

The question now is how do you improve your success? Its an undisputable fact that little drops of water makes an ocean. Just like we don’t need too much food, money or medication to maintain a good health because it cost less to have a good health if we do the needful like eating fruits, drinking water, exercising and sleeping very well. In same vein, attaining success can be achieved when we build on already established success we may have achieved in the past.

RECALL YOUR SUCCESS:

The journey of a thousand miles begin with a step in the right direction. As human beings, whenever we are down, we always have the tendency to remember the bad things that have happened to us instead of the good things. Recalling your past success can serve as a morale booster in believing yourself. You can do this by making a list of past accomplishment. We all have attained success in one way or the other. Success is not only when you get a promotion at work, a good grade at school, make money or even buy a house. It can be when you change a habit, influence a friend positively, serve in an organization or even waking up a little bit earlier to complete a task. Just remember a time you were able to accomplish a task nor matter how little it is. That’s all you need to build on your success.

TRUST AND LOVE YOURSELF:

Loving and trusting yourself is one of the best things that can ever happen to you. True love comes from within, you don’t need anyone to make you feel in a certain way before you love. The same way you love yourself is the same way you have to believe in yourself. Continuous loving and trusting yourself gives you validity. Don’t be hard on yourself. Regardless of any mistake you may have had in the past, see it as experiences of life. Remember, yesterday is gone, today is a gift and tomorrow is an opportunity. Always have the mindset that tomorrow will be better regardless of what is staring you on the face. By so doing you will have the courage to believe in yourself. Always find time to treat yourself better. After all, you have the rest of your life to spend with yourself. So, be kind to yourself. You are more capable and worthy than you give yourself credit for than anyone will give you. Always give yourself permission to try and try again even though you make mistake, never give up. According to Sophia Loren “Mistakes are part of the mistakes one pays for a full life. So never you be hard on yourself.

In conclusion, don’t let fear or insecurity stop you from trying new things. Always believe in yourself because the whole world steps aside for the man who know where he’s headed.

Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He can be reached via henrous@gmail.com