Why Don't You Believe In Yourself?

All you need for success is to believe in yourself. 

 

You’ve heard it before, right? The greatest teachers of success tell you that this is a true statement. There’s one small problem, they don’t take a moment to understand why you don’t believe in yourself, nor do they address how you can change it. 

 

A lot of people don’t believe in themselves and when they don’t, it’s incredibly difficult to deal with pain, failure, and rejection. Yet, failure is a necessary evil on the road to success.

 

Think about this for a moment – when you sit down and create a list of goals you’re relying on yourself. Yet, we rarely know our true worth. Often, we are the literal worst person to recognize our capabilities. So, how can you set goals for growth if you don’t know what you’re truly capable of?

 

The Struggle to Believe in Yourself

 

So, why are you so hard on yourself? You have a negative reflection of yourself, and it’s a representation of all the garbage you’re carrying around in your head. It’s that voice that constantly whispers that you’re not good enough, that you can’t do the thing or, that you shouldn’t push yourself. We all carry a negative reflection such as this, but the real problem is that you don’t believe in yourself. You don’t turn to your worst enemy if you are in need of support, do you? When you don’t believe in yourself, it’s difficult to turn to yourself for that belief. You’re doing it in the wrong order. First, you need someone who believes in you and then you need someone else to believe in. Finally, then you can believe in yourself. 

 

You need to find a new reflection. Someone who is capable of showing you your greatness. Think about the following: what type of support do you need right now in your life? Who would you like to turn to for that support? Why should they support you, what’s in it for them? What actions are you willing to take in order to get the support that you need? Once you have an idea in your head about whom you want to reflect your greatness back to you, speak to them! Ask them what it is that they get from you being in their life? What do they think your strengths are, and have them rate your relationship on a scale of one to ten. Ask them what you can do to push it to a 10. 

 

The Journey to Self-Belief

 

Believing in yourself ultimately means that you believe in your capabilities. How can you if you don’t know what they are? When you start to accomplish something, then you will finally start to be able to believe in yourself. In order to accomplish that first thing, you need someone to be the wind beneath your wings. You need someone who will lift you up to propel your self-belief. 

 

You probably know someone who constantly struggles, with holding down a job, finishing a project or even holding onto a relationship. Their lives are constantly plagued by stupid decisions. They don’t even try to change because deep down, they’re terrified of failure. So, they accomplish nothing. 

 

It’s time for you to accomplish something and begin your journey to self-belief.

 

This will hinge on commitment. If you are committed to change and growing your self-belief, then you will. If self-belief means believing in your capabilities, then you need to commit to honing your capabilities and growing your skills. From there, the only way is up. While you’re at it, be sure to thank the people in your life who have contributed to your growth. 

 

Your Mindset: Manifesting Abundance in Your Life

What you believe determines how you live. And when you want to have a full life that includes everything you want and need, your beliefs will be what determines if you realize this goal or not. Your mindset is the key to manifesting the abundance in your life. 

 

Two Ways of Viewing the World

 

When it comes to mindsets, there are generally two ways you can see the world. One is to think that everything in this world is limited, so it is crucial that you do whatever is necessary to get your share. The other is to believe that happiness and prosperity are not finite things, and there is enough of these in the world that we all can have what we want. The first assumes scarcity while the other assumes abundance. 

 

If you want to find everything you want and need in the world, regardless of what that is, you must embrace an abundance mindset. This way of thinking believes that all you could ever need is available to you, and once you embrace it, you will notice the difference in your life.

 

How Mindset Influences Reality

 

Your beliefs and thoughts influence everything that you do in life. How you behave is guided by what you assume about people and reality. If you think that love, success, money, and happiness are limited, then this will color how you pursue all these things. But, if you instead assume that each of these is available and within your reach, you will change how you pursue your goals, how you interact with others, and how fulfilled you actually become. 

 

To show how your mindset guides your behaviors, let us look at an example. If you walk through your day assuming everyone else is stupid, annoying, selfish, or bothersome, you will have a lot of negative interactions with other people. Each person you meet will, no matter what they do, confirm your conclusions about them. If, however, you walk through your day assuming everyone else is generous, positive, and considerate, your entire day will change dramatically. 

 

Having abundance in your life is not about the stuff you have but about how much happiness you feel inside you. What you are really worth is what is inside your mind and your heart, because this is what allows you to attract and manifest everything else in your life. If you want to have an abundant life, you must believe that you deserve abundance, you must understand that what you seek is out there and ready for you to find it, and you must actively work to bring those things to your life.

 

When you have a scarcity mindset, you believe that when you are getting more in your life, others must likewise be losing from theirs, which can lead to feelings of guilt or shame for your own happiness. To be fair to everyone, you believe that you must somehow accept your “share” and be okay with that. But, when you realize that there is more than enough of everything we each need to have a fulfilling life, you can be happy and grateful in your own abundance, as you realize that others can also have what they need and deserve. 

 

Let Go of Scarcity Thinking

 

When you learn to adopt an abundance mindset, you will realize there is no need to compare yourself to other people, to feel guilty for your own success or happiness, to actively reach for what you want and need in life, and to realize your full potential. Learning to think abundantly will allow you to live abundantly. 

 

5 Ways To Elevate Your Thinking About Success

Have you ever taken a moment to consider how powerful thoughts are? Do you realize how your thoughts and thinking process influence your success? A healthy mindset is one of the greatest attributes you can have. You can think the way you choose to think. 

 

We’ve all heard a story about someone who came from nothing to beat the odds. They grew up in a low-income family, their education was poor at best, there was no money, but yet, they climbed their way to the top. How? With the right mindset. So, how can you elevate your thinking about success? Here are five ways. 

 

1. Get Real

 

How do you really want to live your life? Do you want to be powerless? Doesn’t that make you angry to just think about? Why would anyone choose to live their life in such a way? It’s time to get real. You have to demand better from yourself. Think about your childhood dreams and where you are now. Sure, your dreams may have changed since then, but how big is the gap? What do you dream of now? What do you need to do to make it happen? You can’t use your past to define you now, but you can look at where you were to determine where you go from here. Use your thoughts, visualize your dreams, empower yourself, and go get it!

 

2. Taking Responsibility 

 

Your feelings influence your thoughts which impacts your feelings. It can be a vicious cycle, which is why you need to take responsibility for your emotions and feelings. You control it. You may react to your environment or the people in it, but ultimately, you are responsible for how you feel. You can choose positivity and that is going to elevate your thinking about success. Success is inevitable when you believe that to be true. 

 

3. Choosing Your Thoughts

 

This is an important step that most of us don’t do. It’s so easy to fall into a negative thought trap, but you have to actively choose your thoughts. Take notice of the thoughts which are dominating your mind. Are they negative? If they are, insert positive thoughts immediately. When you practice this regularly, you will start to experience fewer negative thoughts. 

 

4. Motivational Material

 

There are books, blogs, articles, podcasts, and a whole host of material out there that will inspire and motivate you. The purpose of this is to open your mind and help you change your perspective. You can learn more about a particular subject or go on a journey of self-discovery. The point is that these things help you elevate your thinking about success. It isn’t a unicorn. It’s something within your reach if you are willing to reach out and grab it. 

 

5. Commit to Alone Time

 

While you may feel as though this is intuitive, the truth of the matter is that alone time can help you bolster your success. When you allow yourself to exist in space without others, you don’t need to seek validation from anyone else. This is simply about you. You will make better choices because you aren’t being influenced by others. You don’t need constant companionship, what you need is a bit of quiet time to really sit with yourself and think. 

 

Success means a variety of different things for all of us. None of us will agree on what it looks like exactly because what you view as success might not line up with what a co-worker considers success. Only you can determine whether you are successful or not. So, where are you on your journey to success? What’s holding you back? 

 

5 Key Skills For Leadership

Leadership positions can be drastically different but there are a few basic elements that they all have in common. The following 5 key skills for leadership are some of those that all good leaders require, regardless of their field or position.

 

1. Communication

 

The nature of leadership means that you are working with others. Working with others means that you will need to communicate.

 

Knowing how your team is coming along, what obstacles that they are facing is important both so that you can help them deal with their problems and enjoy their successes with them, but also because chances are you will need to report their progress to your superior. 

 

After all, leadership positions are often still somewhere along the chain of command. You are leading a team, but you are probably also one of a number of team leaders forming another team that answers to another leader. Communicating with your team and fellow team leaders as well as superiors will all be important.

 

2. Creativity

Being a leader doesn’t just mean telling other people what to do, it also means working with the individual strengths and weaknesses of your team members. This requires communication, but also creativity.

 

As a group leader, you will be in charge of directing your team towards the completion of your goal, but also in charge of overcoming problems that your team faces both externally and internally.

 

3. Organization

 

In addition to orchestrating your team members, a leader needs to keep an eye on all of the due-dates and deadlines for projects being managed by your team.

 

Of course, the more that your team has to do the more difficult this can become. This can also be true if there is something that you need to do with your team’s work or reports before passing it along. Consider the case of an editor at a newspaper, for example. Each writer has their own deadlines to get things into the editor so that the editor can edit them before the editor’s deadline.

 

Matching up your deadlines with your team’s deadlines can mean a busy calendar.

 

4. Tenacity

 

Leaders also need to have patience and tenacity.

 

As a leader, you should have been tasked with some kind of explicit objective. While it is natural to want your team to have achieved this objective as soon as possible, it is important that you do not become discouraged if the objective is not achieved overnight.

Chances are, this objective – whatever it may be – is only the first of many that you will be tasked with completing during your time in a leadership position. As such, it is important that you demonstrate that you are able and willing to put in prolonged time and effort to achieve a goal.

 

5. Restraint

 

Finally, leaders require restraint. It is very seldom that the most direct or the riskiest path will be the one that leads to the greatest results. People love to see a leader put everything on the line, but only when it pays off. Calculated risks can impress the crowd, but it’s usually better to take a route that you know will work than a route that might work if everything else works out okay.

 

There are many things that make a good leader, and no article can prepare you for leadership. It is important that you gradually settle into a leadership position by making decisions that protect those around you and those beneath you. 

 

Sometimes it can seem like this means taking the slow road, or the road without fame and glory, but being a leader isn’t about glory as much as it is about success. That means taking things slow and taking the action that is best for your team rather than best for your appearance.

 

5 Characteristics Of A Great Leader

A lot is expected of leaders. As they lead, they grow in their abilities and skills. When looking at the leaders around you, you will be able to notice the best of them. Below are five characteristics of a great leader. 

1. Empathy

Our first characteristic of a great leader is empathy. As a leader, it is important that you care about how others feel, especially those who you are leading. When leaders don't care about those under them, they end up more like dictators. 

As their leader, the more you connect with what your people need and want, the better you will be able to lead them. Some ways for you to show empathy are to listen to concerns that are brought to you and to ask how people are doing. Asking gives them a chance to tell you so that you can help them with those problems.

2. Strength

The second characteristic of a great leader is strength. This typically does not refer to physical abilities but rather mental ones. Leaders have to deal with a lot of things and protect their group from numerous problems. 

You must be a strong person to handle the strain of that effort and the strain of protecting your group. Some ways for you to demonstrate that strength is to handle the stress of your position well and get rid of it through good outlets, and to maintain a good attitude even when things aren't going as planned. 

3. Open-Minded

The third characteristic of great leaders is that they need to have open minds. One of the worst things that you can do is lead with a closed mind. If you continually think a certain way such as that your way is the best and you believe that nothing else other than your way can work, you might get lucky at first. 

But eventually, your close-mindedness will catch up and cause you problems, hurting your leadership abilities and those under you. Some ways that you can practice being open-minded is to seek out information that you don't agree with and to talk openly with people who hold beliefs that are different from yours.

4. Accountable

Being accountable is the fourth characteristic of a great leader. Being responsible for your decisions, whether the outcome is good or bad, is a hard thing to do. But the very greatest leaders will always hold themselves and those around them accountable for their actions. 

Ways to help you stay accountable are to have a friend or other accountable person to regularly evaluate what you are doing, keep a diary or calendar to help you keep track of what needs to get done, and don't get distracted or flake out when things get hard. 

5. Good Communicator

The fifth characteristic of a great leader is to be a good communicator. Being a leader is all about communication. You can’t lead any group of people if you aren’t able to communicate with them. Lack of communication is not the only possible problem. If you aren’t able to communicate well, you might miscommunicate and confuse the people who you are talking to. 

Some ways to improve your communication abilities are to take speech classes and to practice communicating. For those who are introverted or those who have social anxiety, it can be hard to talk to large groups of people. 

Seeing a doctor can help with your social anxiety will make things easier on you. But overall, doing more public speaking will help you become more comfortable and confident. Public speaking is one of the largest fears that humans have but it still remains a very important skill for leaders to have. 

 

6 Reasons To Develop Your Leadership Skills

Leaders are the people that we look towards to help us through tough times. They are the people who we respect and follow the example of. There are a lot of benefits to being a leader within your own life. 

 

Developing your leadership skills can help you in numerous ways with your personal life and your career path. Here are six reasons to develop your leadership skills. 

1. Further your career

When you develop your leadership skills, you are helping to further your career. It is hard to move forward in any career without leadership skills but especially in jobs that deal with people. When your superiors see your increase in leadership skills such as communication, organization, reliability, and more, they are more likely to want to put you in leadership positions where you can help make a difference within your job.

2. Increase your self-esteem

 

Developing your leadership skills can help with your self-esteem. Becoming a better leader within your own life and utilizing your leadership skills on yourself could help you assess yourself better. Your confidence will grow and you will gain a more accurate image of yourself rather than the negative version you had come to picture.

3. Relate to leaders in your life

When you start to become a leader and understand what it takes to be a good leader, you begin to relate a lot more to the leaders in your own life. It can be hard to relate to your bosses or community leaders but as you develop your own leadership skills, you should start to gain some empathy towards them. Leading a group of people comes with a lot of challenges. Once you are more knowledgeable about those challenges, you are more likely to understand what your own leaders are going through. 

4. Open new opportunities

As you develop your leadership skills, leadership positions are much more likely to open up to you. There are always roles that need to be filled. When people see leaders rising up, they will often reach out with available opportunities. There could be a club or other organization that you have never considered being a part of that asks for you to join because of your leadership skills. These opportunities might not have been available to you prior to your skill development. 

5. Be a better person

We already discussed how your leadership skill development would help you to have better self-esteem and relate better to your own leaders. Those are not the only ways that you will improve as your skills develop. 

Anytime that you work on a skill, you are improving yourself. By developing your leadership skills, you are working towards making yourself a better person. As these skills improve, so will others. It is always a great thing to improve upon yourself and attempt to make yourself the best version of yourself possible. 

6. Help those around you

There are a lot of ways that developing your leadership skills helps you. One major reason to develop your leadership skills is what they will do for those around you. When you are a better leader and person, that only has positive effects on those around you. 

Your increase in communication skills, time management, and organizational abilities will be very positive for those around you. Your family, friends, and coworkers will all benefit as you become a better example of a good leader and of a person who is bettering themselves.

 

Overall, these six reasons should help motivate you to want to develop your leadership skills. There is so much to gain and so very little to lose. 

 

Accountability: A Key Function Of A Great Leader

Accountability is defined by Merriam-Webster as “...an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions.” This trait of taking responsibility has been and will always be a key function of a great leader. The reason for this is taking accountability is not an easy thing to do. It is easy to claim our actions that have positive outcomes. 

 

But when something we do results in negatives, it can be tempting to not accept responsibility for it. Being accountable also involves holding others accountable. 

 

When others make mistakes or are not moving in the right direction, it is the responsibility of great leaders to hold those individuals accountable for their actions. It might be hard or embarrassing to address these faults, but a great leader pushes through and accepts responsibility regardless. 

 

Throughout history, the best and greatest leaders have shown accountability.

 

One great example of this is Eleanor Roosevelt. Throughout her life, including but not limited to her time as the first lady, Roosevelt worked hard to bring equality to all people and hold those in power accountable for this equality. History.com discusses her many achievements and actions. 

 

“During World War II (1939-1945), Roosevelt advocated on behalf of European refugees who wanted to come to the United States. She also promoted issues that were important to American troops, worked to boost soldiers’ morale, encouraged volunteerism on the home front and championed women employed in the defense industry. She also pushed for the continuation of New Deal programs during the war, against the wishes of some of her husband’s advisors...Eleanor Roosevelt famously resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) when it barred African American singer Marian Anderson from performing at its Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C.”

 

Using her political position, Roosevelt made sure that all people from refugees, to troops, to women were getting what they needed. Roosevelt continued to do this in many other ways such as getting more women federal positions and holding press conferences for female reporters. 

 

She also supported the civil rights movement. Because of this support, in the 1960s a $25,000 bounty was put on her head by the KKK. 

 

Later in life, Roosevelt became a part of the U.N. in the first U.S. delegation. During this time, she gave the speech “The Struggle for Human Rights.” This speech urged for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be passed. Roosevelt also served on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was part of the Peace Corps, in addition to the U.N.

 

Roosevelt is an example of a great leader who showed accountability.

 

As the first lady, she had the most power a woman could really have in the United States at that time. She used her position to make sure that everyone else was being treated equally and fairly. She held her husband and his associates to a high standard. She held clubs and organizations to a high standard too.

 

When they didn't meet her expectations, she worked to change them. While previous first ladies had used their position to be the white house’s hostesses, Roosevelt used it to help create equality for everyone in the country. 

 

Being a leader is hard but being a great leader is incredibly difficult. When we see someone throughout history or in current events doing a good job leading, it is smart to observe what they are doing and why. 

 

Roosevelt lifted up the people who were the lowest on the totem pole. She held those who were in power to higher standards. She is a great example of why a key function to being a good leader is accountability.

 

Are You Your Own Leader?

When you look at your life, what determines your values, actions, thoughts, and more? Do you rely on others to tell you how you should think and feel? In the age of social media, it can be hard to be your own independent person. 

 

A great way to assess your own leadership in your life is to look at your relationships.

 

Family

 

One of the first relationships to look at is the one that you have with your family. As we grow up, we often start out believing what our parents believe. They tell us what to do, and for a certain number of years, we have to do it. It is only when we move out or start becoming independent that we begin to think for ourselves. 

 

At this point, you are becoming your own leader. Your parents might really like or believe one thing, and you like or believe differently. That is okay. You are choosing for yourself what you want to like or believe. It can be hard for parents and other family members to adjust to you having leadership over yourself. 

 

Your family has to grow just as you have and when they don’t, it can either cause rifts between you and them, or it can cause you to revert and step away from being your own leader. 

 

Your Relationship With Your Partner

 

Another relationship that you need to look at is the one you have with your partner. While it is important for you guys to have things in common, it is also important that you are not relying on them to tell you what to think or feel. 

 

Your partner shouldn’t be telling you where you are allowed to go, who you are allowed to see, and what you are allowed to wear. When this happens, you are not independent over yourself. It is good to check in with your partner and make sure that you guys are on the same page, but you are your own person even when you are in a relationship. Your whole person doesn’t need to change based upon who you are in a relationship with. 

 

Friendships

 

A large group of relationships that you need to access is those that you have with your friends. People very often peer pressure each other. It can be easy to fall into a trap of embarrassment and shame that causes you to do something that you wouldn’t normally do. 

 

If your friends do not accept you for who you are and are constantly trying to change you by dictating how you should think or feel, they are probably not the friends for you. Ideally, your friends will respect who you are as a person and will not attempt to change you. 

 

Just because they do something, doesn’t mean that you should do it. You are your own person and you are allowed to make your own decisions, even if they don’t go with what your friends are doing. 

 

You Are The Master Of Your Own Life

 

It can be very easy to fall into the habit of never standing up for yourself or always doing what is common or popular. Sometimes it is hard to go against the crowd or stop what you have already started doing. 

 

The biggest indicator that you are your own leader is that you do exactly what you want. Your life is your own and your choices were made by you. You are the master of your life and you don’t require the relationships that you hold with others around you to determine anything for you. 

 

Being your own leader can be scary and hard, but ultimately it will help you to feel at ease in your skin and have fewer regrets in life. 

 

Learn From Great Leaders: The Benefits Of Having An Open Mind

For every individual, no matter their position, there are benefits to having an open mind. For leaders, there are definitely benefits as having an open mind allows them to become better leaders. One example of a leader who made changes to his viewpoints is Abraham Lincoln. 

 

Lincoln is considered a great leader of the United States because of what he accomplished while he was president. He issued the Emancipation proclamation and granted freedom to slaves. He also helped start the rebuilding of the country after the civil war. 

 

Although he helped give United States’ slaves their freedom, according to history.com, he wasn’t always so sure on the proper course of action. “Abraham Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem: It was sanctioned by the highest law in the land, the Constitution...he didn’t know exactly what should be done about it within the current political system.”

 

Over time, he realized what had to be done. Although there were many reasons for freeing the slaves, he gave them their freedom even though it went against the Constitution, something that had been previously very problematic for him.

 

Lincoln learned to expand his beliefs by having a more open mind. There are many benefits that he received because of his changes of beliefs and having an open mind. Because of Lincoln’s actions, he is highly regarded for starting to pave the path for equality for African Americans. Lincoln is featured on the United States’ currency and there are multiple memorials dedicated to him. 

 

Throughout the rest of Lincoln’s presidency after the end of the civil war, he continued to change in his thinking in actions and become more and more accepting of African Americans and their place in the states. If Lincoln had not had an open mind and had stuck with the Constitution, he would not be the revered man that he is today.

 

Although it can be hard to have an open mind and to look at opinions that are different from yours, there are many benefits to it. 

 

Seeing multiple angles and sides of things allows you to be a better leader. 

 

If you can relate to your people and understand how they feel and what they think, you will be able to better serve them. Those following you will be much more willing to sing your praises if you are able to help them in the way that they need. 

 

Are you having trouble having a more open mind? It’s all about attitude. You need to allow yourself the opportunity to open your mind. Opening your mind doesn’t mean immediately changing your beliefs. Instead, you are looking at all the facts and alternative opinions. 

 

You are not immediately disregarding anything that doesn’t fit with what you think. Instead, consider these other ideas and compare them to your own thoughts.

 

It is very easy to remain close-minded and stick to our old thoughts and beliefs.

 

But this world is ever-changing and it needs us to change with it. As a leader, it is important to understand these changes, even if you don’t agree with all of them. The people you are leading might relate to these changes or be a large part of them. 

 

Being able to connect with them or understand where they are coming from is extremely important. Just like Lincoln was able to adapt and make changes for his people which lead to wonderful things for the United States, other great leaders around you will do so as well as they utilize their open-mindedness.