It’s a term that’s thrown around left, right and centre by the personal development world. 

Often you’ll get a wishy-washy version of what it is, most likely telling you to repeat something three times to boost your self-belief. 

You’ve been there, you’ve tried it, you’ve got the t-shirt and you’re simply left thinking, ‘I’ve tried that, but it’s still not working. It works for everyone else, what’s wrong with me?!’. 

Sigh. 

Sound familiar? 

Self-belief can be defined as, ‘a person's belief in their ability to complete tasks and to achieve their goals’ (Bandura, 1995). In our instance, take steps to get more visible and amplify your message. 

But when you feel like you’ve tried everything under the sun and you’re still struggling to truly believe that people will listen to what you have to say, how the heck do you move forward? 

Here are my top three tips to start building your self-belief (that actually work!) -

Recognise the negative thoughts

Our thoughts are sneaky, and I bet that negative ones can sneak in and drain your energy without you knowing it. Take time to listen to your thoughts, recognise when negative ones are cropping up and learn to recognise the feeling that’s coming up. If it’s negative, think to yourself, ‘I notice that I’m feeling….’. The ‘I notice’ part is KEY. It helps to remove connection to that feeling and allows separation from it. 

Show yourself compassion

Consider, ‘how can I think about this more kindly?’. Instead of thinking, ‘there’s no way anyone will listen to me’, could you replace it with something like, ‘I’m going to try, and I’m curious to see what happens’.

Challenge yourself

Open yourself up to new experiences and give yourself the possibility to succeed! If your self-belief is low, you most likely don’t want to take risks and try things out… this in turn leads to you feeling worse about yourself, which stops you from wanting to put yourself out there - and so the cycle continues! Start small, and take steps to slowly but surely get more visible, take a risk and see your self-belief build.

Give yourself self-care

Feeling good about yourself makes you more likely to want to take risks. So, give yourself some dedicated time for self-care to remind yourself how important and worthy you are of meeting your own needs. Whether it’s getting your nails done, going out for a walk or heading to a yoga class, do whatever makes you feel good. 

Feel good about failing! 

It can feel scary, as we’ve often been taught that failing is a bad thing. But failing is the quickest and best way to learn how to do something! So give yourself permission to be a beginner at something, and ENJOY learning how to fail. I promise it can be fun!

Amy x