It’s a really competitive world out there and the more I think about having faith in yourself the scarier it becomes. In today’s world where success usually is weighed by the number of followers you gather, the amount of money you make and the amount of money you spend, faith in yourself seems extremely difficult. You’re always competing, always on edge, stress is the common language. Your success is designed and confined in a box that is not deigned by you but by someone else and you’re following suit.
Each time I think about faith or try to talk about it, I hear this faint voice which says faith is philosophical and doesn’t amount to much in the real scary wold. Well, yes, I can agree with the former statement however not so much with the latter.
In my opinion faith is much needed I the real scary world. Not in the context of god, philosophy or religion but for your emotional and psychological peace and balance.
Before you go on to say, ‘Hey! Same thing, right?’ No, not really, not even close. I’d like to add faith under the broad spectrum of optimism and confidence.
Optimism as I’ve come to understand as one of the branches of confidence, has been given a positive more feel-good light. It’s less threatening than confidence is and most people live by it day to day. Safe to say that it’s not possible to feel optimistic each moment of everyday but it’s a tool that can definitely help you reach the level of success and happiness that you need and so badly desire.
So how do we start to have more faith in ourselves, especially when we’ve got no hope whatsoever? Here are a few ways to instill that faith in yourself –
#1 - Lean on your strengths – We’re all born with gifts within us. But we rarely look at what’s good in us and delve way too much on our limitations. Faith in yourself begins when you operate/think from a place of your strengths and your gifts, your innate talent and skills instead of what’s lacking in you or your limitations. Even if you don’t know what your strengths are rely on what’s good in you or what you excel at. If you’ve never really known, gently investigate and research about your strengths and draw your faith in yourself from that strength.
#2 - Focus on your ideal pace than your expected pace – Back when I was in school all the kids were put in this box of “common ideal personalities” and each student was expected to be a shiny product of that box. All the students were expected to follow the same pace, have the same set of skills and those who were “different” “slow” “silent” and wanted to be unique weren’t encouraged to excel but were placed in a box of “failure for life”. Most students who are put in the “failure” box don’t dare to break the pattern but suffer silently and live with it all their gifts inside them. This pattern of trying to catch up to those who are in the “common ideal personalities” happens when faith is buried deep within. Just because you’re different, your pace is different, your gifts are different, it doesn’t make you weak or wrong or a failure – it only means that your path is different from the path of the one you’re comparing yourself with. Focus on your path, focus on how you’d like to make it more fun and how to make the best of it, the faith that’s buried in you will surface really soon.
#3 - Don’t live your life based on your past script – There’s a reason they say, ‘it’s all in the past. I understand it all too well now and I’ve learnt to put it in practice as well. Go back to your younger self when you were in your teen years, do you remember how you were? Go further back to when you were 10 years old and younger, were you still the way you were in your teen years? Are you the same today in your current age? I hope not. When you experience change that helps you attract success and happiness with each growing year, you’re making progress if not odds are, you’re still living your life based on the past script. Which is why you get the same results over and over and don’t really succeed or attract the happiness you’re looking for. A lot of people have told me. ‘Oh! I was this way when I was a kid, I wish I could go back’. I understand how you feel when you say that, I used to say it too, but honestly, I hope not. I hope you don’t re-script your life based on your past self but create a new one based on your current self with all the changes you’ve made overtime. That will instill the faith you’ve been searching for since forever.
#4 - Eliminate the word should from your life – When you say “should” you restrict yourself from growth. It sounds as if the ship has sailed and there’s nothing you can do about it. ‘I should’ve said this’ or ‘I should’ve done this’ It seriously limits your growth and curbs all the possibilities and opportunities you could create for yourself. Instead when you say, ‘I could’ve said that’/ ‘I could’ve done that’ it tends to bring hope for the next time you encounter something similar. All hope is not lost and you still have a chance. When you say ‘I should do it this way’ ‘I should work this way’ you tend to pressurize yourself into doing something as opposed to a possibility of ‘I could do it this way’ ‘I could work that way’. Give it a try, you’ll notice the difference in yourself.
#5 - Detach “I” & “me” from your failures and setbacks – Rejections can be hard to deal with and trust me, I know how tough it can be to climb back up once you’ve been thrown down from atop. It’s easy to fall into the never-ending cycle of guilt and shame. But here’s what you need to know when you detach yourself from the setback or rejection it doesn’t affect you as much and instead of losing faith you tend to be open to change and growth. This may seem tough in the beginning but practicing it will help you reap the benefits.
Instead of saying ‘I am a failure’ practice saying ‘The work I was doing didn’t pay off really well’ instead of saying, ‘I was rejected’ practice saying, ‘The idea I presented wasn’t accepted’
#6 - Be appreciative of your life everyday – Gratitude goes a long way and there’s always something to be appreciative of each day. Where its your life or your family or your work or even the air you breathe. Being grateful for the things will attract more of that. Be grateful of the journey, the ups and downs you’ve gone through. They lead you here and ‘here’ is not so bad.
#7 - Have faith in your work, if not you – Your work matters and the work you’re doing is pretty incredible. Even if you can’t have faith in yourself, try to have faith in the work you’re doing. Not what people say about your work but the way you feel about the work you’re doing. That will allow you to keep going and slowly rebuild that faith you want in yourself.
The point is not to enslave faith but cultivate it slowly You will experience moments of self-doubt every now and then. But, each time you do, make sure you remember one of the above ways to rebuild that faith and keep on doing the work you’re doing.
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Nikita