Believing in yourself: for greater success and vigor

During your studies, when looking for a job and also for entrepreneurs, it is extremely important to believe in yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, who will? Believing in yourself is extremely important for achieving success in life and not to be defeated when things go wrong. There are several moments in your life when believing in yourself is important.

In this article, I discuss those moments and what you can do to make the most of them and strengthen your belief in yourself.

When you grow up, everything is taken care of for you in most cases. Money is something you don't really have a clue about. As a child, you probably don't fully understand that it is necessary in the Netherlands. Still, you get older and at some point you start living on your own.

For one person, living on your own is a moment of ultimate freedom that has been looked forward to for years. For another, it is an exciting moment that actually arises out of necessity, such as because of studies or family circumstances.

In the latter case, believing in yourself is important to making living on your own a success.

Watch this video about believing in yourself:

Living on your own

Living on your own when you feel you are not ready shows that you do not fully believe in yourself yet. Living on your own means suddenly being able to spend your money responsibly and keeping your house or room tidy so you don't get sick of dirt.

Self-belief, then, is really about believing whether you can get through the month on the budget you have for it. Self-confidence is about your ability in preparing a healthy dinner. You have to believe in also cleaning regularly enough not to get sick from mold, for example in your bathroom.

I know someone who when she moved out on her own was not convinced she could cook. As a result, she basically just ate from McDonalds, Wok-to-Go and at friends' houses during the week. Eventually, she began to feel weak. Her study results declined, and friends didn't always feel like she was stopping by for fun either.

Eventually, a conversation with a close friend of hers made her realize that it couldn't go on like this. Her friend challenged her to go to the supermarket for once and just buy wok vegetables and prepare them as instructed.

Just doing this once revealed that the beliefs she had about herself were totally wrong. The disbelief about her ability to cook normal food made no sense at all. This increased her belief in herself that she can live on her own, with all the facets that come with it.

Exercises to strengthen belief in yourself

Like the student I just told you about, do you find it difficult to believe that you can handle living on your own? Then you can find out through trial and error whether or not you can do some things. In addition, you can use self-hypnosis to try to change beliefs. For example, by repeating the following sayings during self-hypnosis:

• I can find new friends.
• I can follow instructions on packages for dinner.
• I have the discipline to do homework without prompting (as a student).
• I can vacuum, mop, dust and clean up.
• I can always turn to family and friends when needed.

Finding a job

At the next stage of your life most people start looking for a job, in the next piece I talk about starting for yourself. Even if you are looking for a job, it is important to keep believing in yourself. You have to be able to hold the belief that you are valuable in order not to turn into a wreck at yet another rejection and, above all, to keep going.

As with moving out on your own, you can use self-hypnosis to boost your confidence . During self-hypnosis, you use spells, or suggestions, to get beliefs deeper into your subconscious. Another way to boost belief in yourself is to make a list of all the things you've learned about. At the end of the day, these are all subjects you have knowledge about that would be valuable to a future employer. Even if you may not believe it is.

Presentation about yourself

During a job interview, you also often have to tell something about yourself. Perhaps you find it recognizable that you totally shut down at your first job interview. "Myself? Um...um. I was born in.... My parents are...." And then the rant begins about your life, but not actually about yourself.

What you can do to strengthen belief in yourself and also to have an answer ready is to make a presentation about yourself. Through that activity you are actually also making a kind of discovery about yourself. In the presentation you can of course talk about the basic things like your place of birth, but you can also go into more depth. For example, tell something about character traits that often suit you. Or in doing so, tell something about a character trait that is very difficult for you, but that you can deal with and how you do that.

Also, tell us something about your passion. What topic gets you all excited and could keep you talking for hours? By writing this down once, you will find out that there is more to you than the body and that you have quite a lot you believe in.

Standing up for yourself

Should you advance and start negotiating a salary, believing in yourself is also important to stand up for yourself. You are worth more than minimum wage. Again, the more you believe in yourself, the more convincing you will come across as asking for a higher amount. In doing so, it is also important not to see yourself as a victim.

Again, self-hypnosis allows you to repeat suggestions, or spells, that can increase your confidence in your business.

Mindfulness is also a great way to increase your self-confidence and belief in yourself. Especially if you often have thoughts that undermine your belief in yourself. Mindfulness allows you to notice those kinds of negative thoughts more quickly and to interrupt those thoughts more quickly.

In addition, you can practice a conversation like this with family or friends.

Starting for yourself

Some people don't even try to find a job and start immediately for themselves. Others, after years of being employed, take the step to start for themselves. This is a special step and this can be very scary at first.

Especially if you are going into business out of necessity, it is very difficult to do so with conviction. When you start for yourself, you have to believe in yourself and in your own power. This is very important for the success of your business. Believing in yourself allows you to talk about what you do with more confidence and enthusiasm. In the end, enthusiasm is contagious and this helps to keep going after starting for yourself.

Strengthen confidence in yourself

Strengthening confidence in yourself can be done through mindfulness and suggestions during self-hypnosis.

In addition, self-hypnosis also allows you to use visualizations. In such a visualization, you can visualize yourself working on something or what it looks like when you have achieved a certain goal.

For a visualization, you first relax and close your eyes. Then you try to imagine the image as completely as possible. What you do, how it feels, how your senses perceive things then, what emotions go with it and how people around you (if they belong in your visualization) react.

Such visualization allows you to realize that what you want to do is also something you can do. The conviction of what you want to believe in therefore comes closer to actually believing it. Unfortunately, some exercises don't happen overnight.

Therefore, it is best to apply self-hypnosis and mindfulness daily to believe in yourself as soon as possible. That way, you will be better able to cope with some changes in your life and face them with more confidence.

Want to learn more about mental techniques to make your life more enjoyable? Then come to a seminar or check out Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training courses.