If you think of and picture yourself as a failure, you will fail. Think of success. Realize you are born to succeed and win. Picture yourself successful, happy, and free; and you will be, says Prof. VGT, and unravels the big secrets to develop self-confidence and self-worth for success in any profession.
Whatever you think and feel is true in your conscious mind is embodied in your subconscious and comes to pass into your experience. That’s the law of mind, undeviating, immutable, timeless, and changeless. Have faith and you will overcome all obstacles.
Over many years’ observation of people – rich and poor, famous and average, leaders and followers – a startling discovery was made: the most significant ingredient that predestines a person to success or lack of it is how one feels about oneself.Those who truly love themselves, who feel that they are people of value, are far more likely to achieve success in their lives than those who lack this belief.
What distinguishes successful people from the unsuccessful ones is self-esteem or self-confidence. Successful people believe in themselves and the powers within them! So let’s look at this in more detail and understand it better.
Self-esteem – the basic ingredient of self- confidence
Self-esteem is best defined as feeling good about oneself. People with high self-esteem believe that they are more likely to succeed at the things they do. They respect themselves and know that other people respect them.
This does not mean that they are always optimistic about everything and are always cheerful and smiling. We all have bad days and experience times when everything seems to go wrong. People with high self-esteem can accept this and not let it overwhelm them.
Self-esteem is an integral part of self-confidence. Before you can feel good about the decisions you make, you must believe in yourself. You must truly feel that you are someone of worth. If you do not have self-esteem, how can you be confident that you decisions are worthwhile?
Why do people lack self-confidence?
One common reason is that they may have failed in some activity early in their lives and fear this will happen again.Another is that other people – often teachers or even their own parents – were never satisfied with their performance in school or college or other matters, and have left them with a feeling of inferiority.
Still others have tasted success only to have it followed by some sort of failure and have let that failure dominate their minds and doom them to a lack of self-confidence in anything they do.
The key to changing your feelings about yourself lies in your subconscious mind. The only way for you to reach your subconscious mind is through your conscious mind. Your subconscious is always controlled by a dominant idea, and will accept the stronger of two contradictory propositions.
If you say, “I want self-confidence but I can’t get it; I try so hard; I force myself to pray; I use all the willpower I have,” you must realize that your error lies in your effort.
Some people try to exert “willpower” to change their ways. Willpower is an overt attempt to do this. To achieve results you must remove thoughts of the negative from the subconscious, and willpower only reinforces those thoughts. You cannot compel the subconscious mind to accept your idea by exercising willpower. Such attempts are doomed to failure and you get the opposite of what you pray for.
If you substitute positive thoughts in your conscious mind to replace the negative one, they will filter into the subconscious.
When you concentrate on willpower, you only reinforce in your subconscious mind the act you are trying to overcome.For example, when a smoker, trying to break the habit, uses willpower, he keeps repeating, “I will not smoke.” The subconscious mind then focuses on the act of smoking. If, instead, the smoker concentrates on the joys of freedom from smoking – breathing clean, fresh odor –free air, and other benefits- the subconscious mind responds accordingly.
Never consider yourself a failure.
It is your estimates, your blueprints, and your beliefs about yourself that govern you. It is not some other person’s belief about you. If someone says to you, “You’re a failure; you’ll never amount to anything,” what should you do? Say to yourself, “What another person says about me is irrelevant. I’m born to win, to succeed. I must succeed. I’m going to succeed in a remarkable and unique way.”
Every time any person says you are going to fail, it’s a stimulus to you to reinforce your faith in the power of your subconscious mind, which never fails. Don’t blame conditions. Successful people work to overcome poor conditions. Sure, there will be failures, but that does not mean that you are a failure. You have within you the creative power to reverse failure, to move on to success. The other person doesn’t control you. The power isn’t in the other person to manipulate you unless you permit it.
You are what you think you are. You create yourself the image you have of yourself in your own mind.
Self-esteem grows within you with each success you have. Self-esteem will even grow when you meet occasional failure if you remember that the power is still with you and you believe in it and have proven it by your actions.
Self-esteem and self-confidence are nothing more than the projection of your image of yourself. If you maintain a strong positive self-image, you will be a happier and more successful person. You will be a person able to hurdle over roadblocks – no matter how difficult – and achieve the goals you set for yourself.
Make up your mind now, this minute. You can have what you wish to possess; and it will be done unto you, as you believe.
Your greatest need is to believe in yourself, in what you are doing, and in your ultimate destiny. Self-reliance, or self-confidence, finds its greatest outlet when it is accompanied by a belief that your real self is God-given and that with God all things are possible.
Follow the age-old maxim: Be sure you are right, then go ahead. Let nothing move you or shake your conviction. Make it a part of your mentality. And with this kind of belief you will inevitably succeed and move forward in life.
Give yourself a pep talk.
There are times when we need to bolster our self-esteem. Emulate the coach of an athletic team. Ehen the team is falling behind, the coach reaches out to motivate the team. He or she gives them a pep talk. With well-chosen words, the coach instills enthusiasm, self-confidence, and not just the desire to win, but also the commitment to put all their efforts into reaching the goal.
As individuals, we need pep talks, too, when our enthusiasm for life wanes, when we are depressed, when we suffer failures, our self-confidence fades and our faith in ourselves is shaken. But where’s the coach?
We must be our own coaches. To change the script in your mind, give yourself a pep talk. Tell yourself you are good, you are a winner, you have succeeded in the past, and you will succeed again. By giving yourself a pep talk, you are planting seeds of self-esteem in your conscious mind, which when repeated over and over again will seep into your subconscious mind and become the roots of your behavior.
Replace all negative words with words of self-esteem and just as day follows night, self-esteem and confidence will permeate your life.
This self-esteem follows us throughout our lives. In our youth it pushes us forward, in our middle years it sustains us, and in our late years it renews us.
Make it a practice to replace those negative words in your personal script with positive words. Instead of words of despair, plant words of hope; instead of words of failure, create words of success; instead of words of defeat, think words of victory; instead of words of worry, add words of encouragement; instead of words of apathy, plant words of enthusiasm; instead of words of hate, use words of love.
Capitalise on your strengths
Confidence is the very basis of all achievement. There is a tremendous power in the conviction that we can do a thing. People who have great faith in themselves are relieved from a great many uncertainties as to whether they are in the right place, from doubts as to their ability, and from fears regarding their future.
It’s human to worry about your weaknesses and it gives some people the incentive to improve them, but it makes many people feel inferior. Instead of brooding about what you cannot do well, glorify in your mind the things at which you are really good. The result: your self-esteem. and your self-confidence will grow and propel you forward to success in all your endeavours.
Repeat to yourself the adage made famous by the French philosopher Emile Coue: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”
Some steps to take
- Love yourself. ‘Unless you truly respect yourself, you cannot expect others to love and respect you.
- Trust yourself. Don’t hesitate to make decisions about your life. If you set your goals and have confidence that you will succeed, you need not fear making decisions that will help you reach those goals.
- Accentuate the positive. Sure, you may have some failures along the way, but don’t dwell on them. Focus on the achievements you make day by day and your script of success will be reinforced. Self-esteem is perishable. It must be constantly nourished and reinforced. It is nourished by words, by deeds, by attitudes, and by experience, and by your own commitment you maintain it.
- Demand a great deal from yourself. When you achieve a small success, congratulate yourself, but this is not the time to become complacent. Use small successes as incentives to seek even higher achievements.
