“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t you are right.” — Henry Ford.
Most people give up on success because of unbelief or doubt. They may doubt because someone told them they could not achieve anything, or because of past failures, or fear of the future, or because of their geographical or societal conditions. Unbelief is when you give up saying, “I just can’t understand Government,” or “Economics is just too difficult.” “Physics or Chemistry is not for people like me,” “I am not from a rich country or civilized country like America,” or any other excuse you may think of to prevent you from taking action. Unbelief is a barrier to success, and these steps below will help you crush that barrier.
1. Affirm Your Self-Belief
How do babies learn to walk? They see other people walking and then start copying them. However, babies do not perfect walking from the first step taken. According to research, babies see other people walking and say to themselves, “I too can walk.” Then they try to stand up and fall many times until they can stand on their feet. After that, they start taking one step after another. The belief in babies’ minds is what enables them to walk. Even when they fall and get injured, they don’t give up because they don’t stop telling themselves those same words “someday I’m going to walk like these people”.
Let the words that echo in your mind repeatedly be, “I have what it takes to be successful.” Even if you fail, keep believing and say it out loud to yourself that you can be successful, and before long, you will succeed. This principle will work in your academics, career, or any other area of your life. The adverse situations or negative words people tell you should not make you doubt yourself.
2. Do Not Fear Failure
Like a newborn baby who is not afraid of repeatedly falling before walking, you must never be scared of failing. Our society stigmatizes failure, but failure is an integral part of the learning process. The fact that you are walking right now means you were some years back that baby that was not afraid of failing over and over again, but with continuous self- belief, you were able to walk. That means you have what it takes to keep believing in yourself, no matter how many times you fail. Never let failure stop you from believing in yourself because every successful person like Jack Ma, who is now a success, also failed many times. Successful people never allow failures to stop them from believing in themselves.
3. Always Ask How
As you keep affirming those words of self-belief in your mind and aloud, you must never forget that success is a continuous journey of still searching for how to become better. Even in little tasks like going on errands that seem not to matter, you must keep improving. Asking the question of how will keep your mind believing that you can find a way forward. Asking how to get things done is different from complaining and saying things like, “I don’t think I can make it work,” instead ask, “how can this work?” Complaining will lead you to the point of unbelief while asking yourself what’s the way forward will create an atmosphere of self-belief where you can create success out of failure.
Please share your thoughts on what you have learned from this blog. I would also love to hear your personal stories of how you keep believing in yourself, irrespective of failure.
About the Author
Charles Adimah is an entrepreneur and the Project Manager of B2SL INITIATIVE, where he manages the organization’s vision. He is a great believer that a prosperous Nigeria is a product of successful Nigerians. You can reach him on charles@b2sl.org.
The most important part for me in this great piece is the dichotomy between asking how, and complaining. Sometimes as individuals, it’s very easy to complain especially when people around you are complaining, and complaining leads to excuses, excuses leads to complacency, and complacency produces mediocrity, and that’s how people get stuck. Asking how makes you want to know, and the more you know, the more you will want to apply what you know, which gets things done, which in essence is development, leading to success. Thank you for this beautiful and energizing piece Mr Charles.
One thing that keeps me moving is that I knew winners don’t quit and quitters don’t win and more also when the going get tough the tough get going.so one needs to believe in him/herself.success don’t come easily
Self-belief is what makes a lion eat an elephant! It only exist in acceptance
The man who asks questions never loses his way. To succeed you must learn to ask how and always say I CAN and Never surrender to failure.
This steps are helpful, asking “how” makes u want to know more and it will explore u to new things
High-self esteem is also required..
Thank you sir..
Success doesn’t come from a day’s work. Even if you fail continue to try because one day your hardwork will pay off. When you’re discouraged by people from ”asking how” always remember that ” A person who ask a question is a fool for one minute but he who never ask is a fool for ever”. Don’t be discouraged by those who surround you. Be hardworking and ask questions (because no one knows all) and you will be happy with the result.
This steps are very helpful and it requires hard work and dedication. Thank you sir
I learnt that we just have to think we can. Unbelief is a barrier to success. To crush that barrier, you have to:
1. Affirm Your Self-Belief
2. Do Not Fear Failure
3. Always Ask How
Failure to me gives us a chance to start over an know the part we are missing.Failure makes us stronger.
Hmm, from what have learnt here u can’t do anything without believing in yourself, even to steal you got to believe that you can do it, what am just trying to say is that you can’t achieve anything without believing u can do it.
People do give up on their success because they fail to belief in themselves, unbelief is a barrier to success and the few things am gonna mention here will help you crush that barrier
Affirm your self belief: have the confidence in yourself for success
Don’t fear failure : Failure is part of our life, you can’t succeed without failing, but that shouldn’t mean we should be afraid of our downfall rather than that, get up and continue the race of success
We should belief in ourselves as the giant in others is surely in us.We should not be afraid of failure because it’s not the end just pulse and we need to continue to attain the greater height in life.We should also learn to ask people questions because it’s helps in supplying lots of information.Also,we shouldn’t be scare of failing because fear means (forget everything and run)so when we shun that,we would live to achieve our goals in life.Never say I can’t but always say I can’t even when you know your ability but with the belief you have in yourself, you will surely do it.
We should believe in ourselves, and we should not be afraid of failure because is not the end
I learn that we should never give up, when we keep trying we get to achieve our goal . I learn that we should
i. Affirm your self beliefs
ii.Do not fear failure
iii. Always ask how
This is totally awesome. Belief is key
Your beliefs or preconceived notions about blindness before you lost your vision can also affect your own attitude towards vision loss. So often we tell ourselves “iam going to do (insert undesirable activity) because it will be good for me,” the funny thing is we recognize the importance of what we want to acomplish, but something keeps us from doing it. Change is hard and and learning curves are steep, but the fact we have recognized the importance of the activity is the fist step in making change *always be good thinker and struggle for you success believe in your self and expect best reward* ss3
Thank alot for this blog, it really help my self esteem.
I really learnt something from this..
Thanks alot
KNOW L EDGE is the EDGE you KNOW when you never stop Learning… And when you rest(maybe because you are not getting it or you don’t understand and you think the next thing to do is to quit) you start to Rust…. Failure is just like falling while walking, rising up to Continue your walk means you are determined to reach your destination, attain Success and be the best you can ever be… It requires only one person to believe in you and that person is YOU… Tell yourself that I can do this, I just need to try more… and taking that step of action, you will soar like Eagles…
Believing in yourself makes u break a record in your family. Never let ur background determine ur success. If u do what others are doing, u will definitely get what others are getting. Be distinct in everything you do. Never education because it might not make u succeed but it’s a licence to ur success ( think about it)🌝
Ok in this blog I understood that failure is an integral part in the learning process . Sometimes when I fail I tend to feel bad and it’s brings down my self esteem,but know I understand the essence of failure.The successful people out there failed over and over again but they never gave up.