Your #1 Priority

Believe in yourself, no matter what. Living brings challenges, traumas test you; obstacles threaten to block your every move. The only element strong enough to overcome all of these things is your belief that you can transcend them.

Your belief system is at the core of everything you do, say, think and feel. The beliefs you hold influence your interpretation of yourself, the world, events and all that’s possible in your life. Out of all the beliefs you carry, the most important ones are those that relate to how you perceive yourself. If you believe you are strong, courageous, creative and powerful, you will achieve anything to which you set your mind. If, however, your self-belief wobbles, wiggles or melts like Jello, your goals will do the same.

Believing in yourself may seem difficult, but the truth is, you’ve had belief in yourself since you were just an infant. You believed you could learn to stand, and you did. You believed you could learn to crawl, and you did. You believed you could learn to talk, feed yourself and walk — and you did. Long before you entertained disbelief you had a core belief in your ability to achieve. Believing in yourself means tapping back into that inherent system every day.

Not sure you can do that? Try this:

Think back to a time in your life that you faced a challenge bigger than any before, and that you triumphed over. Remember what it was like to find yourself in that situation. Call up right now the fear, anxiety, stress, worry, embarrassment, shame — all of the emotions that went along with that moment.

Remember how you thought you weren’t strong enough, or smart enough, or skilled enough or resourceful enough to manage the situation and do what needed to be done in order to move through it with strength, clarity and success. Remember the voices of others who also didn’t believe you could triumph. Remember how small, weak, ineffective and powerless you felt back then.

Now, slowly move yourself through the entire memory, all the way to the end when you were victorious. Remember how good it felt to discover your success, the surprise, exhilaration, jubilance and joy. How did you get there? What did you do? What did you think? What actions did you take? Where did you find the bravery to rise up and overcome? What did that prove about you?

Write out the answers to these questions. Keep the page somewhere handy so that you can, at a moment’s notice, return to it for inspiration, guidance and advice in future situations.

No matter what happens in life, your core authentic self — the one who believed, at such a young age, that you could achieve whatever you wanted — always exists. It’s up to you to tap into that unquestioning self-belief and use it.