If You Believed That You Could Do It – What Would You Do?
What you could do if you believed in yourself is not just words on a motivational poster.
In my experience, do you know who we tend to have the hardest time believing in? Ourselves.
Look at who people tend to believe in. Talking heads, politicians, oligarchs, demagogues, and leaders with fleeting power on multiple levels. And that’s just the individuals that people believe in.
What about abstract entities and intangibles? People believe in countries, sports teams, religions, God, ridiculous conspiracy theories, and other things and matters. There is a tremendous amount of faith out there for things we mostly cannot touch.
But for ourselves? If we believed in ourselves with the same degree of faith and dedication we give to those other people and abstract intangibles? We’d be seeing very different news reports than we tend to.
Why does this matter? Because when you are empowered, you are in control. But there are a lot of forces that seek to lessen how much you and I believe in ourselves.
Why? Because then we’d not need them.
But it all begins with individuals and what we believe about ourselves.
Self-trust, faith, and belief
My calling has always been the arts.
It began with writing before I was a teenager. Then it was singing and acting. In college, it was DJing at my college’s radio stations and directing plays. After that, I went back to writing.
Despite majoring in theatre in college, I didn’t find a job in that arena. Same with being a radio station DJ. There was some effort to pursue one of these arts. But I didn’t have faith in being able to earn a living from them. I believed I could only do them on the side, or maybe as a hobby.
Why? Because I was sold on the messages I was being broadcast on both personal and impersonal levels that I couldn’t pursue my arts and earn a decent living. I heard my mom in my head expounding on the virtues of being a doctor, lawyer, or business mogul. Or, if I did pursue the arts, I would only be a success if I achieved ultimate highs like best-seller status or an Oscar.
My trust, belief, and faith in myself were next to nil. Unfortunately, this didn’t just apply to the arts for me. It became my excuse to bounce from job to job, get into and eventually out of messy relationships, and even utterly change my circle of friends multiple times.
I was dissatisfied with my life on many levels. And I have watched lots of other people have the same struggles. While I still struggle – though I am working to pursue and achieve my dreams – I’ve come a long way. I’ve found that as I believed more in myself, I gained more control over my life experience.
I recognize, however, that the struggles I often have, still, would be less – if I believed in myself even more.
If you believed in yourself
How does this work?
Rather than looking without for the answers to life, the universe, and everything – you’d turn the focus inwards.
That’s not to say that we don’t and can’t learn from things outside of ourselves. We do, and we must. That’s how you and I gain knowledge and have experiences that teach us new things. But when it comes to ourselves, all that trust, faith, and belief are ultimately internal.
Do you think that, for example, that football player you admire cares about you and your life in any way, shape, or form? Does the United States know if you stand for the national anthem or take a knee in protest? Does Donald Trump believe in anyone but himself? And yet, lots of people put their faith in all three of these outside-of-themselves people and entities.
When all is said and done, all you have is yourself. Friends, family, and all people are fleeting. But you, yourself, are always with you. Yes, the time you will occupy that body is finite – but your ultimate, energetic self is eternal.
If you believed more in yourself, you’d choose better for yourself than you might now. You would rely more on your judgment and overall skills and abilities. But to be fair – that’s not easy.
“They” have things to say
I don’t know about you, but I get tired of what “they” think, say, and do.
But the biggest problem with this over the years is how much it has been weaponized. Compassion, kindness, and empathy are derided as weaknesses by too many in power. And then from that, they create the “other” who is the enemy.
Because we tend to look without more than within when it comes to our faith, belief, and trust – ours is a fear-based society. We buy into false tales of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency regularly.
Some of what “they” say is well-intentioned. My mom has always meant well, for example, when she’s offered suggestions for how I should live my life and make money. But that’s not me – or for me – and I know it.
That’s not my path. My path, I know, is unconventional and unique in many ways.
If I believed in myself more, it would probably go much smoother and with fewer detours and obstacles than it does now.
To be fair, there are tons of useful outside resources worth getting into. Books, courses, podcasts, blogs, and surreal amounts of useful information are available to us all.
No matter what I find when I seek knowledge and information – the only person who can choose if I make use of it or not is me. If I don’t choose for myself, then who does?
That’s where “they” most desire to be. Choosing your courses, your paths, and everything else that they can control. Why? Because if you and I believed in ourselves more thoroughly, “they” would lose what power they have.
That power is fleeting and as artificial as the lack and scarcity “they” employ to keep us disempowered. If we believed more in ourselves – we’d be more empowered.
What you believed then versus what you believe now
Finally – beliefs change. Despite being rooted in your subconscious mind, your beliefs, habits, and values are not written in stone. All can be changed, altered, and replaced.
That begins via mindfulness. When I am consciously aware, here and now, of what I am thinking, what and how I’m feeling, the things I am doing and my intent behind them – I’m mindful. That means my conscious mind is driving.
With that, I can examine my subconscious and see what I believe and have believed and compare them. Does this belief serve me anymore? If not – I can choose to find a way to remove, replace, change, and/or alter it.
But I must believe in myself to make that fly. I must also recognize and acknowledge that I am worthy and deserving of that to walk my given path with grace and ease. And frankly, so is everyone else – no matter what “they” want us to believe.
If I believed more in myself than I can do it, I’d likely be more where I desire to be than where I am. But in recognizing and acknowledging this, I have taken the first step to make it how I desire it to be.
Lastly – I have no regret, no recrimination, and no negativity about that. Regret and blame don’t serve me in any way. It has come and gone. Lessons were learned. Now I get to believe and build from that.
Greater belief in myself is the key to finding and creating the life experience I ultimately desire. If you believed in yourself more, you would have the same ability for conscious reality creation.
What have you believed that you can do with your life experience?
This is the five-hundred and forty-sixth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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