Self-belief is important for success.
Some of us have it, some don’t.
Even if you don’t have it in spades, you can develop it.
To do it, make small promises to yourself and keep them by being specific and starting really small.
How?
Pick an area of your life that you want to change and haven’t succeeded so far. Promise yourself that you’ll make a change in that area starting today or tomorrow. Make this change so small that it is impossible to not do it.
Do you want to create a reading habit and could not do it earlier?
Try again. This time, don’t start with big goals and be specific. Instead of saying you’ll read a book a month from now on, say that you’ll read 10pages/ 1page/ 1paragraph/ 1line/ 1word of ‘the name of the book’ every day before breakfast in the living room, for the next 30 days.
One word may seem too small to make an impact. You may think that it will take your years to finish one book. But starting small is magical because a very small goal does not seem intimidating and gets us out of inaction. Once we take action chances are we’ll take bigger action than planned because we are already in motion. So, instead of reading one word, you’ll read one paragraph or even one page.
You can use this same approach to accomplish any other goal.
Why this approach works?
Because self-belief is nothing but confidence in your own abilities or judgment. When you make a small promise to yourself and keep it day after day, you start believing in yourself. You trick your brain into thinking that you can do whatever you say or think will do.
It has a big positive side effect. When you do something every day, you build a habit. So, your brain starts doing it unconsciously and it becomes easy to do.
When you start with huge goals and no specific plan, you fail at keeping our promises to yourself and the brain starts to think that you can’t do what you think of doing.
The small goal, small promise strategy helps you avoid that.
Are you worried this approach will keep you from thinking and doing big?
Not true. Once you build your self-belief, you can grow it by making bigger promises and keeping them. With increased self-belief, no goal will be too big for you and you’ll transform your life.
Are you ready to do it?
