Don’t Believe In Yourself
In educational circles, I often hear teachers or administrators tell students to “Try your hardest, do your best, and believe in yourself.” This kind of stuff is intentioned as a motivational phrase.
But there’s a problem
There’s a huge logical problem with that statement. Believing in yourself is a surefire way of “wandering around in life like Gomer Pyle on valium,” to quote Dave Ramsey.
Last I checked, I am the source of pretty much all of my problems. Either me directly or my response(s) to circumstances. So why in the world should I believe in myself — one whom I know full well is capable of screwing my life up entirely?
Well that sure is a downer
Maybe, but then again, I have come to believe more heartily than ever before over these last few months that it is absolutely impossible to motivate someone. No motivational speech ever succeeds in motivating someone. Ever.
But they motivate people!
Motivational speeches do not motivate people. They may inspire people. They may provide a call to action. They may unify people. They may encourage people. But they don’t motivate people. Motivation must come from within. I want to focus on the last possibility there: encouragement.
True motivation
True motivation comes from within. False motivation comes from without. The carrot on a stick never fully works. It eventually gets boring. A great example of this is Social Security. True motivation must be cultivated and cared for. This is where encouragement comes in and plays a tremendous and decisive role. I’ll write more on this later, because my running and my updates on Facebook and the support from friends has been a huge eye-opening experience for me. But for now, I’ll leave off there and move back to the point.
Don’t believe in yourself
We’ve all experienced let-down from other people. We get our hopes up and then they turn around and drop the ball or don’t follow through or whatever. We’ve all experienced personal failure. Failure is the springboard for success. Without failure (and the subsequent learning from our mistakes), we will not move forward. When we try to avoid failure, we coincidentally avoid risk. Risk leads to either reward or disappointment. Avoiding risk leads to complacency and stagnation.
But how do we know which risks to take?
There are two ways to know which risks are worth taking. One is by learning from personal experience. This seems to be the most common one for me, and I’d venture it is the most common for most people. The other way is to learn from other people. Figure out what works for them and do the same things. Read books by them. Find out what plan they used and stick to it precisely.
Believing in yourself works marvelously if you have a plan
f you don’t have a plan, then you are wandering. You don’t even know where you’re going, you’re just going.
We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
C.S. Lewis
If you do rich people stuff, you’ll become rich people
Dave Ramsey tells us that if we want to be rich, do rich people stuff. Poor people aren’t poor because they don’t get the lucky breaks. They are poor because they do the things that poor people do. Fat people aren’t fat because of genetics. They are fat because they do fat people things. If you do rich people stuff, you’ll become rich people. If you do skinny people stuff, you’ll become skinny people. It’s that simple.
Don’t believe in yourself
Next time you are tempted to tell someone to believe in themselves, don’t. Instead, be sure they have a good solid plan, and encourage them to get with the plan and believe in it. Believe in the plan, stick to the plan, and the results will follow. The plan will work, but it’s a crock pot method, not a microwave.
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