Self-Belief

Foundations of Mental Toughness — Essay 1

Introduction

This essay came from a season of reflection on confidence, failure, freedom, and the quiet work of becoming who you say you want to be.

Self-belief isn’t loud. It isn’t blind optimism. It’s something you build slowly, through action, failure, and choosing to keep going when it would be easier to stop. This is my relationship with it so far.

What Is Self-Belief

The mental strength framework shows this as “confidence in your ability”.

Let’s break that down – confidence.
What does that mean? An assurance. A knowing.
A belief that things will be okay.

“Your ability” – how capable you are to complete a task. Your output.
How able you are to do a thing.

A belief that you can.
A knowing you will be able to.
Belief in your self. Regardless of the outcome.

Why Self-Belief Can Be Limited

There is a few layers to this – your belief in your self may be limited. Why?

Not having many positive experiences
Not having enough experience
External factors telling you – you can’t
Internal factors telling you – you can’t
Having too many bad experiences
A negative understanding what it means to “fail”
Positive role models
Not knowing your self and the things you want to believe in

Goal Setting – Mine – Freedom

This has actually been a life long mission. Freedom has many aspects.
Time, money and health all limit our freedom.

Becoming an accountant ate up all my time but it has given me a safety net and allowed me freedom of mind to know that if things go bad I can fall back on that.

Time freedom comes from having work that isn’t so restrictive. A coaching role would allow me to do this.

And my health – I have so much freedom because I train

Within this one goal of freedom – there are four elements

Financial – accountancy
Time – coaching
Health – training
Presence

How do I make these goals are tangible in what I do now – how do I influence my decisions into this line?

Failure

When I threw a day festival and lost £300, was that failure? Yes. On paper. Did I learn a shit ton. Also yes.

It might be valuable to look at failure as just an outcome. The process is the data. The outcome is the result.

Rewriting “failure”.

To fail is a privilege to care enough to try is a privilege.

Set the goals just big enough where the risk of failure is low but growth is high.

You learn faster by failing more. You gain confidence by trying more.

Confidence is trying and failing on a small enough scale where it doesn’t crush you but shows you the way.

Snowballing

Within the realm of goal setting. We know that the dopamine hit that comes with achieving goals is very real and we can also hang onto these feelings.

But this desire of achieving goals without meaning that actually serves us (or where we run in the wrong direction faster).

The goal itself doesn’t matter as much as the meaning that you gather along the way.

All that matters is that you build self belief.

Rewriting failure – you tried, you faced fear. That was the important part.

You try, you either fall short or you succeed. Both tell you something about your self.

This gives you small insight into where to aim next time.

Starting Small

Now look at when you think you might want to do things…

If you think you want to coach – go and volunteer. And maybe you don’t like it. Great you found that out.

If you want to be healthier – don’t go and train six days a week. Find what fits for you.

Want to have better presence – one breathing exercise a week.

Working Back

You don’t need to be great to get started but you need to get started to be great.

Working back from an end goal – not necessarily a clear goal but some sort of vision.

For me this is a freedom of choice – family, training, enjoyment.

Trying Again

You’ll dust your self off and go again – either with a better goal or a better why.

Self belief comes from building a knowing that you are capable to do the thing or deal with the consequences of not daring, achieving the thing. The main thing is you try.

And set the bar low – let it snowball.

Closing Reflection

Self-belief isn’t something you wait for. It’s something you earn through motion. Through imperfect action. Through choosing to stay in when it would be easier to leave.

You don’t find confidence.
You build it.