Believe in Yourself (Long, but Worth Reading!)

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" Believe in Yourself " Written by Norman V. Peale

" Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble

but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be

successful or happy. But with self-confidence you can succeed. A

sense of inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hope, but

self-confidence leads to self-realization and achievement. Because

of the importance of this mental attitude, this chapter will help

you believe in yourself and release your inner powers.

An appalling number of people are made miserable by an inferiority

complex. But you need not suffer from this trouble. You can develop

faith in yourself. After a convention, a man approached me and

asked, " May I talk with you about a matter of desparate importance

to me? "

We went backstage and sat down.

" I'm in town to handle the most important business deal of my life, "

he explained, " but I don't believe I can put it over. I am

discouraged and depressed. In fact, " he lamented, " I'm just about

sunk. Why is it that all my life I have been tormented by

inferiority feelings? I listened to your speech tonight about the

power of positive thinking, and I want to ask how I can get some

faith in myself. "

" There are two steps, " I replied. " First, it is important to

discover why you have these feelings. That requires analysis and

will take time, and may require treatment. But to pull you through

this immediate problem, I will give you a formula.

" As you walk down the street tonight, repeat certain words. Say them

over several times before your appointment. Do this with an attitude

of faith and you will receive ability to deal with this problem. "

Following is the affirmation I gave him -- " I can do all things

through Christ which strengtheneth me " (Philippians 4:13). " Now,

follow that prescription, and things will come out all right. "

He pulled himself up, stood quietly for a moment, and then said with

feeling, " Okay, Doctor. Okay. "

I watched him square his shoulders and walk out. He seemed pathetic;

yet the way he carried himself showed that faith was already at work

in his mind.

Subsequently, he reported that this simple formula " did wonders " for

him and added, " It seems incredible that a few words from the Bible

could do so much. "

Of the various causes of inferiority feelings, not a few stem from

childhood. I can illustrate the manner in which many youngsters

acquire an inferiority complex through the use of a personal

reference.

As a small boy, I was painfully thin. I had lots of energy, was on a

track team, was healthy and hard as nails, but thin. And that

bothered me because I didn't want to be thin. I longed to be hard-

boiled and tough and fat. I did everything to get fat. I drank cod-

liver oil, consumed vast numbers of milk shakes, chocolate sundaes,

cakes and pies, but they did not affect me in the slightest. I

stayed thin and lay awake nights thinking and agonizing about it. I

kept on trying to get heavy until I was about thirty, when all of a

sudden I bulged at the seams. Then I became self-conscious because I

was so fat, and finally had to take off forty pounds with equal

agony to get myself down to a respectable size.

In the second place, practically every member of my family was a

public speaker, and that was the last thing I wanted to be. They

used to make me speak even when it filled me with terror. I had to

use every known device to develop confidence in what powers the good

Lord gave me.

I found the solution in the simple techniques of faith taught in the

Bible. These principles are scientific and can heal any personality

of inferiority feelings. Their use can release the powers which have

been inhibited by a feeling of inadequacy.

Such are some of the sources of the inferiority complex which erect

power barriers in our personalities. It is some emotional violence

done to us in childhood, or the consequences of certain

circumstances, or something we did to ourselves. This malady arises

out of the misty past in the dim recesses of our personalities.

Perhaps you had an older brother who was a brilliant student. He got

A's in school; you made only C's, and you never heard the last of

it. So you believed that you could never succeed in life as he

could. He got A's and you got C's, so you reasoned that you were

consigned to getting C's all your life. Apparently, you never

realized that some of those who failed to get high grades in school

have been the greatest successes outside of school. Just because

someone gets an A in college doesn't make him the greatest man in

the United States, because maybe his A's will stop when he gets his

diploma, and the fellow who got C's in school will go on to get the

real A's in life.

The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex, another

term for profound self-doubt, is to fill your mind with faith.

Developing tremendous faith in God and that will give you realistic

faith in yourself.

The acquiring of dynamic faith is accomplished by prayer, by reading

the Bible and by practicing its faith techniques. The ability to

possess and utilize faith must be studied and practiced to gain

perfection.

To build self-confidence, practice suggesting confidence concepts to

your mind. It is possible, even in the midst of your daily work, to

drive confident thoughts into consciousness. Let me tell you about

one man who did so. While driving me to a lecture engagement, he

said, " I used to be filled with insecurities. But I hit upon a

wonderful plan to knock these feelings out of my mind and now I live

with confidence. "

This was the plan. He had two clips fastened on the instrument panel

of the car and, reaching into the glove compartment, took out a pack

of cards. He selected one and slipped it beneath the clip. It

read, " ...If ye have faith ...nothing shall be impossible unto you "

( 17:20). He removed that one, selected another, and placed

it under the clip. This one read, " ...If God be for us, who can be

against us? " (Romans 8:31).

" I'm a traveling salesman, " he explained, " and I used to drive

around between calls thinking fear and defeat thoughts. That is one

reason my sales were down. But since I have been using these cards

and committing the words to memory, the insecurities that used to

haunt me are just about gone. Instead of thinking thoughts of defeat

and ineffectiveness, I think thoughts of faith and courage. It is

wonderful the way this method has changed me. It has helped in my

business, too. "

This man's plan was a wise one. By filling his mind with

affirmations of God, he had put an end to his sense of insecurity.

His potential powers were set free.

Lack of confidence apparently is one of the great problems besetting

people today. A university survey was made of six hundred students

in psychology courses. The students were asked to state their most

difficult personal problem. Seventy-five per cent listed lack of

confidence. It can safely be assumed that the same large proportion

is true of the population generally. Everywhere you encounter people

who are inwardly afraid, who shrink from life, who suffer from a

deep sense of inadequacy and insecurity, who doubt their own powers.

Deep within themselves they mistrust their ability to meet

responsibilities or to grasp opportunities. Always they are beset by

the vague and sinister fear that something is not going to be right.

They do not believe they have it in them to be what they want to be,

so they try to make themselves content with something less than that

of which they are capable. Thousands upon thousands go crawling

through life on their hands and knees, defeated and afraid. In most

cases, such frustration of power is unnecessary.

The blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties, the

multiplication of problems tend to sap energy and leave you spent

and discouraged. In such a condition, the true status of your power

is often obscured, and a person yields to a discouragement that is

not justified by the facts. It is vitally essential to reappraise

your personality asets.

Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, once said, " Attitudes

are more important than facts. " That is worth repeating until its

truth grips you. Any fact facing us, even seemingly hopeless, is not

as important as our attitude toward that fact. You may permit a fact

to overwhelm you mentally before you start to deal with it. On the

other hand, a confident thought pattern can modify or overcome the

fact.

So if you feel that you are defeated and have lost confidence in

your ability to win, sit down, take a piece of paper and make a

list, not of the factors that are against you, but of those that are

for you. If you or I think constantly of the forces that seem to be

against us, they will assume a formidable strength they do not

possess. But if you mentally visualize, affirm and reaffirm your

assets, you will rise out of any difficulty. Your inner powers will

reassert themselves and with the help of God, lift you to victory.

A sure cure for lack of confidence is the thought that God is

actually with you and helping you. This is one of the simplest

teachings in religion, namely, that God will see you through. No

other idea is so powerful in developing self-confidence as this

simple belief when practiced. To practice it simply affirm, " God is

with me; God is helping me; God is guiding me. "

Spend several minutes, each day, visualizing His presence. Then

practice believing that affirmation. Affirm it, visualize it,

believe it, and it will actualize itself. The release of power this

procedure stimulates will astonish you. "

Excerpted from " The Power of Positive Thinking " . Copyright 1987 by

Peale Center.

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