Believing in yourself is not enough. Believing in yourself doesn’t make anything happen. There has to be action to make waves. You don’t “believe” me, do you? After all, we’ve been told all of our lives that we should “just believe in ourselves” as if that is some magical formula that makes all your dreams come true.
If You Believe That, Go To Your Room!
Seriously, go to your room. Right now! Go in there and hit the lights. You believe that flipping on a light switch will illuminate your room. Why shouldn’t it? Flipping that switch has lit up your room a thousand times before. But what if the power is out? Ah, yes, sometimes there are things beyond our control that cannot be changed by believing. You can believe all you want that the light will come on, but as long as the power is out, nothing is going to happen.
So what do you do? Give up? Throw a tantrum? Wait for the power company to fix it? What can you do?
Sometimes things beyond our control seem impossible. One thing you can believe is that nothing is hopeless. You may have to temporarily change course or redesign your plans, but the key here is that you must DO something. You may not have any electricity flowing at the moment, but you could light a candle, go outside and reacquaint yourself with the sun or search for another source of light. Maybe a friend is standing by with a flashlight waiting for you to call. Just don’t use your cordless phone to call her…your power is out, remember?
Give Me Something To Believe In
So what good does it do to “believe” in something? Belief is the dream that gets you started. It is you need to see to tell you where you are going. Believing doesn’t tell you how to get there. It shows you what it will be like when you get there. If you believe you will someday be a talented artist, keep believing that. Be as confident of that as you can be. (Articles on building confidence will be posted soon). Begin to tell other people what you believe. When you begin to broadcast your belief in yourself, you will pull others on board with you.
I’m With The Band!
Here is a classic example of how this works. As you know, I play drums. It’s my passion. There is nothing I like more than playing drums. I think about it all the time. My friends can tell you that I beat the snot out of tables, desks, chairs – anything I can pound on. I do it without even thinking about it until someone smacks my hands and says “knock it off.” I always believed that someday I would be in a band – a rock band – one where we write our own music and perform together as one. Now, I’ve been in bands before so you might say I’ve already achieved that, but I had a specific idea in my head about what it would be like.
So one day last year, I really developed the desire to be in an all-girl band. I really had no idea how it would happen. I didn’t know of an existing band in need of a drummer and I didn’t think I knew enough people to start one. Basically, I flipped the switch but I had no power. It was pretty dark in there.
One day, I casually mentioned my wish to a close friend. She mentioned that she would like to sing in a band. We joked around about it for a while and mentioned it to another friend who said she would love to be in a band. Next thing we knew, word got out that we were forming a band and suddenly we had a core group of very accomplished musicians who were committed to making it happen! There were no ads posted, no auditions and no forcing it to happen. It turned out several of my good (and incredibly talented) friends all had the same desire to form a band and nobody had mentioned it before. And to top it off, our band has turned out to be exactly what I was dreaming about. In terms of the light switch analogy, I merely phoned a friend who brought me a flashlight.
Follow The Yellow Brick Road
Believing in yourself is not enough, but it is an important piece of the journey. It’s like when you get ready to go on vacation and all you think about is how much fun you’re going to have at the destination and all the cool stuff you’re going to see. You don’t think about what road you’re going to take, which rest stop you’re going to end up at or what kind of road construction you’re going to encounter. You dream about the good times, the sites and activities. Believing you’re going to go there is does not instantly transport you there. It’s up to you to put together the map. It takes effort. In the “Wizard of Oz”, even Dorothy had to put a little effort into getting back home by tapping her heels together and saying “There’s no place like home.” Now go find your ruby slippers, phone a friend or step outside for a breath of fresh air. If none of that helps, then perhaps it’s time to pay your power bill.
