‘What will you do if you realize that you can’t fail?’ I saw this question on a photo on instagram and I pondered on it. I asked some of my friends the question and most of them gave me interesting answers. Their answers involved them taking risk, doing something new, challenging status quo, doing things that can be considered a daredevil venture etc. Well, I believe most of us reading this right now may give answers similar to theirs, it is good to know that most of us would love to go the distance with that kind of mindset. But, the question really on my mind is what is stopping most of us from doing those things we thought of when we read this question, what is holding us back? Well this is it; we are afraid of failing and why are we afraid of failure, it is because we don’t believe in our capacity and ability, we don’t believe that most of those things we envision we can achieve in one word, we lack SELF-BELIEF. I would be talking to us about that today, because it is key for us as individuals, if we lack this, it will be practically impossible to achieve success. Bear this in mind as you are reading this, most of those things you said you would do if you know you can’t fail, are the things that really define you, they are the things you really love, and will make you happy and fulfilled.

What is self-belief? Some text define it as the attitude, to believe in your ability, a friend of mine defines it as positive thinking, I will be going with the later because self-belief is just about you having a positive mindset. I have said it severally in most of my publication ‘as a man thinketh so is he’ the key to having a positive attitude is having a positive mind. When you lack self-belief it is usually accompanied with feeling of inferiority and sadness. Most of us know that we are better than who we are presently, we deserve more than what we are getting out of live, but because we don’t dare to make that change, or take that one drastic step that will change everything, we are still stuck in the same situation we have always being in. And why don’t we take that decision, it is because we don’t trust ourselves enough, we don’t feel we are good enough, we don’t believe in our ability. I once met a lady who lacked self-belief she blamed it on her parents especially her dad because she claimed they made her feel she was not good enough, this was what I told her and am also going to be saying it to all of us that feel the same way about your parents, teacher or spouse; ‘no one can make you feel inferior without your consent’ as Les Brown would say; ‘don’t let someone else opinion of you become your reality’. You need to start believing in yourself, because it is only by doing that, you can start knowing your shortcomings and limitation, if you don’t believe in yourself enough to try something new, you will never know what you are good or not good at and what you need to learn to better yourself.

We should learn to adopt this and start believing in ourselves, in our talents or God given ability. No great leader we see and admire today lacks self-belief because if they do not believe in themselves they how do you expect others to believe in them? I throw the same question back to us all so that we can all ponder on, how do you expect others to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself. The good news is, self-belief is learnable and as we go on we will focus on learning it. Let me conclude by saying this you are capable of a lot more than you think, always have this at the back of your mind. This is where I leave you for today just keep working towards success and I will definitely see you at the top.