Ep 34 – Believing in yourself

In this episode, I share the most crucial aspect of living life to our fullest potential – ‘Believing in Yourself’. I share my journey towards self-belief, myths and mindsets that need to be broken, the force we need to pay attention to, and the self-doubts we should let go of to live our best life.

01:25 – How I learned this lesson

03:00 – Confidence Vs. Arrogance

04:22 – Consequences of not believing in yourself

05:03 – Importance of presence

06:50 – Lessons from Indian scriptures on self-belief

07:50 – Mantra for 2021

Before you know it, a whole year has passed. It feels like just yesterday, we all started 2020 with much enthusiasm, hope, and excitement, only to realize all our plans toppling over within months. A year like no other in our generation, but here we are, surviving, thriving, and hoping once again.

This episode includes one of the most fundamental lessons I learned on my journey of self-discovery -“The art of believing in yourself.” I learned this very late in my life, but it has been my most valuable lesson to date. You cannot live the life of your dreams without believing in yourself, it’s just not possible. I know, cause I’ve tried it. I’m hoping by the end of this podcast, you are at least willing to give believing in yourself a shot in 2021. Trust me, it will bring upon miracles.

So what do I mean when I say, believe in yourself?

Believing in yourself means to trust yourself, to have the confidence in your abilities to navigate life, overcome hurdles, learn from your mistakes, and chase after your dreams. It is to have that conviction in you that you have everything you need within you, that you have the power to create and fight for the life you desire.

We have all been raised to place trust outside of ourselves – Trust the schools, the priests, the pandits, the teachers, the mentors, the corporates, the government, basically any institution/ person outside of us. For the simple fear that a lot of middle-class parents have that their kids might become too arrogant and self-absolved and not live cohesively in society.

But confidence and arrogance are 2 very different concepts. 

Confidence is believing you can do what it takes, arrogance is believing you can do it better than everyone else. 

So don’t put yourself down on that pretext.

I’ve always been like that. From a very young age, I’ve been well aware of my flaws so I never had any false assumptions of who I was. I always thought I needed to work harder, go the extra mile to achieve, because I’m not intelligent. I have had several defensive statements I believed about myself:

I have bookish knowledge, not the street smart one.

I know 1 person who can do this better than me, so surely I’m not the best.

I am an average writer, I have read and loved better writers.

What I didn’t realize was every time I kept going back to these limiting beliefs about myself, I shut more doors and possibilities I could have been. I chose to stay confined to these labels of who I’ve been in the past rather than explore all I can be today with confidence. This was okay till I was in school and college. But then, I realized once you’re in the corporate world, you’ve got to be your own cheerleader – nobody does that for you.

When you don’t believe in yourself,

• You don’t ask for what is yours, not the promotions, not the salary hikes, not the designations, not the commercials you deserve, nothing
• You don’t prioritize what’s right for you and allow people to encroach your boundaries left, right, and center
• You act from a place of low self-worth and self-doubt
• You never recognize wins, rather than double down on your faults and keep harping on them

And before you know it, you start copping out of situations in life and stop taking chances because you’re too hard on yourself and the resistance and hell you go through is not worth it.

I realized this was no way to live. The deeper I went in my meditations, the more I grounded myself in the present, and the more I became grounded to the present, the more I connected with my inner true self. And, this lack of belief in self, started to seem childish and petty even.

Eckhart Tolle says it the best,

“Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry – all forms of fear – are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

We all know we must believe in ourselves, but few actually do and there’s a reason for this: In our human minds, stories are more powerful than statistics!

If you look closely at your life, you’ll realize you don’t need rocket science to believe in yourself, you only need to shed the stories you’ve fed yourself over the years – I am not good enough, I am not worthy, I am not deserving, I am not smart and I am not beautiful. All conditioning from our past experiences, games the mind plays with us, to protect us, to shield us from more hurt, to help us survive.

But in this community, we don’t just want to survive! 

Why lead that hollow life, when we can believe in ourselves, be comfortable in our skin, know our worth, and thrive?

In Gita, Krishna says it beautifully when he tells Arjuna that you need to know the nature of your true self. He says while humans perceive the world with their 5 senses, it is but an illusion and not a reality. Who we really are beyond these impermanent bodies is true awareness, boundless energy that is one with the source of this universe – whether you’d like to call it God/ The Supreme Creator/ The one.

Vedanta says this too when it says, “The consciousness or the spirituality in each one of us is the same and is a reflection of the whole (universe).” And, when you realize this, and truly understand this, you’ll realize there’s no good or bad, no one too superior or inferior, we just are. There’s no space for crippling self doubt or limiting beliefs once you realize that this cosmic power is stored within you too.

So no I’m not going to tell you everything is going to be A-Okay in 2021.

All our sorrows will not be swept away and you won’t be waking up in La-La land each day this year. But I hope this year you realize the potent force that you are. That 2021 be the year, where you leave behind your past conditioning and take on life head-on. The year where you finally stop playing small and do not settle for anything less than you deserve. The year you thrive beautifully and take more individuals along your journey. The year you believe in yourself and all that you could be.

Let’s break the chain this year and create breakthroughs with a simple belief in ourselves and our true potential. You don’t have to do it alone. I’m launching the Being Meraklis Tribe, a community of like-minded peers as I work with each of you in your path of self-transformation.