One of the hardest things that some people ever do is transform themselves from a person full of self-doubt to a self-assured person that believes in themselves. But, the truth is that no matter where you are in life right now, no matter how many mistakes you’ve made, opportunities you’ve passed up, or what’s happened to you in life, you can overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself.
So, congratulations on reading this article, soaking it in, and implementing the suggestions. Once you do, within just a short period of time you’ll start feeling better about yourself, feel more confident, successful and know that your future is bright.
Let’s get started learning how you can overcome self-doubt and believe in yourself.
The dictionary defines self-doubt as, “the lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.” This is a very good definition, but it doesn’t fully demonstrate the problems caused by self-doubt and not believing in yourself.
Think about these questions:
In this article we’ll give the answers to all these questions and more. If it helps, take notes as you read through when you notice issues that resonate most with your current situation. Everyone has different issues, reasons for their self-doubt, and problems in their life. You’re a unique person and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
There are many dangers inherent in hanging on to self doubt that you should be aware of. If you suffer from self doubt, it’s important to understand the type of damage you’re doing to yourself if you continue to hang on to it. It has affected your past, is affecting your present and can devastate your future if you don’t deal with it. Here’s why.
As you can see and may have experienced yourself, self-doubt can be dangerous and these are all good reasons on their own to work toward overcoming self-doubt and learning to believe in yourself.
Knowing how you developed self-doubt can sometimes help lead to recovering from that condition. You can build self-esteem by getting to the bottom of how it happened.
No matter how you determine what causes your self-doubt, you’ll be able to overcome it. It doesn’t matter if it’s something that developed over time or something you learned in childhood. You can work toward building your belief in yourself so that you can overcome self-doubt.
Unfortunately, many people learn to put off their dreams and limit their ideas due to well-meaning parents (or sometimes they’re not so well-meaning but perhaps abusive parents) who are also stuck in their own self-doubting lives and cannot ever envision anything different.
This happens a lot in communities where people are often born very poor and end up lacking experiences and education to see beyond their own lives to the possibilities that are outside their world.
For example, they might discourage their child from becoming a writer by telling them no one makes money writing, or they might discourage their child from becoming anything that is above what they’re used to due to the fear of the costs and the fear that their child really can’t do it even if they try. But this is only due to their own lack of success and understanding of life.
This rubs off on the kids. That’s why statistically most people do not break out of the class they were born to. The exciting thing to remember, though, is that some people do, and the reason they do is they were able to see and envision the possibilities and then take the action to see it through.
If you used to have a good self-image and didn’t suffer from much self-doubt but then suddenly or over time started to develop self doubt, it’s possible that you allowed your past experiences and bad relationships to get into your head and create this self-doubting experience.
It can be a parent relationship, a friendship, a love interest, a spouse, even a child who is dragging you down and creating the self-doubt in your life. These relationships are sometimes defined as toxic relationships. Unfortunately, a toxic relationship can involve any type of relationship, both relatives to non-relatives.
If you are still in any of these relationships, it may be time to end it if you cannot explain to the person that you are going to do what you’re going to do regardless of their opinion due to fear of abuse.
At some point in your life, if you had a job of any kind that turned into a bad experience (especially if it started with your first job), this can stunt you for a lifetime if you let it. Sadly, many people, especially those who take service-oriented jobs or lower paying jobs, end up with bad experiences.
As you can see, this path can end up affecting a person badly at the time and in their future if they are unable to understand that sometimes things happen to good people. They can’t accept that they’re a good person and a bad thing happened to them. Or they can’t learn from their mistakes and realize that they can do better next time. This is a dangerous pattern that can grow and become more than it should.
Sometimes a person can suffer from self doubt simply due to a lack of experience. If you were overly sheltered in childhood, were sick, or had issues that caused you to not have a lot of experiences in life, that can turn into fear, anxiety, and even other problems such as agoraphobia that prevent you from stepping out of your comfort zone.
Whatever the reason for these experiences: overprotective parents, an illness, undiagnosed mental illness, being super-shy… whatever is causing it needs to be addressed so that you can start experiencing small successes and know what if feels like. If you don’t know what that feels like, it’s going to be hard to move forward.
This can be hard to accept for some people, but where you are born makes a huge difference in how you view the world and your own place and potential in it. If you’re born on third base, you can still experience self-doubt if you have controlling parents who see only one way that you can have success, such as following in the family business when you don’t want to.
But most of the time it’s because you were born either in a place without a lot of opportunities or you were born to parents who, while loving, are poor.
Just by reading this, no matter what your situation is, you are getting your eyes opened to the possibilities in the world to escape your circumstances and make the most of your life in a way that makes you thrive. That’s a great thing and can make so much difference.
Anxiety can actually be a symptom of self-doubt, but it goes in a circle. Self-doubt can cause anxiety and if you can find a way to address the anxiety, you may be able to lessen the effects of your self-doubt. Many people who have anxiety describe it as a bad feeling of a million butterflies in their stomachs whenever they think of doing something that makes them uncomfortable.
Often, this feeling is so bad that the person suffers from panic attacks, which can be debilitating. Some people don’t get the panic attacks but they don’t push themselves beyond that feeling of butterflies that they experience as unpleasant.
There is a theory that adrenaline junkies see this same feeling as positive and they seek it out, whereas a person with anxiety uses that same feeling to stop doing anything that causes that feeling. Interesting, isn’t it?
Some anxiety is caused by vitamin deficiencies, so your doctor will likely perform some blood tests and they may recommend you see a psychiatrist who can prescribe medications to help you (at least on a temporary basis) so that you can start experiencing success instead of being blocked from it.
It’s important not to allow this to cause you to stay stuck in your current patterns. The healthiest people seek help and even if you don’t want to take medications, there is help for you to overcome anxiety disorders naturally too.
Often people experience self-doubt simply due to patterns they’ve established since childhood, or in some place in adulthood that sent them down a bad path of experiencing failure or even something traumatic.
For example, everything could have been going fine, then something traumatic happened like a car accident, a death in the family, and so forth. This may start leading you down a path of repeating bad patterns or accepting that your life is just going to be full of failure and you won’t go anywhere. However, this is something you can overcome by changing your patterns.
Then you’ll need to be able to take decisive action that will help you start to experience success in your life that you can build on as you overcome your self-doubt and start believing in yourself. Even now, there are so many reasons that you should believe in yourself. Once you start realizing that, this part should be simple.
Let’s go over some reasons that you should believe in yourself so that you can combat and rid your life of self doubt. The fact is, this something that must come from within and not from other people.
The idea that if you don’t believe in yourself no one else will is very true. That might seem harsh, but it’s a fact that you’ll need to deal with in your quest to develop your new belief in yourself.
Read the information below, take it in, and really believe it. It’s true of everyone, and you are included in this. You were born with everything you need to experience success in life.
Bear these things in mind:
The truth is, if you look from a distance at your problems and put them into relation to the world, how important are they really? If you’ve made some bad choices that have resulted in going through a rough patch emotionally, financially, or spiritually, that’s okay – this is how you grow in life. You grow in life through experiences. It really is how you react to these struggles that make up who you are.
Let’s look at how to overcome negative thoughts so that you can better deal with self-doubt.
It is possible to train your mind to overcome and turn negative thoughts around. Let’s look at some strategies to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts, or to at least stop the negative thoughts faster when they start.
It will help a lot with overcoming negative thoughts if you put these suggestions into action. You may come up with some of your own too. The point is, you want to turn negative thoughts around so that you can instead experience positivity in your day. That way, you don’t get stuck in a pattern of self doubt.
Now, let’s go over some important ways to deal with self-doubt when it happens. Be assured that even the most successful person works to overcome self-doubt at times. Feeling self-doubt is not the problem. Letting self-doubt control you, make your decisions for you, and rule your life is the problem.
These strategies for dealing with self-doubt will not work for you if you don’t implement them. The issues with self-doubt are so serious that they can make you stuck in a life that you don’t want and aren’t loving. This can lead to anxiety, depression, and that can spiral into a bad situation.
If you really want to experience true joy in life, believe in yourself, and get rid of the debilitating self-doubt you’re experiencing, start implementing now. Don’t delay or make excuses.
Now that you’ve read all of that, you are probably wondering where to start, so use this last part to get yourself organized and ready for change.
If you really want to overcome self doubt and start believing in yourself, it will take action on your part. So, let’s get started.
Using what you’ve learned, it’s important to figure out where your self-doubt began. It may be from childhood, in which case it may take some professional help to overcome it.
It may be something you fell into due to other issues that need to be identified. If you’re in a toxic relationship, for example, you may have to work on getting out of it before you can move forward.
One way to do this is to get out some paper and a writing utensil, and simply write on one side of the paper your strengths, and on the other side your weaknesses.
Then take a highlighter and highlight the things you want to work on to improve your strengths and the things you would like to do better in terms of your weaknesses.
This is important because sometimes self-doubt is caused by anxiety and sometimes anxiety can be caused by vitamin deficiencies.
Get a vitamin panel and tell your doctor that you’re experiencing anxiety.
They’ll know which vitamins to test for to ensure that you can get the information you need.
This may seem silly but eating right and exercising can be one of your first successes and experiences that you can look back to that show that you make good choices.
This small thing can give you the confidence you need to stop having so much self-doubt in your life, building your ability to believe in yourself. If all you do is add more water, more fruits, and veggies and start walking each day, that’s going to help a lot.
Find a good paper journal that you can write in each day before you go to bed and when you first wake up.
It’s good to do this without technology because it’ll be something you can do without causing you to experience extra stress from the blue light in technology that can cause people to experience anxiety and insomnia.
Whether you have a friend you know will help you, or you feel the need to seek professional help in the form of a counselor or life coach, it’s important to find help.
The right help for you is what works. It doesn’t matter what anyone else uses; it only matters what is working for you to build your belief in yourself while you’re letting go of self-doubt.
Set some small goals so that you can experience success. Your small goals might consist only of the things on this list.
But you may have identified some things by reading this that stick out to you as small goals that you can immediately see results from that you want to add.
You can learn all that you want to learn about ridding yourself of self-doubt and building your belief in yourself, but if you don’t act and do something (in other words, implement), you won’t see the success you desire.
Hopefully, you’ve learned a lot of information that is going to help you build your self-image, help you get rid of self-doubt, and move toward believing in yourself again quickly. Remember that nothing is gained without putting one foot in front of the other. But also remember that you are capable, you can do it, and you deserve to do it too. You are worth it.
Self esteem and self doubt affect the way you think and if you are living with doubt you need to start to think differently. If you want to know more about developing a positive success mindset, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
This is possibly the biggest fear that can keep you tossing and turning at night because again, it’s linked to your survival. If financial fears get out of control, they can develop into an obsession with money or breed toxic emotions like envy or jealousy of people who are wealthier.
Financial fear takes on different forms and shapes depending on your circumstances. You might be living from paycheck to paycheck and barely able to make ends meet. You could be struggling to pay off a student loan or keep up with your mortgage payments.
Financial fears are very valid but again, we often tend to let them take over our minds and keep us in a perpetual state of worry and anxiety. Even people who are financially secure may develop an obsessive fear of losing all they have. In extreme cases, this type of fear can become a phobia.
How it holds you back
Financial fear is a major stressor because it usually plagues you most of the day (and night) rather than in a specific situation. So, its first impact is going to be on your health. High stress levels will keep you feeling fatigued, lifeless, and demotivated.
Your immune system becomes weakened, leaving you more open to illness and just poor health overall. Mentally, financial worries can lead to depression, chronic anxiety, and isolation.
When you’re not at your best physically and mentally, everything in your life suffers. What’s worse, financial fears can keep you trapped in a negative cycle where it’s very difficult to think clearly about solutions – much less act.
Here are 3 quick action steps you can take to stop financial fear from holding you back.
Financial experts recommend putting 10% of your income into a savings account. $10 out of every $100 is a negligible sum and you’ll hardly notice the deduction. However, in a savings account, those small sums very quickly accumulate and can become very substantial over time.
A great idea is to create a separate emergency fund and divide savings between that and your regular savings account. That way, you have something put aside for emergencies like appliances or cars breaking down and other unexpected expenses.
If you stick to a budget and cut down on unnecessary expenses (three cable TV subscriptions and gourmet ice cream are not essentials!) you should be able to live well within your income and put something towards your savings as well.
The thing with budgets is that people seem to think they’re made to be broken! So, be firm and keep a strict eye on overspending.
There are dozens of ways to make extra income online with no cost or very minimal investment. You can set up two or three of these income streams at once. This can easily be managed in your spare time and some have the potential for making very decent money.
Consider affiliate marketing, dropshipping, posting YouTube videos, or publishing an eBook on Kindle. None of these schemes require much experience and with dozens of tutorials on YouTube, you can easily set up your chosen income stream.
Note: These strategies are not going to make you rich overnight or solve all your financial problems. However, they’ll provide you with a small safety cushion that will significantly alleviate your financial fears and give you some peace of mind.
More importantly, these little security nets will relieve your financial anxieties, allowing you to focus on bigger solutions to improve your financial situation.
Closely linked to financial fear is the fear of security, so let’s take a look at that in this article too.
Emotional security, job security, health security, and financial security are extremely important for our mental wellbeing and productivity. Security fears also play on your inner sense of self-worth and, in severe cases, can lead to inferiority complexes and social isolation.
How it holds you back
When you’re insecure in a relationship or don’t feel accepted by your peers, your self-confidence plummets. It’s a no-brainer that low self-confidence will affect the way you think and act in your career, personal and social life.
Health insecurity may be a result of guilt because you know you drink too much, eat unhealthy food and are just careless with your health. It may be due to a history of family health issues as well. As for financial insecurity, we’ve discussed how it can drag you into a cycle of anxiety and worry that stifles your ability to be your best.
Here are 6 quick action steps you can take to stop fear of security from holding you back.
If financial security is preying on your fears, a financial advisor can help you in many ways. He’ll look at your income and expenses and help you create a suitable budget. He’ll suggest investments and other ways to generate more wealth.
A financial advisor will also guide you towards the best way to manage debts if you have them and suggest effective ways to curb overspending. If you’re feeling a bit lost and confused, an expert opinion can dispel many of your financial insecurities.
Financial advisors aren’t just for rich people! They’ll work with anyone including people who are struggling financially, as well as people who are feeling financially insecure. It’s an investment worth making if your insecurity is holding you back.
First and foremost, get out of abusive or destructive relationships immediately. They don’t just hold you back but drag you down to a very bad place – you deserve better. The same goes for exploitative friendships and associations with people who are overly negative and critical. Phase them out of your life.
Strong, healthy relationships greatly strengthen your emotional security. You know that these people can be counted on to give you support, encouragement, and love you for who you are.
In addition to your great relationships, having a strong peer network can be very effective in dispelling emotional insecurity. This can be a peer group related to your career, special interest, or causes you’re passionate about.
Exchanging ideas, sharing experience, and being part of an active peer network can provide you with immense support and encouragement when you need it.
No further explanations are needed here. You know what you’re doing right or wrong health-wise. Take care of yourself!
When you’re healthy, you feel it. In fact, you feel great.
Knowing you’re doing your part to stay fit boosts your confidence about your health.
Quell your job insecurity by staying at the top of your game. Keep growing and learning as much as you can to expand your scope of expertise.
In the case that you do lose your job, you know that you’re perfectly qualified to find a better one!
This can give you a real confidence boost as well as peace of mind, plus this may also help you to perform better in your current role as you are now more relaxed about the future.
Practice your faith or take up meditation to boost your emotional resilience and inner tranquility. Spiritual practices of all kinds are great for building strong emotional health.
When you’re emotionally strong, you’re better able to confront your fears and address them rather than let them take control of your life.
As you can appreciate, changing the way you think can have a huge impact on your life, and if you want to know more about developing an inspirational mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
Former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said in a speech, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” If you take the statement literally, it doesn’t really make sense because you can’t really be afraid of fear.
What Roosevelt was trying to say is that fear is a crippling emotion that can hold back nations and individuals from achieving greatness. In that sense, the consequences of fear can be terrifying.
Here are a couple of the most common fears and a few tips on how to overcome them.
Risk is related to a perceived loss resulting from an action. Oftentimes, there’s also a potential gain but we tend to magnify the loss while minimizing the gains. The fear of taking risks is a very strong primal fear related to our survival instinct where our prehistoric ancestors were surrounded by peril. Taking risks could mean getting eaten by wild animals or some other horrible death.
This fear remains very strong in us and is the first emotion that overcomes us when we think of taking important action.
How it holds you back
Let’s say you want to start your own business. You have a great idea for a useful product or service that’s scalable. There’s an audience for it and your initial market research tells you it will be in demand. You’re very excited. Then, the fear of risk kicks in and your mind starts bombarding you with ‘what if?’
What if the idea’s not so good after all? What if you take out a loan and can’t repay it? What if the product doesn’t sell? What if the market collapses? What if there’s a nuclear war and you lose everything?
Your fear ends up holding you back from, doing something that can have some real benefits for you. So, you ditch the idea and decide to stay on in a job you hate that’s stifling your potential and ambition. You convince yourself that being miserable is safer than failing miserably!
Now, consider the alternative: you realistically assess the risks involved, plan for them and start your own business. You embark on an exciting journey when you become your own boss, take control of your life, and grow a super successful business. This is just one example of how fear of risk can hold you back from great things.
Highly successful people have a unique mindset. They don’t shy away from risk but rather, they see it as a challenge that can always be overcome, and the reward always outweighs the risk. That’s what makes successful people great! You can develop this mindset and conquer your fear of taking risks with the following strategies:
Identify your desired outcome. Let’s stick with the example of starting your own business. Realistically and honestly assess the risks related to the outcome.
In this case, they could be using your savings for capital, taking out a loan and changing interest rates or liabilities or hazards related to your product. I would also include the risk of not making any income from the business for a few months until it’s up and running.
Weigh the desired outcome (establishing a successful business) against the risks involved and honestly assess the possibility of these risks really happening. You’ll most likely find that the outcome or goal is worth the risks.
Assessing possible risks and putting them into proportion usually shows you that they’re not as bad as you imagined, not likely to happen or if they do, can be managed.
When you’ve identified all the possible risks, create a risk management plan for each one. This will give you tremendous peace of mind and confidence because you’re mentally prepared and your back is covered.
Having a risk management plan or a plan B will arm you with the tools to immediately take action to mitigate or eliminate risks with the least possible losses. Oftentimes, many of the imagined risks never come to pass but having a plan B is one of the most powerful ways to break your fear of risk.
Always define your goal or goals clearly and factor in the potential risks. Include sub-goals of steps you need to take to avoid risk. Your goal map should include benchmarks or timeframes where you stop and assess your progress to ensure that all is on track and to make modifications if something seems to be heading towards a risk.
OK, let’s move onto the second fear that may be holding you back from the success you desire (and deserve).
Failure can have tangible repercussions such as material or financial loss as well as emotional consequences such as the loss of reputation, respect, and self-pride. In most cases, the emotional associations come into play more to hold us back.
Failure is associated with negative qualities like incompetence, inexperience, poor skills, low intelligence, and other qualities that cause emotional distress.
How it holds you back
Quite simply, nobody wants to be regarded as a loser. This is why the fear of failure leads to three negative and debilitating habits:
What’s more, the fear of failure saps your self-confidence. The more it keeps you stuck in place, the more you become convinced that you don’t have what it takes to do any better. It’s a vicious and very crippling cycle.
Highly successful people have a unique mindset. Firstly, they don’t acknowledge the word ‘failure’ but rather, refer to it as a setback. Secondly, they see setbacks as challenges that can always be overcome. That’s what makes successful people great! You can develop this mindset and conquer your fear of failure with the following strategies:
We’re often ashamed of our past failures and avoid reflecting on them. But reframing past failures can decrease your fears. Firstly, remind yourself that you may have made some very big mistakes in the past – but so has everyone else on the planet.
Secondly, reflect on how your mistakes are part of who you are today. For better or worse, they’ve shaped your character and they’ve made you wiser and stronger. Finally, reflect on the lessons learned and how they’ve helped you avoid making the same mistakes again.
Reframe and reflect on your past failures in this way and you’ll begin to see that failure can have a positive effect.
These can be skills related to your career, tech skills, or communication and listening skills to improve your relationships, leadership skills and so on. The goal is to give your self-confidence a big boost.
Having a varied toolset of skills and expertise gives you the confidence to be more proactive and eager to take initiatives to improve yourself and your life. This strategy is a huge fear of failure buster.
Reflect on your special skills and talents that make you unique from everyone else. This is a great exercise to engage in when you’re procrastinating or overthinking.
As you can appreciate, changing the way you think can have a huge impact on your life, and if you want to know more about developing an inspirational mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
Discovering your purpose and calling in life is a thought-driven process. Watching self-help videos or reading motivational books may lift your spirits and give you some skills, but you’ll be no closer to knowing your purpose in life.
In fact, overloading your mind with extraneous mental clutter might cause more problems. To uncover one’s purpose, you’ll need to simplify things and get to your authentic self.
By digging deep and asking yourself the questions that matter, you’ll discover what it is you truly want in life. It’s imperative that you be radically honest with yourself. Forget what the world has told you to believe in.
Go with your heart and answer the questions below:
These questions can help to reveal your innate talents and desires. For example, you may have loved art and crafts – and might have been naturally gifted at them.
But somewhere along the way, your parents or teachers told you that subjects such as math and science were more important for landing a good job in future. So, you ditched the art and listened to them.
Years later, you’re stuck in a job you hate, and it’s related to math or science. But your heart and soul pines for more. Your dissatisfaction with your life cannot be explained.
There is a missing piece – but you don’t know what it is. In this case, you may miss being involved with art.
Once you know what you love, you can always practice and hone your skills until you master them.
These 2 questions will reveal your heart’s innermost desires. Your ideal life is the best version of you. It’s your dream you.
Your purpose will be wrapped up in this image. You may want to be fit and muscular so that you can inspire others to achieve their dream bodies too.
It’s quite common to see overweight people who have transformed their bodies and went on to become fitness coaches because they found that their purpose in life was helping others become fit and get the body of their dreams too.
Be willing to explore and be imaginative. Forget the limitations you’ve been led to believe. Ask yourself what you’d do if anything was possible. This is what you’d do if you were on purpose.
You’ll find your answers once you still your mind and listen to the voice within. This can be a difficult task and you may wish to start journaling to aid with the process.
It’s time you dug out your authentic self from underneath the burdening rubble of other people’s beliefs and expectations – and live life according to your true purpose.
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Finding your purpose in life is a process where you dig deep within yourself to discover what makes you happy. You’ll need to look at your talents, skills, desires and what you really want.
The process requires you to clear the clutter in your mind and also in your heart and soul. Like the author, Deepak Chopra, says, “In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.”
That’s exactly what you must do – let go.
All human beings have regrets, mistakes we wish we could undo, past memories of instances where people did us wrong and so on.
Millions of people relive these bad memories and experience the same negative feelings over and over. They’re in a vicious cycle that just doesn’t seem to end.
Holding on to baggage from years ago will only burden you. This excess weight will drag you down day by day and life will feel like a struggle.
The key to finding your purpose and putting a spring in your step will be to let go of the unwanted baggage you’re carrying. This could be memories, negative habits, toxic people and so on.
There are several benefits that can be accrued by letting go of past grievances and bad memories. It’s a cathartic process that will make you happier and feel a sense of ‘lightness’.
If you’ve made mistakes in the past, the first step is to forgive yourself. Regretting the same mistakes over and over is just self-punishment that will prevent you from redeeming yourself. Let these regrets go and strive to do better from here on out.
If others have done you wrong, the best thing you can do is forgive them. You don’t have to tell them a word, and you’re not doing it for them. You’re doing it for you.
As long as you have anger, sadness and hate in your heart for wrongs done by others, you’re robbing yourself of happiness that you could be having right now. Don’t let them live rent-free in your head and heart. Let it all go… for your sanity and well-being.
What one needs to let go of will depend on them. It varies from individual to individual. Here is a common list of things you should let go of
This list is just a starting point. You may have other things in your life that you need to let go of. A rule of thumb is that if it doesn’t make you feel good or serve you well, then you need to let it go.
Once you’ve rid yourself of what’s holding you down and holding you back, you can focus on what you want and how you can feel happy and fulfilled. That’s how you discover your purpose.
“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – André Gid
Most of us would have seen the quote – “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” This quote has been around so long that some people attribute it to Confucius, while others say it’s Mark Twain who said it.
Whatever the case may be, there is a fallacy in this quote. You could love knitting and spend hours on the task. Yet, that does not necessarily mean you could make a living from it.
There are 4 important factors to consider when ascertaining if your purpose in life can derive profit for you. By finding a way to make a living while living your purpose-driven life, you’ll not only find happiness, but will also be able to generate an income that sustains a comfortable life.
This is the litmus test of finding your purpose. If the task you’re engaged in makes you happy and you enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll naturally be inclined to do more of it without any ‘forcing’ on your part.
A part of finding your purpose is to engage in work that brings you pleasure. It could be writing, painting, dancing, construction, training animals, etc. As long as it makes you happy, you’re on the right track.
If you were good at art since young and you loved it, that’s a sign it could be your true calling. So often, the world tries to shape and mould us into what we’re not.
Parents try to impose their wishes on their children and stifle their kids’ natural talents. A kid who loves telling jokes is often told to stop ‘playing around’ and focus on his/her studies.
The child’s natural talent at comedy is never given room to grow – and the world loses a talented comedian. The same applies to other arts such as dancing, painting, etc.
People measure talents based on the jobs they can get in future. This is myopic.
The key to finding purpose in life is to focus on your natural talents and hone your innate skills until you’re very good at what you do.
To get paid for what you do, you MUST bring value to the marketplace. Your natural talents and skills must be needed by other people.
A good writer must be able to write books that people crave to read. An exquisite dancer should have moves that awes the audience. The talented artist should create works of art that captures people’s imagination.
Your success in the marketplace is directly linked to the demand for your work. Being good at what you do and loving the process is just half the equation. The other half is that people must want what you have to provide.
As obvious as this sounds, many people tend to forget about it. You can only profit from your work if people pay you for it. So, if you wish to make a living doing what you love, you’ll have to find a way to market yourself and your products/services.
This is the key to living life with purpose without going to a job you detest. Initially, it may be a struggle when you’re learning the ropes and trying to get your name out there.
Satisfy these 4 factors and the world will be your oyster.
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The connection between your work and home life is extremely strong even if it’s almost invisible. Have you ever had a day when you just couldn’t do your best at work because you had some family issues at home?
Or maybe your gym workout wasn’t as good as it normally is because you had a quarrel with your spouse?
We’re not like airtight submarine ballast tanks that operate independently and function normally by shutting out different parts of the tanks if there are leaks.
Human beings are much more complex. Our work life and home life merge in a multitude of ways. The best way to ensure that we are performing optimally will be to harmonize our work and home lives.
You are what you eat. If your diet is high in processed foods and you’re burning the candle at both ends by guzzling caffeinated products constantly, you’ll not be feeling your best.
Good health leads to better work performance and a clean and nutritious diet is crucial to ensuring you are getting all the nutrients you eat. What you eat is just as important as what you do not eat.
This leads to creeping weight gain and before we know it, we’re overweight or obese. This leads to a lack of energy, lower concentration and higher stress.
By cleaning up your diet and eating what’s right for you, you’ll indirectly elevate your work performance to the next level.
Avoid arguing or fighting with your spouse constantly. Strife in the home is a vexation to the spirit and it’s difficult to give your best at work when you’re replaying the tense scenarios at home and reliving the negative energy that comes from these types of situations.
You’ll have more peace of mind and be happy at the work place, even if you’re working from home.
Late nights can lead to groggy mornings. Sometimes we feel a need to stay up late so that we squeeze in as much life as possible into our day. There’s even a slang for it these days – FOMO, which stands for fear of missing out.
We want to do more work, binge watch as many Netflix shows as we can, party hard and so on – and we want to do it all at once. When you’re young, this is possible.
Go to bed earlier so that you wake up feeling refreshed. You’ll be ready to give your best at work when you’ve had a good night’s rest.
It goes without saying that negative habits such as alcohol, smoking, etc. can take a toll on your health. Other addictions such as gambling, addiction to pornography, etc. can lead to disastrous consequences at home, which in turn will affect your work adversely.
While challenges may crop up, they will be fewer and far between… and much more manageable. This is a good place to be.
There’s a saying that gratitude is the best medicine because it heals your mind, body and spirit and attracts more things in your life to be grateful for.
When you have an attitude of gratitude, it’s almost impossible to be unhappy and discontented. The problem that most people face is that they want to be grateful, but life just gets in the way.
If they have a job and their boss is unreasonable, they hate their job instead of being grateful for being employed. If they’re in good health, they may dislike being a few pounds overweight.
If they’re earning three thousand dollars a month, they envy their neighbor, Bill, who makes 10 thousand dollars a month. It never ends.
You may hate your job, but you can be grateful that you have a source of income to pay your bills and put food on the table. Now go ahead and look for a better job.
The same applies to everything else. You don’t have to like the way things are, but you have to accept them and look for the silver lining in the dark clouds.
There are a few ways you can do this.
Mindfulness helps you live in the moment. If your work at home business isn’t thriving as well as you had hoped, be mindful that you’re at home in comfort.
Be mindful at all times and watch your thoughts. Every single time a negative thought creeps in, replace it with something you’re grateful for. This one habit alone can be a life-changing one.
One excellent way to establish gratitude as a habit will be to keep a gratitude journal. Many successful people write down three things that they’re grateful for every single day.
This action helps you focus on what is good in your life. It aligns your thinking towards positivity. This is crucial to having a healthy and happy mindset.
Keep a gratitude journal. It’s a key to a kingdom of riches that await you.
Even when times are challenging, seek to find something to be grateful for. You’ve just started a new exercise regimen to lose weight and your legs ache?
That’s fine. At least you have a pair of legs that work. It’s just a matter of time till they get stronger. See… this simple shift in thinking motivates you to do better rather than hate yourself for letting your health slide.
Here’s a hard truth – there will ALWAYS be people worse off than you. It could be financial worries, emotional turbulence, health issues, etc. We’re all fighting our own battles, but some definitely have it harder than others.
By lending an ear to those in need and doing what you can to help them, you’ll feel empowered and happy that you were able to assist someone else. There’s immeasurable power in helping your fellow man.
And this knowledge will keep you going even when times are bad.
The pointers above are just the tip of the iceberg. Many books have been written on the power of gratitude and there are so many practices from journaling to yoga intentions to much more where gratitude is used to elevate you to the next level.
Do your research and make gratitude at work and at home a part of your life.
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and maintaining a healthy work life balance is a small part of that. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
