How To Believe In Yourself (and Succeed in Life!)

Learning how to believe in yourself isn't a series of prescribed steps. Shift your mindset to break away from self-criticism and start to believe in yourself.

The promotion opens up. You read the posting twice. You’re qualified, maybe more than qualified.

And then the little voice starts. They’ll pick someone better. You’ll just embarrass yourself. Who do you think you are?

So you close the tab. You don’t apply.

Sound familiar?

That voice isn’t telling you the truth. It’s telling you a story, one you’ve heard so many times it feels like fact.

Here’s a different one. Self-efficacy—your belief in your own ability to handle what life throws at you—tends to go hand in hand with greater persistence, steadier mental health, and stronger relationships. So this isn’t about faking confidence until it sticks. It’s about shifting how you see yourself, and stepping into a new stage of your life, one that’s actually filled with possibilities.

Want to start there? Watch Vanessa Van Edwards interview Donald Miller, author of Hero on a Mission, on being the hero of your own story.

What Does it Mean to Believe in Yourself?

It’s easy to miss, but believing in yourself isn’t the same as confidence.

What’s the difference? Confidence is a skill. You can learn it, build it, sharpen it with better communication. Believing in yourself sits underneath all of that.

Confidence is the outward expression. The inner state it’s expressing is self-belief. And when you genuinely have it, it changes both how you treat other people and what you expect life to hand you.

Harness the Power of Believing in Yourself

Running on empty here is rough. When you don’t believe in yourself, it quietly steals your capacity for close relationships and stands between you and the things you want.

The good news? You can change that, and it starts with shifting how you see yourself.

Take the Lead

Picture someone we’ll call Dana. Smart, generous, the friend everyone leans on. She has a whole list of things people genuinely love about her. And she has spent years riding in the back seat of her own life, picking up everyone else’s slack, never once asking for the wheel.

Maybe you know the feeling.

It’s time to take the lead.

Being a supporting character can feel safe. Maybe it’s the role your family nudged you into years ago, and now it’s the only role where the acceptance and affirmation reliably show up.

Whatever the reason, here’s the real question: regardless of what anyone else expects from you, are you ready to start believing in yourself?

So how do you take the lead? Start with what you’re passionate about. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. Think of a few of your strengths, or something you simply love to do. Could you share it? Could you teach it?

Ideas:

• Teach a few friends how to make your favorite recipes
• Start a book club with your favorite genre of books
• Post movie reviews on your social media
• Lead with kindness. Do one of our unique kindness activities.
• Teach a free class at your local YMCA
• Volunteer with a group you are passionate about

Any one of these gets you off the bench and into the game, sharing your strengths instead of hiding them.

Action Step: Draw a picture, or just close your eyes and picture it: you, taking the lead in your own story.

• What does that look like?
• Are you doing something surprising?
• Pursuing an unexpected dream?
• Expressing a dormant part of your personality?

Taking the lead in your own story is an act of self-respect.

Important Note: Fair warning, this can feel uncomfortable at first. For you, and for the people around you. So if some of them act annoyed or a little hurt, don’t read that as a signal to shrink back. People are often genuinely surprised when your role shifts.

Think about it. If your coworkers are used to you quietly picking up the slack, or your family expects you to be the one who smooths over every conflict, those are your role identities. Other people’s expectations tend to shape them, and it can take a beat for everyone to adjust. If you want support while you redefine yours, talking to a therapist or coach helps.

Shift to a Growth Mindset

Ever get fired up watching a motivational video, then somehow never apply a word of it to your actual life?

If that’s you, a fixed mindset might be quietly holding you back.

A growth mindset changes everything.

What is a growth mindset? It’s the belief that intelligence and success aren’t handed to some lucky few, they’re within your reach too. It also rewires how you see failure: not as a permanent verdict, but as a temporary state and a chance to grow. At its core, a growth mindset looks at the world as an overcomer. Obstacles are there to be overcome.

And there’s real data behind this. In a survey of 600,000 students from 78 countries, “students with a strong growth mindset scored significantly higher on all subjects…compared with students who believed their intelligence was fixed”.

Here’s what’s empowering about that: YOU have control over your own mind. You decide what goes in. You can reshape your thoughts over time. And as you do, you’ll start to believe in the future, and in yourself, in ways you didn’t think were possible.

A growth mindset lets you expect success instead of bracing for failure.

Pro Tip: On your way to believing in yourself, loosen your grip on the idea of “failure.” A fixed mindset fixates on it.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, treats failures and mistakes as raw material for growth. And look, if it feels like you’ve had one failure after another and never quite measure up, believing in yourself can feel impossible.

But hear this—you are not a failure.

Action Step (5 Minutes):

Pull up your last mistake, or the last time you felt like a total failure. Now ask yourself:

• Was the whole thing a failure? Or was there one part that wasn’t a success?
• What did I do right in that situation?
• What can I learn from the mistake?
• Was it an actual failure, or did I fail to meet my expectations?
• Were my expectations for this realistic?
• Could I have accomplished more by asking for help?

Action Step (15 Minutes):

Journal your answers to the above questions, and then answer these questions:

• How can I look at this experience as an opportunity instead of something where I feel shame, anger, frustration, or sadness?
• What do I need when I feel like a failure? (e.g., affirmation, reassurance, exoneration, etc.)

Action Step (10 Seconds): Next time the “I’m a failure” feeling hits, say the truth out loud instead of marinating in it. And yes, even if you don’t believe these yet, say them anyway. Verbalizing them is how you start rewriting your self-concept.

• I forgive myself for not meeting my expectations.
• I did my best, and I don’t have to criticize myself for not being able to do more.
• I am not a failure.
• Even though I made a mistake, I am not a mistake.
• It’s OK that I made a mistake. This is an opportunity for growth.
• It’s OK that I made a mistake. It doesn’t make me stupid.
• I have accomplished so much!
• I take responsibility for my actions but will not hold on to feelings of worthlessness.
• I am capable and intelligent.
• This moment will pass. It doesn’t define me.
• I didn’t accomplish what I had hoped, but I still accomplished a lot.

Build Confidence for a Healthier Self-Concept

Building confidence gives you the scaffolding for a healthy self-concept, and a healthy self-concept is the foundation that believing in yourself sits on. Better well-being all around.

Vanessa Van Edwards walks through 11 scientific strategies to build confidence. A few of the standouts:

• Strengthen your communication skills. Feeling confident is hard when you don’t know what to do in social situations.
• Practice confident body language. How you communicate is a big part of how others perceive you.
• Learn how to be assertive. Being assertive takes practice, but it will give you the confidence to speak up.
• Overcome imposter syndrome. It seems like most of us struggle with this sometimes! Reject negative self-talk and distorted perceptions.
• Cut down on social media. Social media is a heavily filtered view of life that often leads to making comparisons. If you feel envious or inadequate after scrolling social media, do yourself a favor and spend your time on something more beneficial for your mental health (e.g., journal, listen to a podcast, paint, run, etc.)
• Observe and model someone you admire. Confidence doesn’t require extroversion! Look for someone you admire, and look to them as a model to help grow your confidence.

Pro Tip: Don’t try to do all of this at once. When you’re building new skills, pick one or two things at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed and quit by Tuesday. Bookmark or print this article and come back to the action steps as they resonate with you.

Action Steps:

• Practice walking into a room with confidence. Have a destination in mind to reduce hesitation (e.g., your friend, the host, a specific bookshelf, the copy machine, etc.). Keep your head up, and your body relaxed.
• Practice speaking. If you end sentences by trailing off or always sounding like you’re asking a question, practice finishing sentences with a period. When you’re getting ready for work in the morning, start with simple sentences like, “Thank you” and, “No thanks, I brought my lunch.” Then move on to longer sentences like, “According to the data, we are seeing an upward trend.” Think about things you would realistically say at work, and practice saying them confidently.
• Practice asking for what you want. If you find yourself giving in to the requests of others or ordering the same thing your friend ordered, you don’t believe in yourself. Next time you go out to eat, order something you want. If you melt under pressure, check the menu at home so you can make your decision in advance.
• Ask the person you admire to be your mentor. You can learn a lot by observing them from a distance, but imagine what you could learn if you gathered your courage and reached out to them. Good mentors improve your self-worth by calling out the best in you. Everyone should have a mentor, and it’s up to you to ask them to take that role in your life.

Find Out What People Think

One of the biggest things standing between you and self-belief? The nagging sense that nobody else believes in you either. They must be judging you.

You trip over your words in a meeting, and you replay it for hours, certain everyone now thinks you’re an idiot.

Your toddler spills juice down your shirt, and suddenly you’re convinced the whole room sees a slob.

You go out with friends and wonder if they’d even notice if you weren’t there, so you shrink into the background, saying less and less.

Sound familiar? You stop believing in yourself because you’ve quietly decided no one else does.

And you probably have reasons. Broken friendships, relationships that went sideways, leftover scars from your school days, they all feel like proof that something’s wrong with you at the core.

Here’s the good news—you don’t have to keep guessing what other people think of you.

Pro Tip: Instead of assuming everyone’s looking down on you, go find out how they actually feel.

Action Steps (Longer Version):

• Download our worksheet (below) to use for these action steps.
• Write down 3 words that describe how you think others view you.
• Next, write down the 3 words you would use to describe yourself.
• Finally, ask at least 3-5 people to describe you using 3 positive words.
• Journal what surprised you and how it felt seeing what people think about you. You can also look for connections between the words (e.g., maybe 2 of your coworkers described you as kind or compassionate, and a friend described you as thoughtful. Even though these words are all different, they are interconnected. This shows others view you as someone who feels deeply for others.)
• Enlist the help of a close friend or coach. If you aren’t sure how to process what others think about you, ask someone else to help walk you through the more profound message behind all these descriptor words.

Action Steps (Short Version): Ask 3 trusted people to describe you in 3 positive words. Then ask yourself: does that match what you believe about yourself? Maybe it’s time to change your perspective.

The whole point of asking is to swap your misperceptions for the truth. Instead of writing horror stories in your head about what people think of you, you just… ask. And what you hear back is usually far kinder than the version you’ve been carrying around.

With those words in hand, you can start reshaping how you see yourself and step into your real identity, one that’s actually worth believing in.

Focus on Your 5 People and Ignore Everyone Else

So should you care what everyone thinks of you?

Nope.

Brené Brown recommends keeping a short list of 3 to 5 essential people, the ones you care about who genuinely care about you. Those are the opinions you actually let in. Everyone else? Sure, you can listen, but only up to a point. If their words tear you down, you don’t have to absorb a single one.

Part of believing in yourself is learning to tune out what toxic people think. If certain family members constantly underestimate you, set up boundaries. If a frenemy is forever dismissive, get them out of your life. If coworkers disrespect you, it’s time to get clear and believe in yourself anyway.

None of this is easy. Wanting people to like you, even admire you, is completely normal. But when someone’s holding you back or pushing you down, it takes real self-respect to look at them and decide: they’re wrong about me.

Pro Tip: Start noticing your triggers. Is it the uncle who makes cutting remarks because he doesn’t think you’ve done enough? The coworker who somehow always leaves you feeling unqualified? Once you can name the trigger, you can self-regulate instead of instantly questioning your own worth.

Action Steps:

1. Plan ways to self-regulate when you’re triggered. Use positive self-talk as one of your self-regulating tools.

If a coworker criticizes you, say, “Their assessment doesn’t change my worth as a person.”

If a family member cuts you down, say to yourself, “I am valuable. I don’t accept their critical words.”

If a friend undermines you, say to yourself, “I feel hurt, but I choose not to withdraw.”

2. Have a response ready for belittling, demeaning, or dismissive comments.

A lot of the time, people criticize because they’re running low on self-worth themselves, and some even enjoy seeing your hurt reaction. So don’t hand them one. Don’t really engage with the jab at all. Meet it with something flat and breezily dismissive instead. Our favorite: “That’s an interesting perspective.” Then change the subject. A few examples:

• “That’s an interesting perspective. This is great weather we’ve been having. Do you have any plans for the weekend?”
• “That’s an interesting perspective. Great shirt you’re wearing. That color really suits you.”
• “That’s an interesting perspective. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you….”

Note: If someone is regularly verbally abusive, you may need to set a boundary and tell them their words are hurtful and not acceptable.

Other ways to respond to rude people:

• “Thank you for sharing your thoughts on that, but I disagree.”
• “Why do you feel that way?”
• “I appreciate constructive feedback, but that was a harsh assessment. Would you like to rephrase your feedback?”
• “Thank you for sharing your thoughts on that, but I will make my own decision.”
• “This is the life I’ve chosen, and even though it doesn’t look like the life you wanted for me, I’m thrilled.”
• “I know you are concerned about me, and I appreciate your care about my future. I hope you can still be supportive even when you disagree with my choices.”

3. Let go of your need for approval.

Here’s the hard truth: if you keep absorbing everyone’s criticism and judgment, you’ll never believe in yourself. So start with this reframe, the criticism usually isn’t even about you. Criticism is often projection. When a boss, a partner, or a parent picks at you constantly, it’s frequently because they’re deeply unhappy with themselves.

Ask yourself why you keep chasing other people’s approval, and start trading that self-criticism for self-compassion instead.

When you stop taking criticism to heart, it’s freeing, and it strengthens your ability to believe in yourself. You have full permission to stop listening to the negative voices, both other people’s and your own.

How to Believe In Yourself Again

Sometimes the belief was there, and then life took it.

A layoff lands out of nowhere. A marriage ends. An illness rewrites what your body can do. And the person who used to walk into rooms certain of themselves suddenly can’t remember what that felt like.

If that’s you right now, read this slowly: losing your footing doesn’t mean it’s gone for good. Self-belief is rebuildable.

Things that undermine believing in yourself:

• Divorce
• Breakups
• Loss of a job
• Loss of a loved one
• Friendship breakup
• Loss of skill or physical ability
• Loss of health
• An abusive relationship
• Trauma and other adverse experiences
• Bullying (experienced as a child or as an adult)

Hard seasons like these can wear down your confidence. Suddenly you second-guess every decision, doubt that anything good is coming, and feel like a failure at the smallest setback.

You aren’t a failure.

Good things can still happen.

You are absolutely capable of making your own decisions.

But be patient with yourself here. Recovering from these experiences takes time, and you’ll likely need outside support, from people who love you or from a mental health professional.

In the meantime, look for small ways to rebuild your confidence and restore your belief in yourself.

• Go out to eat on your own.
• Say “no” without feeling compelled to explain.
• If health has taken away your strength, learn a new skill that is less physically demanding.
• If losing a relationship caused you to lose friends, volunteer or enroll in a workshop to help you make new friends.
• Order something different when you go out to eat instead of what you routinely order.
• If you lost your job, take the opportunity to explore other career options.
• Create a new routine to replace your disrupted routine.

None of these are dramatic. That’s the point. One small act of autonomy at a time, and the belief comes back, quieter and steadier than before.

So go reopen that tab. Apply for the thing. You’re more ready than the voice has been telling you.

How To Believe in Yourself FAQ