You Don’t Need More Advice, You Just Need More Self-Belief
If you want more, you need to stop telling yourself that you can’t or do it.
In the last few weeks, I got around to starting a project I’ve been delaying for quite a while. I knew I should get going, but I felt blocked in a way that’s hard to explain or put a finger on.
One thing I did alot though was watch several YouTube videos secretly hoping the magic advice or secret would pop out. It didn’t. And my mind was too smart for that anyway. It could see through my endless YouTube sessions and see them for what they are: distraction strategies and delay tactics.
What actually worked was a bit of honest evaluation, Why did I find it so hard to kick off this project? The answer jumped out: The belief wasn’t there.
I had doubts subsciously about my ability to pull it off.
My doubts was blocking me.
Long story short, I finally got going but learnt something quite powerful:
Many times you don’t need more advice, you don’t need to watch more YouTube videos, you don’t need to read another article, you don’t even need to open another book.
You just need more belief — in yourself. In your abilities. In your potentials. In what you set out to do.
In what you can achieve when unyielding determination is married to unflagging persistence.
That’s all. That’s what you need.
Contrary to what you might think, advice isn’t what you lack. They are dime a dozen. You don’t lack information either, there are more books, articles, and videos out there than you’ll ever be able to cycle through in several lifetimes.
What’s not as abundant is self-belief.
You know this truth deep down. Many times when you go seeking for advice, watching another video, reading another article, picking up another book, you already know what to do, those are just delay tactics.
Advice, then, is what you seek when you know the answer, but wish you didn’t. ‘More information’ is what you pursue when you know what to do but wish your self-belief muscle wasn’t so flabby.
What could you achieve if you stop doubting yourself so much?
How Your Self-Belief Affect Your Motivation
The expectancy theory, developed by Edward Tolman in the 1930s proposes that a huge part of motivation to perform an action is based on expectancy/expectation. Expectancy refers to your belief about how you will do if you take certain action.
If you expect to do well, you are more likely to take action. If you feel the chance of success is low, you’re less likely to act.
Expectancy or belief is further classed into outcome expectations and efficacy expectations.
Outcome expectation is belief that a certain action will lead to a particular outcome (e.g the belief that practicing driving improves driving test performance) whereas efficacy expectations is the belief you have about whether you can effectively perform the action necessary to produce the outcome (e.g I have the ability to practice sufficiently well to pass my driving test.)
These two kinds of self-efficacy are different but equally required for motivation because it’s possible — even common — to have the first without the second. It’s possible that you believe a certain action will produce a particular result but NOT believe that YOU are capable of that action.
Various studies have shown significant correlation between how well children think they’ll do in school and their eventual performance, patient’s rating of their chance of recovery and their eventual health trajectory, athlete’s rating of their chance of winning a race and their eventual performance.
And it’s easy to see how this happens: if your belief in your ability to pull of a particular action is low (low efficacy expectation), it subtly and subconsciously influences your preparation and therefore your eventual performance. Or you might not even start at all.
This is why self-belief — your confidence in your ability and potential — is crucial. More than reading more articles, more than watching more YouTube videos, more than taking more courses.
While you’ll need a lot more than just self-belief to achieve your big goals and high ambitions — a lot of hard work, grit, patience and consistency needs to be mixed in — but without the solid foundation of self-belief, you’ll not even get started, you’ll not give it a go. You’ll self-reject.
“Self-doubt sets your ceiling.” is how James Clear put it.
You’ll Never Feel 100% Ready
You know what? You’ll never feel 100% ready. You’ll never feel fully prepared. You’ll always feel like you need that one more piece of advice. You’ll always feel like more knowledge will be the cure . You’ll always feel like you need that one more book, one more course, one more article before taking action.
But that’s simply not true. It just increases your chance of becoming an info-junkie, voraciously consuming without taking action. What you need is to believe a little more in your ability to get into flight and build your wings on the way down.
Whether it’s starting a business or completing a difficult project, your self-belief makes a huge difference: You can try — in vain-— to get everything just right before you start or you can have the efficacy expectation (self-belief) that you’ll figure it out. That you’ll find a way or make one.
Self-belief Is The Necessary Condition
It’s great to have others believe in you and in your dreams but that’s rarely the deal-breaker. Thats rarely what determines whether you’ll achieve your goals. Many examples abound those who achieved greatness even when others have bet against them.
And it hurts when you can get others to believe in your dreams the way you do— but that’s not usually the deal-breaker. That's not what kills the dream.
Dreams rarely die because others stop believing in them, dreams die when YOU stop believing in them and going after them.
That’s why your self-belief is key. It is what continues and keeps you going long after the belief and support of others have fizzled out.
How strong is your self-belief because the achievement of your goals depends on it?
In what areas are you replacing swinging into action with more advice, more information and setting all your ducks in a row to start?
Raise your self-belief instead. The result might surprise you.
