To Succeed, You Must First Believe in Yourself



To be your best, you must believe in yourself. You must believe in your body's ability to perform. You must believe that you can get better. Do not doubt yourself. Anxiety begins when you first doubt your ability. There are many world-champions that know no matter how much pressure there is to win, they feel less anxiety when they do not doubt that they can win. They trust their competence even when they are surrounded by doubting voices.

I have found many different ways to train my brain to trust in my competence. I try to always have a positive attitude. If I miss a day at the gym because I am not feeling well, I try not to let it get me down and focus on what I want to achieve the next day and how hard I am going to work when I feel better. I know I need to have realistic expectations. I also need to trust my ability no matter what the results are, and trust that I can improve.

Another thing that I feel helps is to use positive self-talk, which can be difficult at times. Sometimes I will have negative thoughts that replay my head. These are voices of fear from my past experiences, or anxious thoughts of the results that I think might happen. To stay in the NOW, I always try to make my entire self-talk positive, and in present tense, instead of saying "I can't do pull-ups, I say I will do at least 3 pull-ups!"

It is also good to let go of mental interference. Being in the zone is the absence of mental interference. In the weight room, I just let my mind and body do what I have trained it to do. I let go of all thoughts and feelings stemming from doubt and fear of failure. I use my energy to program what I want, not, what I don't want. I see the good in every move I make. If I don't see the result I wanted, I learn from my mistake and move on.