Believe in Yourself

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! Have faith in your abilities!

Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own

powers you cannot be successful or happy. But with sound

self-confidence you can succeed. A sense of inferiority and

inadequacy interferes with the attainment of your hopes, but

self-confidence leads to self-realization and successful

achievement. Because of the importance of this mental

attitude, this book will help you believe in yourself and

release your inner powers.

It is appalling to realize the number of pathetic people who

are hampered and made miserable by the malady popularly

called the inferiority complex. But you need not suffer from

this trouble. When proper steps are taken, it can be

overcome. You can develop creative faith in yourself—faith

that is justified.

After speaking to a convention of businessmen in a city

auditorium, I was on the stage greeting people when a man

approached me and with a peculiar intensity of manner

asked, "May I talk with you about a matter of desperate

importance to me?"

I asked him to remain until the others had gone, then we

went backstage and sat down.

"I'm in this town to handle the most important business deal

of my life," he explained. "If I succeed, it means everything

to me. If I fail, I'm done for."

I suggested that he relax a little, that nothing was quite that

final. If he succeeded, that was fine. If he didn't, well,

tomorrow was another day.

"I have a terrible disbelief in myself," he said dejectedly. "I

have no confidence. I just don't believe I can put it over. I am

very discouraged and depressed. In fact," he lamented, "I'm

just about sunk. Here I am, forty years old. Why is it that all

my life I have been tormented by inferiority feelings, by lack

of confidence, by self-doubt? I listened to your speech

tonight in which you talked about the power of positive

thinking, and I want to ask how I can get some faith in

myself."

"There are two steps to take," I replied. "First, it is important

to discover why you have these feelings of no power. That

requires analysis and will take time. We must approach the

maladies of our emotional life as a physician probes to find

something wrong physically. This cannot be done

immediately, certainly not in our brief interview tonight, and

it may require treatment to reach a permanent solution. But

to pull you through this immediate problem I shall give you a

formula which will work if you use it.

"As you walk down the street tonight I suggest that you

repeat certain words which I shall give you. Say them over

several times after you get into bed. When you awaken

tomorrow, repeat them three times before arising. On the

way to your important appointment say them three additional

times. Do this with an attitude of faith and you will receive

sufficient strength and ability to deal with this problem.

Later, if you wish, we can go into an analysis of your basic

problem, but whatever we come up with following that

study, the formula which I am now going to give you can be

a large factor in the eventual cure."

Following is the affirmation which I gave him—"I can do all

things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians

4:13) He was unfamiliar with these words so I wrote them on

a card and had him read them over three times aloud.

"Now, follow that prescription, and I am sure things will

come out all right." He pulled himself up, stood quietly for a moment, then said with considerable feeling, "O.K., Doctor. O.K." I watched him square his shoulders and walk out into the night. He seemed a pathetic figure, and yet the way he carried himself as he disappeared showed that faith was already at work in his mind. Subsequently he reported that this simple formula "did wonders" for him and added, "It seems incredible that a few words from the Bible could do so much for a person." This man later had a study made of the reasons for his inferiority attitudes. They were cleared away by scientific counseling and by the application of religious faith. He was taught how to have faith; was given certain specific instructions to follow (these are given later in this chapter). Gradually he attained a strong, steady, reasonable confidence. He never ceases to express amazement at the way in which things now flow toward rather than away from him. His personality has taken on a positive, not negative, character so that he no longer repels success, but, on the contrary, draws it to him. He now has an authentic confidence in his own powers.