A client asked this question the other day:
“Do you have to believe in yourself to do something?”
They had been taught that positive thinking and confidence are prerequisites for action that gets results.
So I picked up a pen and said, “Let’s test it out.”
I placed a pen on the table in front of me.
Then I closed my eyes and said, “I can pick up this pen! I believe in myself! I see myself with pen in hand!” And did nothing.
The pen remained on the table.
Then I said, “I’m not sure I can pick this up. I really don’t know if I’m strong enough…” and picked up the pen.
Belief has nothing to do with what you can do.
You think you need belief in order to act, but when you wait to feel confident before doing the thing, you often don’t do anything.
Yes, believing in yourself can feel good. I kinda like it myself. But it’s not a requirement.
If belief were required, you’d never be able to do anything you weren’t already sure you could do—which is exactly the trap I lived in as a kid.
Little Stephanie believed, “I’m good at everything I do.”
Sounds empowering, right?
Except that I made up what I thought I could do well, and avoided anything I wasn’t sure about. So I didn’t try out for the soccer team or audition for the play because I couldn’t risk proving myself wrong.
Later, when I became a coach, I made it my job to root out limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones.
I became what I now call a “Digger.” Always excavating.
Diggers sniff out problems and poke around until they’ve isolated the specific belief to be eradicated by their method of choice. (Timeline Therapy, EFT tapping, energy clearing, etc. – all tools I once used.)
Sometimes digging works, and sometimes it doesn’t. It proved highly unreliable for me and my clients, and there was always more digging to do.
Let’s come back to the question, “Do I have to believe in myself to do something?”
Nope. You just pick up the pen.
Belief – thought – is absolutely irrelevant. It’s not true. It’s a story that has nothing to do with what’s possible.
And stories don’t determine what’s possible – actions do.
That’s why I’m not interested in your beliefs, whether positive or negative.
Instead, I help people see what a belief is (a thought that looks true),
what it’s good for (making up cool stories),
and what it’s not good for (deciding what you can or can’t do).
Once you understand how thought works, you can use it as a tool to create beautiful things.
And when you see that no thought or feeling means anything in itself, you don’t take it so seriously. You stop waiting for a better feeling and just act.
No more digging. No endless self-improvement work.
It’s a quiet transformation which is less satisfying to my ego – it loves pulling out the splinters of limiting belief – but it’s much, much more effective.
If you’re curious what it would feel like to stop being imprisoned by your beliefs and simply do what you want to do…
🐉 Contact me and let’s talk. I’d love to show you what’s possible.
Yours in love and play,
Steph
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