SELF BELIEF

The most important thing for us to understand is that no one will believe in you if you do not believe in yourself. Its impossible to be successful in life without believing that you will be. Self belief sounds like a simple enough concept so why is it that so many of us doubt ourselves or doubt what we re capable of doing?

Usually self doubt occurs because of  past failures, fear, or people that have been telling you your whole life that you re not capable of doing something. Then what do we do? We believe that we re not good enough, or we don't have enough time, or we're not smart enough, and our confidence dips to the point where its non existent.

The first time I ever picked up a basketball was around my junior year in high school. I was absolutely terrible at the sport at that time, the only thing i had going for me was my work ethic. I sat JV as a junior and my senior year in high school I barely played on a team that went 4-19 (that's 4 wins and 19 losses) Out of the kindness of his heart a local college coach told me that I can come and workout with some recruits that were looking to attend the school in the fall. We played for about 2 hours and by no means did i do anything to stick out. After the workout me and my mom went to the coaches office to talk about me possibly trying to "walk on" to the team (no money is usually given to walk ons/a walk on is basically auditioning for the last spot on the bench) Before the coach could say a word the first thing my mom asked him was "How many players that have went to this school played in the NBA" I almost sunk out of my chair and under the door, that's how embarrassed I was, i knew i wasn't good and on top of that i knew the coach knew that i wasn't that good, but here is my mom all 5 feet 2 inches of her asking the coach about the NBA.

I never forgot that day. It took me a couple of days to really grasp what happened in that office. My mom had more confidence in me than i did in myself. She believed in me so much (despite knowing i wasn't that good at the time) that she asked the coach about me playing professionally. From that point on I told myself that i would always believe in myself more than anyone else. Eventually i transferred schools and got a full scholarship to play basketball (something that i doubt anyone thought that I was capable of in high school/well besides my mom)

Now believing is not the end all be all. You cant sit in your house and just believe that you re great without taking any action. I worked out 5 hours a day everyday, and I loved the game of basketball. So my formula for success would be this:
SELF BELIEF + PASSION + WORK ETHIC = SUCCESS.

Every component in that equation has to be there if not then you re selling yourself short. Believe in yourself and you ll see how easily others will believe in you also.