If you don’t believe in yourself you will not achieve the things you are capable of. This is not easy for most of us. How do we know that we can succeed at things before we’ve done them? The truth is that we don’t know so we think about it irrationally. We persuade ourselves we can’t go for the goals we dream of and then invariably we talk ourselves out of doing it. We’re scared of failure but actually, not trying is the biggest failure of all.

We look at other people achieving the things we want to and we make up reasons why it is possible for others but not us. Maybe they are ‘naturally gifted’ or they ‘have more time’. What we don’t think about is that maybe they just believe in themselves more. They don’t know any better than us whether they will succeed but they trust in their training plan, lifestyle and work ethic to get where they want to.

Instead of focusing negatively on others, we can use this to our advantage. If these people can achieve their goals then there is no reason why we can’t. Surrounding yourself with people who believe in you too will help. Try and cut out the people who bring you down or try and dampen your expectations. Setting smaller targets to see your progress also helps to build confidence. Combining this with a longer term goal makes the latter less daunting as you see your progress.

The body is capable of far more than we think it is so stop telling yourself you can’t do it and start doing it today.