Is likely believing you can be successful.

Belief is the breeding ground for confidence, effort and persistence. And it is these qualities that predict success much better than your natural ability can.

When you believe that you are capable, you are (much) more likely to:

• Set more difficult goals,
• Engage in the behaviours necessary to achieve these,
• Put in more and better-directed effort, and most importantly,
• Persevere through the obstacles and challenges that come.

And belief not only predicts goal achievement. It also predicts physical and mental health, as it:

• Helps to promote optimal well-being,
• Is crucial for successful change in virtually any healthy behaviour, and
• Directly improves your body’s physiological response to stress, including strengthening of the immune system.

The best news is that just like your health or fitness, belief is something you can actively develop.

Here’s how:

1. Think about your strengths and reminisce on previous times you have achieved something important to you.
2. Find and talk to people who have achieved what you want to, from a similar position to where you find yourself now.
3. Spend some time imagining yourself actually achieving your goals.
4. Surround yourself with people that believe in you, and question the people who don’t.
5. Practice relaxation and deep breathing during times of failure, and be conscious not to explain your failure with a lack of ability alone, and
6. Remind and affirm to yourself what we know to be true: that you are more than capable.

Develop an unquestionable belief in your ideas, goals and capacity for achievement, and you’ll not only be healthier.

You’ll also find yourself with very few limits to what you can actually accomplish.