Believe In Yourself

Ability = Belief in Self + Effort

Confidence in yourself and your abilities are vital if you are to succeed. Everyone has a subject that they feel they are bad at - for me it was English. What is it for you? Everyone usually has a subject they feel they are good at - for me it was science. What is yours? When the teacher said we had an assignment for English I would have shivers run up my spine and I would dread the thought. However, when my science teacher said we had a science test I would actually get quite excited because I was confident I would do well. Because of the joy science would bring, I would hit the books, do lots of study, and become even more confident in my ability to do well. Poor old English though. Because I feared doing badly, I would put it off until the very last minute. I think my brain was saying "if you ignore English it will go away". Of course it didn't.

The change came for me when I suddenly realised that I wasn't any better at science than English, I was just more positive about science and this made me do better. As a result I started changing the way I thought about English. I no longer said "I am bad at English" I started to say "I'm trying hard to get better at English" or "English isn't so bad, it will be all right". As soon as I did this, I started getting better at English, my stress levels went down and my grades went up.

Activity

Write a list of all the subjects you are not positive about. Now write a positive phrase (called an affirmation) that you can say to yourself when you're being negative or even as you are walking to class.

Example:

"I hate maths" turns into "I am much better at maths than I was 3 months ago".

Now write your list and your affirmations in your note book.