Self-Belief vs Action - Ryan Holiday

An ode to people who don't believe in themselves

What comes first, belief or action?

Do you need to believe you can do a thing before you do it?

"Fake it until you make it" is one option, but incredibly hard if you're introspective or have low self-belief and high standards.

So what about make it until you fake it?

Here are some lessons I've learned:

You can believe you're not worthy of a thing and still attain it
You can be adamant that your efforts are going to go badly and still succeed
You can grip and grasp and fear and it ruin the enjoyment and be totally unwarranted, and things still go well
You can have no self-belief and show up anyway. And still win
You can want more for yourself without knowing exactly what that looks like
You can doubt the process, question your talent, be uncertain that you're making progress, disparage your accomplishments, permanently feel like you're not working hard enough no matter how hard you work, never give yourself a break, fail to fully feel gratitude, be terrified of never reaching your goals, and still end up in a place your 20 year old self could not imagine you'd ever get to

Self-belief is overrated, generate evidence — Ryan Holiday