Believing In Yourself is Overrated. This is Better. - RyanHoliday.net

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7 highlights

• Great people don’t have to believe in themselves. They don’t have to fake anything. They have evidence.

• When Damian Lillard took that 37-foot shot in Paul George’s face to knock the Thunder out of the playoffs in 2019, it wasn’t about belief. He knew he shot 43% from that spot on the floor.

• When I left what was a very good job to write my first book, I didn’t believe I could do it. That would have been absurd. What would that belief have been based on? I had never done it before. What I did have was evidence of the traits necessary for success. I had put in the training as a research assistant on other books. I had written on a regular basis for many years (every day for six years in fact).

• Several times now I have tasted that fruit that Hart was talking about—the sweetness of gradual accomplishment. The immense gratification of looking at something you created and thinking, “Where did that come from?” And being able to answer that it came from you.

• You cannot will evidence into existence. If you think you can fake it until you make it, well…that’s just another way to describe fraud.

• Somebody believes they can jump off a cliff and live—and if they do survive, that doesn’t mean it was a good idea. It just means they’ll keep doing it until, eventually, they don’t.

• As crazy as it sounds, you don’t need to believe in yourself. That’s not what’s holding you back. Whether you think you can do something is so much less important than whether you actually can or can’t do that thing. You need to assemble a case that proves you can. You need to do the work that stands as evidence for what you’re capable of.