A Proven Way to Start Believing in Yourself

Feeling stuck waiting for confidence to show up before you take action? You’re not alone. But what if the belief you’re waiting for only comes after you act?

In this episode of Personal Mastery, Harvard-trained behavior expert Jerry Henderson reveals the only research-backed way to truly develop self-belief — and it's not what most people think. Drawing on self-efficacy theory, self-perception theory, and powerful identity-based change models, Jerry breaks down what it actually takes to believe in yourself, even if you’ve spent years struggling with self-doubt.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why waiting for confidence is a trap — and what to do instead
• The Self-Belief Loop and how action rewires your identity
• What self-perception theory teaches us about real change
• How to use the “As-If Theory” to behave your way into belief
• The identity journaling practice that rewires your inner story
• A science-backed method to overcome hesitation: the 5-Second Rule
• Why you’re not faking it — you’re training the real you to emerge

Try This Today:

Ask yourself,
"What would someone who believes in themselves do right now?"
Then do that — even in the smallest way.

I am grateful you are here,
Jerry

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Self-Belief
• 3:30 The Self-Belief Loop Explained
• 6:56 Action Precedes Confidence, Not Vice Versa
• 10:15 Acting "As If" Strategy
• 13:46 Breaking Bargaining Patterns
• 15:07 Take Action Now: Practical Application

Transcript

Jerry Henderson: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to Personal Mastery. I'm your host, jerry Henderson, and if you're ready to create a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside, you're in the right place. Let's get started. Today, in this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you what the research shows us is the only proven way that we actually start developing what is known as self-belief, or the ability to believe in ourselves. And if you're new here, I'm Jerry Henderson. I'm trained in the psychology of human behavior at Harvard University and every week I share research-based information to help you build a life that you love. So what does the research actually show us? What do theories like self-efficacy theory, behavioral activation theory or identity-based habits what do all of those things show us? What do they tell us that the most important thing that we can do to develop self-belief, the only proven thing that we can do to develop self-belief, is to take action and start getting engaged in what I call the self-belief loop. And what is the self-belief loop? Very simple we take action. That action begins to develop our beliefs. Those beliefs then form our identity. Now you might be thinking to yourself well, the whole problem is I can't take action because I don't believe in myself. Well, let me address that real quick before we go any further, so we get that block out of our brains. The research is very clear on this that we don't have to wait to believe in ourselves to take action. It actually works the other way the action is the thing that causes us to believe in ourselves. It's just like motivation. If we sit around and wait for motivation to show up before we take action, we're going to take a lot less action in our lives. And believing in yourself is the exact same way.

Jerry Henderson: 1:42

Many people want to feel confident before they do something, and they have this story that I have to have confidence before I actually do that thing. But it's not the way that it works. You build the confidence from doing the thing, and the more that you do the thing, the more confidence that you're going to build and the more confidence that you build in yourself. That becomes your identity. That becomes your belief system about who you are. And this whole self-belief loop is based in what is known as a psychological principle called self-perception theory. That was introduced in the 1970s by a psychologist, and the short version of it is that you come to believe in yourself by observing your own behavior, not just your thoughts, not just your affirmations, not just your journal entries, but how you actually behave. You see, our brains are looking for evidence about what we believe about ourselves. So what we have to do is, instead of waiting to feel confident, to do the thing. As I said, we got to do the thing and as you do the thing, your brain updates the belief that you have about who you are. Your actions start to develop these beliefs about who you believe that you are, and then that begins to develop your identity and then that leads to you being able to believe in yourself. So if you're thinking that I have to be able to believe in myself to take that action and that feels like a block to you right now, can I just encourage you to try to start letting go of that story.

Jerry Henderson: 3:10

I had that story for over 40 years. I believed that. You know, for over 40 years I felt like the stupidest guy in the room, didn't believe in myself. It led to panic attacks, depression, all kinds of challenges in my life because I didn't believe in myself. I didn't have any self-confidence, even though externally I looked really successful. Internally I did not feel that way about myself and, as a result, I always struggled to be confident. I always felt like the lesser of everybody in the room and for me, that's rooted in a lot of childhood trauma and early childhood experiences that developed this belief that I had about myself. That then led me into certain patterns that reinforced that identity in my life and, can I tell you, one of the most transformational things that ever happened to me was understanding that my identity was based off of my beliefs and that my beliefs were based off of the actions that I took. Because my brain, and your brain, is looking for the evidence about what we believe about ourselves and the only thing it really has to work off of is what we see the repeated patterns of behavior. And while, yes, things like positive thinking, visualization affirmations, journaling all those things can help us, but they can never replace action, because otherwise it's just a story and guess what? Guess what all those things are trying to do. Visualization affirmations what are they actually trying to get us to do? They're actually trying to move us towards taking an action. Right that, if I can visualize myself being successful, what's going to actually have to happen? You're going to have to take action to be successful.

Jerry Henderson: 4:49

I mean think about individuals, that everybody talks about how they manifest things in their life, whether it's a really successful business person, an athlete, an actor, a musician or whatever it is. And they talk about how they use visualization before the game, before the event or whatever it is, to get themselves in a state where they have that self-belief. That's extremely important. But you know what? None of that matters unless they get out on the field and start to play the game. None of that matters if they're not practicing before the game. You see, the practicing on the field actually shows their brain that they believe that they have the skill to win in the game.

Jerry Henderson: 5:29

Practicing is developing the skills, the belief, the identity that I'm a person who can show up on that field, show up in that concert, show up in that business meeting and actually perform. Why? Because I have evidence, and that evidence came not just through visualizing, talking about it, but through actually doing it. And once again, yes, visualization, affirmations, journaling, getting ourselves in a positive state can help prepare us to take action and be more effective at the action that we take. But at the end of the day, if you never take action, you're never going to develop a belief in your ability to do that action and to do it well, and therefore you're never going to develop the identity of a person who believes in themselves.

Jerry Henderson: 6:15

Now, if you've been struggling for a long time to develop self-confidence and the ability to believe in yourself and you'd like some help on that journey, I want to encourage you to check out my one-on-one coaching program called Personal Mastery. If you'd like more information about the program, you can simply see the show notes in this episode. In there, you'll find a link to my website. You'll also find a link there to set up a free strategy call so that we can connect and see if working together is the right fit. So, if you're ready to start creating a life that you truly love, set up that free strategy call. I'm looking forward to meeting you, getting to know more about the goals that you have and, most importantly, learning more about you.

Jerry Henderson: 6:53

How do we start moving towards taking action even when we don't believe in ourselves? Well, number one, I want to let you know that it's going to be uncomfortable. Okay, let's just get that out of the way. You're going to feel in your nervous system, in your belief system, resistance to doing it, and you're retraining yourself. That's all it is. All change is about making what feels uncomfortable comfortable and that which feels comfortable uncomfortable. And so it's going to feel uncomfortable for you in the beginning to start taking the action towards the things that you've not yet developed self-belief in. And what you're going to have to do to develop this self-belief loop is to do what I call the as-if theory. You got to start acting as if you were the person that you want to become. You're going to have to act as the person who believes in themselves and this isn't just wishful thinking. This is actually backed by the science that if you'll start to act as the person who believes in themselves, your brain is going to start seeing that it's going to start updating itself, and then you're going to start to develop the ability to believe in yourself based off of your actions. So how do you activate the as-if theory? Very simple Every day.

Jerry Henderson: 7:59

Ask yourself the question what would a person who believes in themselves do right now, in this moment? And then do that, do that thing, even in the smallest and tiny ways. If you really struggle to speak up in meetings and have your voice be heard, ask yourself the question what would the person who believes in themselves, do right now, and then do that, even if you're only doing it in the very most micro way. Okay, the person who speaks up in meetings at one point had to speak up in meetings. They had to get over that barrier. Can I tell you something?

Jerry Henderson: 8:37

It's very common for people to have anxiety around speaking up in meetings. I had that anxiety for over a decade. It was torture for me. I got panic attacks. My heart would feel like it's going to jump out of my throat just simply by even thinking about the thought of saying something in a meeting, and I had to work to overcome that. And the way that I worked to overcome it was speaking up even when I was uncomfortable, powering through it, teaching my brain that I am the type of person who speaks up in meetings. I do believe in what I have to say and I believe that my voice is important. I had to train myself that way, I had to talk to myself that way and then, ultimately, I had to speak up in the meetings. I know it can be hard, but can I encourage you?

Jerry Henderson: 9:25

On the other side of your greatest struggles is the version of you that you desire to live out, the version of you that's worthy, that's just waiting to be released, and you have to give that version of yourself the permission to emerge. And the way that that version of us emerges is through action, doing the little things that start to build the confidence that shows yourself that you believe that you are that person. And here's the secret the trick behind identity-based action is that you don't have to have confidence to take the action. We need to get that thought out of our mind. I've addressed it a little bit, but I want to come back to it. You've got to get that thought out of your mind. That action follows confidence, that doing something follows you believing in yourself, that you've got to get in here and somehow conjure up self-belief in order for you to be able to live the life that you want. It doesn't work that way. I want to say it again. It doesn't work that way.

Jerry Henderson: 10:19

You take action and that action starts to develop the belief that you can do it and if you do that enough, that then becomes your identity and you're operating in once again what I call the self-belief loop. That action leads to belief, the belief leads to identity. From that identity we take more action and that whole loop just gets more and more reinforced about how we see ourselves. Now, does it cure everything? No, are we still going to struggle? Yes, anytime you're moving towards something new, you're going to struggle at it, and that's okay. What we have to do is stop focusing in on this feeling that we don't believe in ourselves and then just start taking action and let the feeling start to align with the action that we're taking.

Jerry Henderson: 11:08

Now, a couple of other things that you can do to start taking action, even when you don't feel like it, even when you don't believe in yourself, is to stop bargaining with yourself and talking yourself out of things. And one of the things that can help with this is the five-second rule. Mel Robbins talks a lot about this in her work and what you do, instead of bargaining with yourself and getting into freeze mode or talking yourself out of something, you shut down that part of your brain by doing a countdown of five, four, three, two, one, go. And what this model does is it breaks the pattern of bargaining with ourselves, talking ourselves out of things, getting that message of why we don't believe in ourselves and how come we can't do the thing or whatever, and doing that countdown shuts all that off and then we just move.

Jerry Henderson: 11:51

Now the next thing that can help is to keep an identity journal, and what you're going to do is you're going to write one sentence Very simple exercise. And you're going to write the sentence that today I acted like somebody who believed in themselves by. Fill in the blank as many things that you can think of in that day where you acted like somebody who believed in themselves. Write that down, make a note of it and then celebrate it. Because here's what happens we put so much attention on our failures, on the things that we don't do, and we give it all of our energy, ruminating about well, I should have done that and I didn't do this, and what's wrong with me. And as you give it all that attention and energy, guess what's happening to it? It's growing, you're feeding it and it's becoming more and more of your identity. And no wonder we don't believe in ourselves when we're paying attention to all of that. And what this identity journaling is going to do for you is going to bring to the surface all of the things that you did that day where you showed up. And then you're going to celebrate it and you're going to look at it, and when you're doing that, you're giving energy to it, you're feeding it, your attention is there, it's growing, and then, all of a sudden, what you begin to see is a new identity emerging. You're paying attention to the version of yourself that you want to become. You're showing your brain that you're doing it by seeing it written down, going over it again, and you're pulling energy away from all of the old identity and focusing it into the new identity of a person who believes in themselves, who's actually showing themselves that they believe in themselves by the actions that they took that day.

Jerry Henderson: 13:28

Now, one of the questions that often comes up for people, or comes up for me when I'm working with people in this space, is the question why am I just faking it? When I do this? Right, when I'm saying I'm going to act like this person, I'm going to ask myself what they would do, and then do it, even if I don't feel like it, and I'm going to journal it. And isn't this all just fake if I don't actually feel it inside? And my response is absolutely not. We're not faking it, we're reprogramming. Okay, look at it differently, don't let that old story that's trying to keep you trapped. And well, I'm just faking it, and so I really don't believe in myself. I still don't feel it. You're going to feel it, it's going to come over time, but most people don't give it enough time. They don't work the process of reprogramming, because here's the truth.

Jerry Henderson: 14:19

Reprogramming Because here's the truth. You're practicing the person who you truly are, the real you. Sometimes we just don't have a lot of practice of being able to be the real us. We've been living somebody else's story, we've been trying to heal from trauma or pain, we've been trying to keep up with everybody else, and we don't have a lot of practice sometimes in being the true, authentic us. So you're not pretending, you're not faking, you're practicing, you're training, you're developing, you're growing. So let go of that story that you're just faking it because you don't feel it. Okay, feelings are fickle, they come, they go, and when we learn that building a life that we love isn't about whether or not we feel like we believe in ourselves, but actually showing that we do believe in ourselves by the action that we take, and then that's going to unlock a whole new world for you.

Jerry Henderson: 15:07

So let me ask you a question really quick, based off of everything that we've discussed. What is one area in your life that you've been delaying and putting off and you've been telling yourself I'll do it when I'm ready, when I feel like I have the confidence, or that I believe in myself. What's that one area? Is it a career transition? Is it a relationship? Is it starting a business, starting a YouTube channel, starting a podcast? What is it?

Jerry Henderson: 15:31

And then ask yourself this question what would I do if I did believe in myself, if I did believe that I was ready? What's an action that I would take? And then, from there, ask yourself this question what's one small step that I could take towards that action or those actions that I just identified? It doesn't have to be something grand, it can be something very small. For example, if you want to start a podcast, what did the person who started a podcast do, the person who believed in themselves? What did they do? Well, they probably recorded a podcast episode. Well, what did they have to do in order to record a podcast episode? They probably had to get some equipment, or they probably had to come up with a topic and then they had to record it. And so, if you can identify some of those very small behaviors that go towards that bigger thing that you want to do and start moving towards it, your brain is going to start picking up the signal that you believe in yourself.

Jerry Henderson: 16:26

It'll probably be really subtle in the beginning because, remember, self-belief is not a feeling. It's a byproduct of our behavior. We don't simply talk ourselves into the person that we want to be. We have to walk ourselves into the person that we want to be, and we do that by taking action that then changes our beliefs and those beliefs become that identity, and from that identity we take more action that's aligned with who we want to become. And that loop just keeps on going. We get the flywheel started of self-belief and, before you know it, you're going to be walking, talking and acting like a person who truly and authentically believes in themselves. And I want to remind you that you are worthy of a life that feels as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.