You are destined to become the person you decide to be.

Who are you, really? The puzzle of personality | Brian Little

Personal Development Hack 167: How to make others believe in your ideas?

We are social beings who live to communicate with another, thereby it becomes important to be able to get your idea across to the other person in a manner that makes them believe in it the same way as you do. This may not be as easy as it sounds like for everyone, which may further cause a variety of problems such as negatively affecting self-confidence, having a lack of opportunities in the future, and people becoming less proactive in taking decisions for themselves and/or those for a group. 

So, why do some people face difficulty in making others believe in their ideas? A few reasons include facing difficulty in communicating with others, lacking confidence within themselves, and there is also the inability to make a concrete plan for the idea due to which communication becomes more difficult leading to people unable to understand the plan and thereby not believing in it. 

Hence, to make others believe in your ideas, you should begin by building a Concrete plan about your idea so that if someone questions you about it then you can comfortably answer them. You can try practicing this by asking yourself the following questions: 

– What exactly is my idea?

– How am I planning to execute this? 

– What necessary steps will I need to take to complete it? 

– How much time and resources will I need for this? 

– How is it better than the other similar ideas? 

This is an effective approach because it helps to boost confidence within yourself as well as increase the quality of your idea. Furthermore, people may have doubts about how realistic your idea is, for this you can use these two methods:

1. Application: Prepare and show a small application of your idea or highlight any of your previous achievements that resembles your current idea to increase your credibility.  
2. Social proof: Provide social proof by highlighting specific people who liked your idea. The higher the authority and credibility of those people the easier will people believe in you.    

Bonus tip: Remember, how you communicate affects how much people believe in you and your idea, therefore, we can always keep working on communicating effectively.   

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Personal Development Hack 166: How to overcome self-doubt?

Oftentimes, we find ourselves in a monologue about doubting and criticizing our ability for achieving a task and/or goal. To deal with such self-doubts we use multiple coping mechanisms but it becomes concerning when this continues for a longer period of time leading us to feel demotivated, procrastinating on the work, low performance, difficulty in making decisions, and increased stress. 

But what leads to self-doubt?  Research suggests that attachment styles developed during the early stages of life can result in self-doubt, such that it’s been reported that people who have insecure attachment styles have shown more thoughts of self-doubt as compared to others. Another reason could be our past experiences, as we find ourselves reminiscing memories from uncomfortable experiences leading to self-doubt in similar future situations. Furthermore, comparing yourself to others, especially the ones who are in a better position than you, leads to more self-doubt. 

So, how to overcome self-doubt? A popular hack is to practice affirmations a couple of times in your day, an example of a few affirmations is as follows:

– My past experiences are all learnings, and my present and future experiences are also going to help me become a better person

– I see stressful situations as challenges and opportunities. 

Another effective hack can be to replace the fear of criticism and comparison with others by identifying your inner values and remembering your past achievements. To do this:

1. Ask yourself what few things are most important to you, those which bring meaningfulness in your life and make a list of those things. 
2. Think about a few past accomplishments of yourself that you are proud of and add them in your inner value list. 

Then whenever you feel that you are doubting yourself, remind yourself that you are working for your inner values and not for any external reward. Also that you did your best in the past and that you will continue to do so. This approach is more effective because it shifts focus from external comparison to internal motivation. 

Bonus tip: When you observe yourself going into stories or thoughts of blame, say “stop” to yourself out loud. This will allow you to turn your attention away from your blaming thoughts for a short while, giving you time to think about your past achievements and experiences for healthier coping.

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” 

–  William Shakespeare

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