Believing in Yourself

  If you can conceive of something and believe you can do it, you can achieve it.

How many times have you thought you couldn’t do something, and put it off, ‘knowing’ you wouldn’t be able to do it. Then you finally give it a try and find it was easier than you thought it would be. Then you wonder why you waited so long. And wonder why you didn’t have more faith in yourself. Been there, done that!

How many of us live our lives not doing things because we’ve convinced ourselves that it was out of reach?

When I was young, I had all the excuses; I wasn’t smart enough, I didn’t have enough education, I didn’t have enough money, (for whatever… but it’s always a good excuse). An old saying says excuses are only important to the person giving them.

I believed all of my excuses, I clung to them like body armor, they would protect me from having to take risks.

A long time ago someone told me; Ten years from now you will be the same person, except for the people you meet, and the books you read.

After taking a break from my wild life in the motorcycle club, and moving to Alaska in the 1970’s. A number of things happened there to change my life. I met a different kind of people from what I had known. I started reading different kinds of books like Norman Vincent Peal’s The Power of Positive Thinking. I learned that the way you think determines the way you live.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, either way, you’re right.”
~ Henry Ford

There is a saying: Conceive-Believe-Achieve. If you can conceive of something—have a dream in other words—and believe you can do it, you can achieve it. I know this, it works, I did it. You can, too.

What would you like to do with your life? Sometimes that is the hardest question of all. People used to ask me, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I would reply, “I don’t know, I’m twenty-six years old, I haven’t grown up yet.”

They would shake their heads and walk away, knowing I was hopeless. Then I decided I wanted to fly airplanes and maybe, just maybe I could do it for a living. I had done plenty of jobs I didn’t like. If I could get paid for doing something I loved. What a concept!

But those excuses raised their ugly heads, inside mine; I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t good at math, I got car sick if I wasn’t driving, I would surely get air sick, I was a high school dropout, I had an arrest record. I had a lot of excused and they all seemed valid.

The little devil on my left shoulder smugly said, “You’ll never make it.” The little angle on my right said, “Go ahead and try.”

What do you really want to do? What are your excuses? I’m not here to convince you to do anything, but if you have a burning desire to achieve something or change your life… I am here to tell you that the only thing or person standing in your way is you.

We’re talking within reason of course, if you’re a girl, you’re probably not going to get a job as an NFL lineman. It used to be, if you’re a guy you’re not going to be one of the Rockettes dancers. Today that may be different.

So that’s my point. Timing may be everything. In the 1970’s there was no way I would have been an airline pilot. But in the 1980’s the economic atmosphere changed, and I was able to scrape through. Not because I was such a good pilot, (I was), but because the airlines needed a lot of people and I had gotten myself highly qualified. The lack of education suddenly didn’t matter.

If I had not put myself into the position to be hired by American Airlines, I would have missed the boat.

You may be surprised to learn that an airline job was not my goal. I just wanted to fly. At that time, I was flying Learjets. I thought I had gone as high as I would ever get.

I still had my excuses, but there was an open door, would I have the courage to walk through it? Finally, on a dare, I pushed myself to go further and much to my surprise, it worked.

I had a lot of help along the way. I didn’t do it alone. People you know who do little things or big things for you are always there for us. People that believed in me, often more than I believed in myself.

I think things happen the way they’re supposed to. And it is equally important to help others. You’ve heard the saying, “What goes around comes around.”

The moral of this story, and indeed my books, is never sell yourself short. I did for years, but ironically I pushed ahead anyway, a little at a time. Don’t be like me, get out there and do it now. Whatever it is that you think you need in your life. Go for it. You will not be disappointed.

I went from this:

To this:

Not with college, but by changing the books I read, the people I met, and the way I thought; about life, about myself.