Vince Lombardi once said: “A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, anything can be done.” I believe that in order to be happy and successful in life you must believe in yourself. If you believe in yourself nothing that anyone else says or does can stop you from reaching any goal. I think everyone has a hard time believing in themselves due to the fear of messing up. The truth is if you make a mistake it won’t matter after a few days, but if you do something great people will remember it forever.
When I make decisions it’s often very difficult for me to believe in myself, but when I am able to find faith in myself I am almost always happy about the choices I make. A good example of this was when I scored for the first time in rugby. It was during the spring and it was raining a little bit and I could feel the rain drops hitting my skin. It smelled like it always does when it’s about to rain, almost like you could smell the humidity. We were about ten yards from scoring, I got the ball and I could hear the player to the right of me yelling for the pass. I looked at him and was going to pass the ball away like I always do, when I remembered my brother telling me “you don’t always have to pass, it’s okay to take it yourself sometimes.” So I looked in front of me to see open field, and I ran into the end zone and touched the ball down for the try. I scored and everyone was cheering. Although this was only a quick decision in a rugby game I believed in myself and I ended up really happy about it.
I think in order to flourish in life we must take chances and believe we can be successful. My story was just one example, but I could think of hundreds of ways that investing in yourself could pay out. I know from personal experience that if you don’t believe in you nobody will. So before you worry about how others feel about you, worry about how you feel about yourself and all the rest will follow. I believe that no matter the situation we must put fear and criticism behind us, and believe in ourselves.