Ask HN: How did you build self belief? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How did you build self belief?

5 pointsJ-dawg4 comments

Emotional resilience, and belief in one's self are common traits of many successful people.

The better developers I've worked with definitely demonstrate this. When debugging code or working through a problem they seem certain they'll be able to fix it, even when there's no solution in sight.

I'm the opposite of this. All too often I find myself thinking "it's too hard, I can't do it, I'm not intelligent enough.." etc. I know it's counter-productive and I try to fight it but these thoughts often seem to win.

I have failed at most things in my career so far. It might be that I simply don't have the intellect for it, but I suspect that my lack of self belief has also played a role.

Does anyone have experience of beating these feelings and becoming a more emotionally resilient person? Did you achieve more as a result?

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Not everyone who has the confidence to fix a problem is necessarily fixing it.

Sometimes (through a series of events), people develop the Dunning-Kruger effect among their peers, so whereas you may be looking as though you are "fixing the problem", you are just mucking around and you know that those around you don't know any better. That is how long-standing bugs remain in large codebases (among other flaws of being human).

"I can't do it" is the wrong way to look at an issue. You must at least try. Try and fail a few times, then get some help. Acknowledging that you don't know something (after showing you have tried) makes you human and builds bonds with those around you.

Don't fritter away your life wanting to be "that guy" who can fix everything from wrong CSS to issues in Assembly code.

Try your best to do your work within your capacity. Learn and grow where you can. Remember though that work is work at the end of the day.

Nobody is going to remember that time 6 years, 5 months ago ... where you spent 80 hours in 1 week at work trying to fix an issue so that clients could add 1 more item to their shopping baskets.

Being able to live outside your work will give you more emotional resilience. You will have something greater to look forward to then to slog your organism away to enrich somebody who probably has and will have more money than you (in your lifetime).

You might have failed at most things but I'm sure you've also succeeded at plenty! Give yourself credit!

I honestly believe that mental resilience is something you can learn and build upon. And the more I think about it, the more it's about the courage to take that first step.

What I did was to self-reflect quite a bit. Both on what I've achieved and what I've not. Then I started to paint a vision for who I'd like to be and what skills would I need to get me there. Then I started to do activities that would make me feel uncomfortable. As a quiet person, I pushed myself to speak at presentations, cold calls, etc. The key is to start small but have a goal in mind.

I'm also part of a Buddhist group where we chant and study material. The material helps because it's focused on self-empowerment and taking responsibility for whatever situation I'm in. Each and every one of us has the same tremendous amount of potential to succeed. What's limiting us is our mind and viewpoint.

> Does anyone have experience of beating these feelings and becoming a more emotionally resilient person?

Brene Brown has done some brilliant research on shame, vulnerability, and courage-- especially dealing with our inner-critic. Recommend reading her books. Here's her 2nd TED Talk for a quick intro into her work > https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?lan...

There's a famous quote from Edison(dramatized) ..

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." ?Edison. (source) ..."

-- failure is a part of learning.

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