33 Quotes To Inspire Confidence, Conquer Fear, and Overcome Self-Doubt

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other people’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have laboured hard for.”

Socrates

This will be my tenth post! It’s hard to believe how quickly time passes sometimes. I’d like to thank everyone for reading, and for the kind words. A few of you have even told me that I’ve inspired you to read more. It’s hearing encouraging words like that that make this all worth while for me.

It’s a difficult thing to put your heart and soul into something like this. To have it be aired out like dirty laundry, for it to be criticized and ridiculed.

Every post that I’ve written so far I’ve had to fight with. I’ve had to overcome enormous amounts of debilitating self-doubt and fear. Everyday I wrestle with some nagging voice that tells me that I’m embarrassing myself, that I’m not good enough, and that I should quit.

So why continue? Why put myself through that? Life is too short to be doing things that make you unhappy.

It’s that type of attitude that makes us even more unhappy in the long run, not the other way around. It’s exactly why we have a hard time creating good, long lasting habits, because the pay-off isn’t immediate. If we don’t see results quickly enough, we get discouraged and we lose our motivation.

But motivation is only the half of it.

Everyday we have internal debates with ourselves about making positive changes in our lives, and most of the time we lose. The cynical and negative side always seems to have the best and most effective arguments.

In order to push yourself though hard times, or to pursue a meaningful goal, you have to be able to win that fight.

You have be confident and disciplined. You have to be able to not care what other people think, and it starts with how you think.

That’s why these quotes have helped me so much. They allow me to think about problems in a different way.

They have helped me change the way that I approach fear and doubt. They help me fend off the unhealthy mindsets that occasionally creep up on me, and they inspire me to take chances, avoid negativity, and give me the confidence to believe in myself.

I hope you enjoy them and that you find them as useful to you as they have been to me.

1.

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.” 

Thomas Hardy

A common thing our society does is measure success using the wrong metrics.

We praise people who are already successful, as if being successful makes them worthy of our approval.

Rather than wealth or fame, what if you measured success by a person’s character? Or their faithfulness to commitment? Or their generosity?

If you change your definition of success, you can save your admiration for the people who deserve it. You might also discover that failure might be less likely and confidence easier to obtain if you’re driven by integrity as opposed to greed or your own ego.

2.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Calvin Coolidge

I read something similar recently from the comedian Steve Martin: “Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent.”

Success is directly related to how much you want it. It’s as simple as that.

This is from an interview with Terry Crews on The Tim Ferris Show:

“Now, the way your life is, truthfully, you want it. Now, that’s hard to say because a lot of people are like no way. There’s so many other obstacles. There’s this and this and this and this. But the truth is, if you wanted something different, you’d change it. And that hit me. Like it’s scary because, if I failed, or if I showed up wrong or messed up on something, I was like I didn’t really do what it took to get it.”

“But that’s kind of the way fitness, success, any goal, any aspiration, you must be it now. That book, the thing you want to write, or that thing you want to accomplish, you have to be it now. You are an author. So, now, what do authors do? Authors write. And when authors write, they have a book. And I’m telling you, it sounds really, really simple. But once you get it, forever, you will never think of anything the same way again.”

3.

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”

Seneca

This one pairs well with #4.

4.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, be better.”

Mary angelou

I don’t think my writing is very good. Actually, I know its not. But these words have consistently inspired me to continue.

I read a tweet once from a prominent blogger who said that: your first 99 blog posts will be bad, but your 100th will be great.

I’m ten percent there!

It’s all about re-framing how you think about failure. It isn’t something that you should avoid; it’s something that’s necessary in order to improve. As long as you continue to learn, it should be thought of as proof that your getting better, not worse.

5.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Winston Churchill

6.

“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”

Theodore Roosevelt

7.

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

Archilochus

There is a common saying that you hear often: “quality over quantity.”

Obviously, it has its value in certain contexts, but when it comes to personal growth, it can be detrimental. It encourages perfectionism, something that isn’t very helpful when you’re trying to learn.

Sometimes you can expect too much from yourself. You compare your abilities to the abilities of others who are at the top of their game. What you should be doing instead is comparing your abilities to theirs when they were at a similar skill level as you.

You need to understand that everyone was a beginner once.

8.

“Every activity that I engage in has to contain the possibility of internal growth, otherwise it ends up either, “Making a living” or “Passing time” – two ways of going through life that feel to me like a living death”

Alan Arkin

This one is not so much about actionable advice or a shift in perspective, it’s just a reminder to myself to keep learning; to not get stuck in the status quo.

Not progressing and developing personally, is to me, worse than failure.

9.

“Our doubts are traitors and cause us to miss the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

Shakespeare

Fear is an important and essential tool for your survival. The emotion is hard-wired into your nervous system. When you sense danger or feel threatened, your body reacts physiologically by triggering a fight-or-flight response.

Fear can be your best friend when you need it, but it can also be your worst enemy when you don’t. The hard part is, is that you can’t always tell the difference.

I’m fearful of sharing my writing with people. I feel like an imposter that will be found out and exposed, and I’m scared of the embarrassment that would accompany failure if I was to ever give up.

But re-thinking fear has allowed me to ask myself: whats the worst that could happen? Am I in any danger? Is it going to kill me? If not, it’s probably not worth being fearful about it.

I’m reminded of a Marcus Aurelius quote:

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

This is a another way I frame things when I think about fear: When I’m long dead, are people going to remember me if I wouldn’t have had the courage to leave something behind? Probably not.

If you avoid uncomfortable situations you might be better off in the short term, but at what cost?

Life is bigger than you. Your time here is short, it’s not worth keeping your imaginary fears and apprehensions.

10.

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To overcome fear, the stoic philosopher Seneca, would willingly put himself in scenarios that he was most fearful of.

For example, to overcome a fear of being poor, he would go days at a time “content with the scantiest and cheapest fare.” By doing so, he proved to himself that life is never as bad as he imagined it. “We shall be rich with all the more comfort, if we once learn how far poverty is from being a burden.”

Another stoic philosopher named Cato, did something similar. He would dress in embarrassing clothes so that people would make fun of him. He was training himself to be comfortable in high stress situations. “He would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.”

11.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

I would have written sow. Don’t you think it would have sounded better? Plant. More like face plant, Robert.

Anyway, this is another example of how you can shift your perspective. Understand that things take time, that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Be patient. Learn to enjoy the journey and not just the destination.

12.

“If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind.”

Lao Tzu

The people who believe themselves to be at rock bottom in their lives are the ones with the clearest trajectory for success. They have nothing to lose. What’s the worst that could happen? They could fail and hit rock bottom?

Some of the most successful people have had to overcome impossible odds. They were abused, or bullied, or told that they couldn’t do something. Because of that, they we’re driven to succeed, to prove the world wrong.

Think about the amazing things that people accomplish when they’re told, for example, that they’ll never walk again after an accident. The world is full of personal stories like that. These people don’t let their handicaps hold them down. They use it as fuel.

The beautiful thing is that: it’s just a mindset. It doesn’t have to be influenced by experience alone. We can teach ourselves to think that way without all the negative external events.

13.

“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”

Frederick Douglass

I struggle with this one all the time. Especially now. It’s difficult to be honest without offending someone.

But to be encouraged toward truth by the people that are remembered for fighting for truth, makes for good company when the public may turn their back on you.

14.

“I do not care so much what I am to others, as I care to what I am to myself.”

Michel De Montaigne

Same idea as the Fredrick Douglass quote. Still, it’s worth repeating.

15.

“Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.”

Henry David Thoreau

Jordan Peterson has a chapter in his book, 12 Rules For Life, titled: “Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.” In it, he explains how we lack respect for ourselves because we alone are aware of everything about us that makes us imperfect. We don’t think that we deserve attention from others because of that awareness. On the other hand, when we think about other people, we think that they deserve the necessary support and care that they need.

Next time your being hard on yourself, ask if that’s how you would treat your partner or friend.

If you want success, you have to feel worthy of that success. You have to believe that you deserve it. And you do.

16.

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

Johann Von Goethe

17.

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in one’s own sunshine.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He could have said: you are your own worst enemy. We’ve all heard that one before.

But there is a subtle difference. You might not deserve to have enemies, and you might not be deliberately acting against your own best interests.

Emerson’s quote is different because it means you all deserve your own sunshine indiscriminately, and that you might just be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Meaning that you just haven’t learned to think about something in a more meaningful or helpful way.

18.

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I would think about writing, I would ask myself “What do you have to say that hasn’t already been said?”

The answer was always discouraging, but I’m comforted by the idea that no one else will ever have my unique perspective. No one has or ever will have the exact same set of experiences in the same order that i’ve had them in.

Each of you has a story unlike any other. You might not re-invent the wheel, but you can put your own spin on it. See what I did there?

Many of the following quotes touch on these themes of individuality and non-conformity. They are some of the biggest obstacles we need to deal with in order to overcome self-doubt.

19.

“It is better to fail at originality than to succeed in imitation.”

Herman Melville

20.

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”

Ralph Ellison

21.

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.”

George Hegel

22.

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric”

Bertrand Russel

23.

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong”.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you haven’t already noticed, I included a heavy dose of Emerson. Most of his quotes are from a wonderful and powerful essay he wrote called Self-Reliance. Its had a huge influence on me. I’ll put the link Here if you want to check it out.

I’d also like to give a shout out to a good friend of mine, Dustin Ritter, who was generous enough to draw this awesome portrait of Emerson for me. You can visit his Instagram page @dustin.j.ritter to see his impressive body of work.

You might notice that Dustin is a dog lover. He’s honed his craft by providing personalized portraits of people’s pets as memorable keepsakes. Most of his other work consists of the portraits of comedians, actors, and musicians, of which the last category, he belongs to himself. You can listen to the newest Dustin Ritter Band album, The Weightless Effect, on Spotify.

24.

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.

Marcus aurelius

I interpret that internal strength to mean confidence.

We all have the potential to be confident, but most of us think it’s caused by something outside of ourselves.

When we come across a successful person for example, we often think that they’re confident because they’re successful. In most cases, the opposite is true: they’re successful because the are confident.

Confidence is a choice.

25.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

Kurt Vonnegut

Confidence might be a choice, but too much of it can be mistaken for arrogance.

The difference between the two lies in your intention.

It wasn’t long after I started this blog that I learned a valuable lesson about humility. I wrote a piece about Jordan Peterson recently, and after I published it, I sent the link to his daughter Mikhaila on Twitter. She told me that she loved it, and she re-tweeted it.

She has roughly 70k followers, and in the matter of a few hours I had over two thousand people reading my article.

This modest increase in readers was enough to seduce me into thinking more about growing my audience. My ego had momentarily caused me to forget the real reason that I created my blog; to share wisdom, practice my writing, and to leave something behind.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it would be nice to grow an audience and to have recognition, but I noticed how my mindset had changed. I was thinking about how to pander and appeal to readers as opposed to being genuine.

I learned that arrogance thrives off of external validation and comparing yourself to others.

Real confidence, on the other hand, means that your not afraid to be vulnerable. It means that your quest for success or truth is authentic and honest. It shows that you don’t care what other people think and that your willing to learn.

I’m sure you have all heard of “playing hard to get,” or “fake it ’till you make it,” but these “tricks” will usually only get you into trouble. Eventually, other people will realize that your actions are inconsistent with the rest of your character.

True confidence is being comfortable with who you are. Being honest, and being true to yourself.

26.

“Because of self confidence with which he had spoken, no-one could tell whether what he said was very clever or very stupid.”

Leo Tolstoy

You also have to be somewhat foolish to be confident. It’s like taking a leap of faith.

You have two minds: an individual mind and a societal mind. Everything you do gets filtered through those two.

Often times to fit in, you ignore our own mind so that you can blend in with the crowd.

But when you do focus on your own mind, you lose that safety net that society provides.

As a consequence, your contrasting opinions can becomes vividly transparent, and they can seem foolish in comparison. But if you believe in what you say, and you say it with conviction, people just might believe you.

It’s like that quote from Peter Pan:” The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease to be able to do it.”

27.

“I have great faith in fools – self-confidence is what my friends call it.”

Edgar Allen Poe

28.

“All you need in this life, is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure.”

Mark Twain

29.

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, your’e right.”

Henry ford/matt lowry

30.

“The obstacle is the way.”

Ryan Holiday

This is a common stoic principle that I think about often. When we are confronted with doubt and fear, the best way around it, is through it.

Seneca said that: “Misfortunes are virtues opportunity.”

Marcus Aurelius said: “Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not “This is misfortune,” but “To bear this worthily is good fortune.” 

Epictetus said that: “The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”

31.

“It had long come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things”

Leonardo Da vinci

And they don’t have to be big things either. This is from Naval Ravikant: “Play Iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.”

Gary Keller is the author of the best-selling book titled, The One Thing. The book breaks down the benefits of asking ourselves continuously: “What’s the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

It’s also an especially helpful tool when life gets overwhelming and stressful.

32.

“Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.”

Les Brown

Learning from success is just as important as learning from failure. Giving up too early on compounding interest defeats the whole purpose of it.

33.

“Hold up your head! You were not made for failure, you were made for victory. Go forward with a joyful confidence.”

George Eliot

Thanks for reading.

Before you go, I’d like to quickly mention a few bloggers/writers that have inspired me lately.

Scott Bryan writes a weekly newsletter called 1-2-3 Miscellany. In it, he breaks down: an interesting ethical dilemma, a random news story, and a random oddity. He’s an excellent writer and the subject matter is always super interesting. His last one talks about the disconnection of humanity in the language used by tech companies when they think about their users. He argues that it lacks empathy and respect citing terms like “targets”, “viral”, “engagement,” and “funnels.” Check his site out Here. Or follow him on twitter @ScottDbryan.

Another great writer who I’ve stumbled upon is Joshua Nzambimana. You can visit his site Here, or follow him on instagram @joshuathinks. He’s incredibly smart and he makes the most interesting observations on subjects like imagination, solitude, death, and perception. He’s worth checking out.