There are a lot of people who get involved in the martial arts in order to build confidence, self-esteem and belief in themselves.
This article will give a deeper perspective in this process so that the reader can further understand and strengthen his belief in his abilities, which will in turn further develop his abilities and improve his skills at the same time.
Let's start off by examining what it means to believe in yourself. I personally have always seen this as a trap to be avoided. Believing in your self is delusional in that your self has no real basis in what you can do and how you can perform. Believing that you are good at something will not necessarily make you good at it. Focused practice on properly doing it is the only thing that will increase your abilities. Therefore believing in your abilities will make you better and help you to perform when needed. Your confidence should be based on your abilities and not your self.
This of course should only come from a realistic assessment of your abilities and knowing your strengths and weaknesses and focusing on overcoming your weaknesses.
Some people might simply see this as semantics but if you think about it carefully you'll realize that there is truth to this understanding of the difference between belief in your self and belief in your abilities.
With belief in yourself you are merely creating the illusion in your mind about what you can do. With belief in your abilities you are looking to be clear on what you can actually do, and if you are being honest with yourself then you are removing your ego from the equation and realistically assessing what you can do and what needs more focused attention and practice so you can eventually develop the skill in being able to do it well.
For a deeper understanding, let's say you believe you can defend yourself based on the fact that you have developed self confidence because you fight well in the ring and have been working on self defense skills for many years.
Do you think that this will give you a realistic perspective compared to if you learned what is necessary to realistically defend yourself and analyzed all your skills as well as developed a situational awareness needed for successfully defending yourself. And so you solidified your belief in your skills by testing them under pressure as much as realistically possible and developed a confidence in those skills as working in the necessary environment.
Which one of these two beliefs, one in yourself the other in your abilities, do you think is more grounded on what you can actually do as opposed to what you believe about your self?
Which do you think will make a difference in a self defense situation?
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