"Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

I wanted to breakdown a quote from Helen Keller that I think holds a lot of wisdom. The quote is “Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." I like the focus on hope and confidence, and I find optimism in it because both can be developed. With the right perspective, we can create hope and confidence in our lives, giving us the ability to do the things we hold in our heart.

Hope is a fundamental ingredient to a good life. It means not only that you believe things can change, but that things are likely to change for the better. This positive expectation pulls you forward, adds meaning to everything you experience, and restores your faith in your life’s greater path. If you don’t have hope then you don’t believe that things can be better. You assume that things will always be the same and you strip yourself of your own power to change your future. When you hope you have a better state in mind and, with that clear picture, you feel more motivated to pursue it. That’s why nothing can be done without hope.

Now about confidence. Confidence is sorely lacking in the world today. Many people (myself included) are held back from taking action as decisively and assuredly as they could because they lack self-confidence. This takes the form of having low self-esteem in your abilities and little self-belief that you’re worth investing time into and believing in. 

My definition of confidence is “your perceived ability to perform well in uncertain circumstances.” If you’re confident, you have no issues doing things that are new because you believe you can do them well. If you have low self-confidence you feel anxiety or stress about the quality of your performance. Nothing can be done without confidence because your brain is so good at talking itself out of doing things, and that voice can be really loud telling you that you "can’t" or "shouldn't". But being confident helps you quiet it down.

Let’s return to the quote. “Nothing can be done without hope or confidence.” Hope helps you believe that it’s worth it, that taking action will produce a new and positive result for yourself. Confidence actually gets you to take action without being held back by your own limitations. What you do is your choice, but best believe that hope and confidence play a role in it. And to start developing more hope and confidence for yourself, ask yourself this question - What positive things in your past should you give yourself more credit for? Your past wins are representative of your future potential!

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