The Belief Trap

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I think Henry Ford said that about believing you can do something or not and how that is 99.9% of the battle and he’s right, I guess. I don’t know. It’s hard to say.

The thing is, there are two extremes when it comes to believing you can do something and not believing you can do something, and I think both are a bit of a trap. The first is the trap of "If I only believe hard enough, I can do anything" Which is great, except you still have to put in the work, you still have to have the talent, you still have to have the opportunity. It’s easy to believe you can do something, but if you don’t put in the work, it’s just not going to happen.

The second trap is the opposite, "I’ll never be able to do this, so I won’t even try." Which is also problematic, because if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you can do it. And sometimes, if you think you won’t be able to do something, you won’t even put in the effort to try properly. I’ve seen this with people who think they are no good at computers. They don’t even read the manual. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

But there’s a third trap as well, which is the trap of " I believe I can do anything, so I will" Which is fine, except that if you are not actually talented enough or experienced enough, you will fail, spectacularly. Believing in yourself without being realistic is not having a positive attitude or being motivated, it’s arrogance.

I think the quote ignores the reality, which is that most of us don’t fall into those two extremes. Most of us aren’t really sure if we can do something or not, so we just try. We do some stuff right, some stuff wrong and we either manage it or we don’t. That’s just life, it’s not some quote to print on a t-shirt.

Henry Ford might have been trying to say that having a positive attitude is important, because if you think you can’t do something, you won’t even try, but if you think you can, you will keep plugging away at it until you figure it out. That I can get behind, except that it’s just not nearly as catchy a quote.

And it still ignores that fact that you need to do the work as well. But at least believe you can and you’re halfway there or it will make it easier and you might succeed.