How to Find Faith in Yourself When the World Is Falling Apart | Self-Development

DMDmitry Mugenov

How do you believe in yourself when everything is falling apart? How do you distinguish an isolated setback from a persistent loss of faith in yourself?

AVAlexander Volchek

When I hear the phrase “How do you distinguish an isolated setback from losing faith in yourself?” I hear an enormous amount of ego in it from the start. The person who formulated it immediately wants to justify their own losses. To justify them right away.

DMDmitry Mugenov

There are very different moments in life. Sometimes you're at rock bottom and everything is falling apart, but you believe in yourself and keep pushing ahead. Other times you're on the rise: everything is going well, you have all the outward signs of success, and suddenly your faith in yourself disappears completely. You think, “Damn, something's about to happen.” And sometimes everything falls apart and you lose faith in yourself, too. What is that? This sudden loss of faith can happen in any of those situations. What is it?

AVAlexander Volchek

That's life, Dima. It's a very good question. And immediately, the point to focus on is what faith in yourself rests on: how to acquire that steady, solid way of being in life. One person's faith in themselves might collapse over a lack of money, another's over a lack of a relationship with their parents, another's over what's happening in the country, and someone else's over what's happening in nature.

DMDmitry Mugenov

The things you rely on.

AVAlexander Volchek

Faith in yourself. Faith in yourself can disappear; it can disappear because of different things—different things. That's very important. Faith in yourself can disappear for different reasons, because what you just described, for example, might have been connected with professional work. But, again, different people's faith in themselves collapses for different reasons.

DMDmitry Mugenov

Someone could have insulted you on the road. You—

AVAlexander Volchek

Someone is constantly ill.

DMDmitry Mugenov

Someone else—

AVAlexander Volchek

Someone in your family starts getting sick all the time, and you begin losing faith that anything in life is possible or that anything will happen. There are an incredible number of different reasons—an incredible number. I want to explain the key point, the key point that's important to recognize. Imagine a whole range of hundreds or thousands of reasons. I'm describing them in everyday language. A person's self-belief can be affected if they break an arm or lose it. Self-belief can be affected when—

DMDmitry Mugenov

The loss of faith in yourself.

AVAlexander Volchek

Yes, the loss of faith—for example, when someone close to you dies. All kinds of things. Sometimes you lose faith in yourself and have no idea what happened. There seems to be no reason for it. Only good things are happening around you, but inside it's complete turmoil. With such a wide range of possibilities, it's important to understand that the reason is individual to each person. Faith in yourself is one of the greatest foundations of freedom in a person's life. One of the greatest foundations in a person's life. Genuine inner faith. I'm not talking about the kind that says, “I believe I'm the smartest person, so I'll succeed in business,” and off you go to raise venture capital. We're talking about a genuine inner feeling, great resilience, a strength that nothing can shake. Since this is personal and individual, everyone needs to understand that it is personal and individual. Ask yourself whether there are universal practices or rules for faith in yourself. What practices, for example?

Practices based on comparison with other people: “It worked for him, so it will work for you. It worked for that woman, so it will work for you, too. That's why you should do this practice.” You absolutely can't approach it that way. So many success stories are built around other people finding faith in themselves: “I lost myself. Fifteen of my relatives died, but I believed in myself. I took this training course and became a dollar billionaire.” Standard stories like that. I realize I've exaggerated a little, but they exist. First, again: my own story and my way of finding faith in myself are highly personal and individual. If it's completely individual, how can I resolve it? Only through the strength to know myself well enough to understand the reasons behind this faith. To know myself for myself. The next step is to engage in genuine actions, practices, and tasks that lead to developing as a human being, discovering yourself, and coming to know your own “I.”

The more you know and perceive yourself, the more you'll understand and perceive the chains of cause and effect unfolding around you. And the more you understand those connections as they relate to you, the more faith you'll have in yourself. A broader, genuine perception of life, understanding why and how events happen, truly knowing how you function as a person—all of that strengthens faith in yourself. The greater that knowledge, the greater the faith. We've arrived at an interesting paradox: not working with the causes of fear, but doing something entirely different. You come to know yourself, and this whole pattern doesn't arise. Of course, along the way you can examine particular aspects: when it happens, what it's connected with, what events or energies were involved, and how to work through them. But you can't do it without self-knowledge. There is no pill, course, location anywhere in the world, ashram, temple, religion, or person guaranteed to activate faith in every individual for the rest of their life and keep expanding it without any doubt.

Having that inner core is the very freedom a person moves toward from century to century, from life to life. That's where we're heading; that's the task before us. And you absolutely mustn't confuse this genuine faith in yourself with the egoistic kind: “I'm simply smarter, so I did it.” That's an abstraction that isn't true or real. You need to assess things calmly. Now, can faith in yourself be assessed? Can it be measured somehow? That's madness. It's like assessing your own intelligence.

DMDmitry Mugenov

You mean assessing it, measuring how much—

AVAlexander Volchek

Measuring, yes. It's like assessing your intelligence. Relative to what? Again, relative to what? A person can be the smartest in one situation and is guaranteed to be a complete fool in others. You can't measure this faith in yourself. Some people say with absolute certainty, “I'm confident in myself because…” You can be confident you'll pass an exam or run a particular business. But you're asking about something different: a loss of faith in yourself that comes out of nowhere and destroys the whole state you thought filled you. It bursts in and shakes up your entire energy system, your emotions, your heart rhythm. You have no idea what's happening. You simply have no idea what's happening. Everything collapses and gets disrupted, your hormonal balance and everything else. You take pills, visit doctors, get tests. Doctors try to come up with explanations, but this loss of faith has simply blown you to hell. Then it disappears, comes back, does something else, and carries on its own course.

Observing this is human freedom.