It Costs Nothing to Believe in Yourself

Welcome to The Brighter Side of Everything.

This newsletter serves a simple purpose → To help you build optimism, resilience and a solution-focused perspective.

Each week, I’ll share actionable insights that not only brighten your day but position you to be a leader within your own life and seize life’s opportunities.

Read time: 20-30 minutes.

Hello, Brighter Side readers! ☀️

Thanks for being here, whether you’ve just joined or you’ve been reading from the start.

This week we’re talking about self‑belief. We look at the cost of doubt, the opportunities we talk ourselves out of and how belief is really just a form of daily defiance.

It’s you showing up, speaking up and giving yourself a fair chance, even when you don’t feel ready.

Alongside that, there’s Ryan Hreljac, who at six‑years‑old turned a classroom lesson about clean water into a foundation that has brought safe water to over 1.6 million people.

There’s also a great album recommendation and we close with the powerful idea that when you focus on possibilities instead of problems, you open the door to more opportunities.

I hope your Christmas was filled with good times with the people you love the most and as we head into 2026, I wish you a year filled with new opportunities.

See you on the Brighter Side,

Chris

P.S. Please feel free to send me feedback on how I can improve. I respond to every email.

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Do you believe in yourself?

Seriously.

It’s an easy question to answer quickly, but a harder one to live honestly.

Self-belief is an idea that many agree with in theory but tend to avoid in practice.

Someone says, “Believe in yourself,” and you nod, while a quiet voice inside says, “That’s easier for people who already have runs on the board.”

We treat belief like a reward for those with the track record.

The confidence.

The story that justifies it.

The truth though?

We overlook that belief isn’t just a result of success, but a catalyst for it.

It's the starting point, not only the finish line.

Every success story begins with someone daring to believe in themselves before any evidence existed to support that belief.

So, belief doesn’t actually require proof.

It costs nothing to choose.

The real price shows up when you don’t.

Doubt rarely blows up your life in some grandiose moment.

It shows up within the small decisions that seem harmless at the time.

You hold back from making a point in a meeting.

You downgrade your dream to maybe one day.

You tell yourself you’ll share your idea ‘when it’s ready’ but never do.

None of those choices feel overly dramatic by themselves.

Over time though, they shrink your life.

You start living safe instead of full.

Predictable instead of brave.

Comfortable instead of honest.

From the outside, everything looks fine.

On the inside, you know there’s a version of you that never really had a shot.

That gap between who you are and who you know you could be is where resentment sits.

You may not label it as resentment, but you recognise it as restlessness, frustration, or simply disappointment in yourself.

One reason this gap lingers is the story of our readiness.

You know, the story we tell ourselves.

When I feel more confident, I’ll go for it.

When I’ve done more research.

When things calm down.

Readiness becomes a moving target that’s always just out of reach.

You’ll almost never feel ready for the things that genuinely stretch you.

Confidence rarely knocks first.

It’s developed in the doing.

Psychologist Albert Bandura’s work on self‑efficacy shows that what we believe about our own capabilities shapes the goals we choose, the effort we invest and how long we persist when things get hard.

In other words, belief is not just a by-product of success.

It’s one of the forces that creates it.

Kids learning to walk don’t wait until they understand balance.

They stand, wobble, crash, cry and try again.

The absurd idea that “maybe walking isn’t for me” never crosses their mind..

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we’ve traded failing in public for rehearsing in private.

We wait for certainty before we move.

When in reality belief is something built through practice.

Because anything worth doing takes time, effort and consistency and you’ll never deliver that unless you start.

There’s a sneaky cost of not believing in yourself that most fail to notice.

It’s how many invitations you turn down without realising they were invitations at all.

Someone suggests you apply for a role and you instantly say, “I’m not qualified.”

A door swings open to something bigger and you talk yourself out of walking through it.

An idea surfaces and you immediately build a case for why it won’t work.

You’re not just saying no to outcomes.

You’re saying no to entire potential versions of you.

The projects you never pitch.

The rooms you never enter.

The skills you never practice.

The experiences you will never have.

They all live in the shadow of “I don’t think I can.”

It’s unfortunate that the most influential voice in our life is often the one holding us back.

The greatest loss isn’t missing out on success.

It’s never becoming the person you could have been, and never living the life that came with it.

You live in a world that benefits when you don’t feel enough.

When you doubt yourself?

You compare more, you buy more and you chase more external approval.

Actual self-belief disrupts that cycle.

Saying, “I believe I’m capable even while I feel unsure,” is a powerful act of defiance.

You stop outsourcing your worth to titles, likes or other people’s reactions.

In real life? Belief looks like the decision to show up again.

To raise your hand when staying quiet would be safer.

To speak your truth even when your voice shakes.

To take a step forward when standing still feels more comfortable.

To trust in the possibility of change, even (especially) when the path is uncertain.

These small decisions compound over time into something solid.

You begin to trust yourself, not because somebody else told you to, but because you’ve watched yourself keep going.

Believing in yourself will never remove failure from the table.

You’ll still get things wrong.

You’ll still have moments that sting.

When you lack self-belief?

Failure feels like a final verdict.

You treat it as proof you were never capable in the first place.

With self-belief though, failure becomes feedback.

It hurts, but it never gets to define you.

Refusing to try because you might fail is like refusing to leave your house because you might trip.

You avoid scraped knees, sure.

You also avoid everywhere you were meant to go.

Failure is the cost of moving.

Regret is the cost of staying still.

And regret lives longer and settles deeper.

It lingers in the corners of your mind, a constant reminder of roads not taken and opportunities missed.

When you embrace the possibility of failure, you embrace learning and invite the chance to truly live.

At a certain point in your life, there’s a turning point.

The moment you realise no one is coming to provide you with belief.

No mentor, partner, promotion, or perfect opportunity can make that decision for you.

People can and will support you, sure, but they can’t choose how you see yourself.

For many high achievers, this is where impostor syndrome shows up.

You have the results on paper, but still feel like a fraud and struggle to internalise your success.

Studies describe this as a persistent pattern of self-doubt and fear of being “found out,” even when there is clear evidence of competence.

A shift happens when you decide to back yourself first.

From there, small internal changes start to stack.

You learn to catch your self-doubt mid-sentence.

You notice the tiny wins you used to ignore.

You name them.

You see possibilities where before you only saw reasons to stay where you are.

Life doesn’t suddenly become easy, but it becomes far wider.

More doors appear.

Why?

Mostly because you stop closing them on yourself.

Believing in yourself will never protect you from criticism, discomfort, or messy outcomes.

What it does is remove one major obstacle.

You stop being the person who constantly stands in your own way.

You stop negotiating your worth down before anyone has even seen what you can do.

Instead, you move with a simple inner agreement.

Whatever happens, I’ll figure it out as I go.

That’s where growth lives.

Not in perfection, but in motion.

We talk a lot about the cost of chasing big goals.

The risk, the effort, the uncertainty.

We don’t talk enough about the cost of never really chasing them at all.

The cost of living on autopilot.

Of selling yourself on “I’m fine” when something in you knows you’re underusing what you’ve got.

You pay for that in energy, in joy and in years you won’t get back.

So yes, on paper, believing in yourself costs nothing.

You don’t need a certificate or a title or anyone’s permission.

But doubting yourself over and over slowly drains the things that make life feel alive.

Your courage, your creativity, your sense of purpose, your connection to what you’re actually capable of.

Self‑doubt won’t vanish as you succeed.

It tends to grow with your responsibilities.

The real measure of progress is hearing that voice and choosing to move forward anyway.

Here are a few ways to turn this concept from an idea into something you can actually use:

Self-belief is about giving yourself a fair chance.

Not being fearless or delusional.

Not pretending you never doubt yourself.

Everyone does.

You simply have to give yourself a fair chance to try.

A fair chance to learn.

A fair chance to see what happens when you stop assuming you’re the one person who can’t figure it out.

Everything you want to create, experience, or become begins with a simple thought.

“Maybe I’m capable of more than I think.”

The moment you stop arguing with that thought and start acting with it, your life begins to widen.

Opprtunities you never noticed start to come into view.

You try things you used to talk yourself out of.

The real risk isn’t believing in yourself and falling short.

It’s building an entire life around doubt and realising that you never truly let yourself show up.

So, maybe let your actions answer a different question.

What if you finally gave yourself a real chance?

If you want to dig a little deeper into this, the following 17 minute video walks through ways you can shift self-doubt into something more useful:

At the age of six, Ryan Hreljac sat in a Grade 1 lesson in Kemptville, Ontario, Canada.

He was hearing for the first time about how children in some parts of Africa face the challenges of accessing clean water and the arduous journeys they endure in the heat.

The lesson left a lasting impact on him.

Transforming a fact he learned in school into something much more significant.

It became the question that totally rearranged his life.

Motivated by his newfound awareness, Ryan embarked on a mission to make a difference.

Ultimately leading to the creation of Ryan's Well Foundation, which has since provided clean water to countless communities around the world.

In 1998, Ryan's teacher, Mrs. Nancy Prest, informed the class that many children in certain areas of Africa had to walk for hours to get water.

And even then, the water could still make them sick.

Ryan thought about his own experience.

The few steps from his desk to the school fountain and immediately felt that gap as something deeply wrong.

He went home and asked his parents for $70.

The amount he’d heard would pay for a well.​

While they didn’t write a cheque, they offered extra chores.

Vacuuming, washing windows, picking up pinecones.

Until he’d earned the money himself.​

Four months later, he showed up with a heavy cookie tin full of coins.​

Then came the moment most people would give up.

He learned that $70 would only buy the pump, and that a full well in Uganda would cost closer to $2,000.​

Ryan’s response was simple.

He asked for more chores.​

Chores alone were never going to reach $2,000.​ Not at the pace he’d been going anyway.

He realised he’d need to find additional ways to earn money.

So Ryan started talking.

To classmates, his church, to anyone who would listen.

Sharing what he’d learned and what he wanted to change.​

He spoke at his school, at church and throughout his community.

Describing what he’d learned and what he hoped to do.

In the plain language of a six‑year‑old who decided the situation was unacceptable.​

A family friend wrote an article in the local paper and donations began to flow.

They came from both neighbours and strangers and by late 1998 there was enough to fund a well.​

Ryan selected Angolo Primary School in northern Uganda for the well, because he wanted children his own age to benefit.​

While visiting the school a couple of years later, he walked down a lane lined with students and villagers who’d come to meet the boy behind the well.​

Among them was his pen pal, Jimmy Akana, a student at Angolo.

Their letters had turned a “Project in Africa” into a friendship.

Real relationships with names and faces.​

The water crisis was no longer just an issue somewhere over in Africa.

It was Jimmy.

It was his school and the community now drinking water from a clean, nearby source.

Let me just remind you here: a 6 year old achieved this.

What was as a heartwarming story could have ended there.

But it continued to develop.

In 2001, Ryan and his family set up the Ryan’s Well Foundation

The goal?

To keep funding clean water, sanitation and hygiene education in partnership with local organisations.​

Over the years, the work grew beyond that first village and even beyond wells.

Ryan’s Well now reports more than 1,767 community‑led water projects and 1,322 toilet facilities in 17 countries.

Bringing safe water and sanitation to over 1.6 million people.​

Ryan grew up alongside the foundation.

He studied fields related to international development and took on speaking and advocacy roles.

He now serves as Executive Director, helping to steward strategy, partnerships and fundraising while still visiting schools to talk with children who remind him of his six‑year‑old self.​

Along the way, he received the World of Children Youth Award and other honours that reflect decades of sustained commitment.​

His story has also come full circle with Ryan’s team returning to Angolo to rehabilitate the original well.

They also built new facilities and handwashing stations for what is now a now much larger school community.​

Seen from a distance, Ryan’s journey looks extraordinary.

Up close, it’s built from very ordinary choices repeated consistently over time.​

Where do I start?

Here’s few practical lessons from Ryan worth implementing into everyday life:

1. Let a fact actually bother you: Ryan heard about children walking for dirty water and allowed that information to disturb him instead of just filing it away.​

Any time a statistic about poverty, climate or conflict unsettles you, that discomfort might be the start of your assignment, not the end of your attention.

2. Start at the size of your current life: His response wasn’t a grand plan. It was vacuuming and washing windows, done consistently for a purpose outside himself.​

The problem was huge and it remained huge, but he acted at the scale he could reach and trusted that other people would help build around it. Which they did.

3. Choose relationship over abstraction: His friendship with Jimmy (along with focusing on certain schools and villages) changed "helping Africa" into building long-term relationships with real people.

This change was a key reason the initiative could transition from a single donation into sustainable, community-driven projects.

4. Grow your competence to match your calling: Ryan’s journey didn’t end once he became the kid who built a well. He built on his knowledge in order to increase his impact.

He took the inititative to grow into the skills required to lead a credible organisation. Turning his early passion into steady, adult responsibility.​

Ryan’s story isn’t a guilt trip about what a six‑year‑old achieved.

Though, it does recalibrate what is possible for many of us.

It’s a reminder that when someone treats a single, unsettling fact as their business?

You can change the world.

That Grade 1 classroom could have been just another lesson.

But one kid saw a water fountain, learned about the long, unsafe journeys people take to get water and decided this situation wasn’t okay.

His decision hasn’t fixed everything, but it’s made a monumental difference for the communities he’s impacted.

They now drink from wells and use toilets that didn’t exist before a small boy began trading chores for coins.​

Most of us are older than six and have far more to work with than a cookie tin and a vacuum.

Somewhere in your own orbit, there’s a version of that classroom moment.

A problem that bothers you and refuses to fade.

The pivotal moment arrives on the day you stop stepping around it.

When you start, in whatever small way is in front of you, to act.

Because action is the catalyst for change.

It transforms intentions into reality and dreams into tangible outcomes.

So, be honest?

When reality offends your sense of what should be normal, do you treat that feeling as a passing mood?

Or as a signal that you’re being invited to participate?​

This video traces Ryan’s journey from a classroom lesson to a well in Uganda and the incredible results that followed:

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Every so often, an album makes it’s way from my “I should give this a listen” list and into my regular rotation.

Daybreak did that almost immediately.

Recommended to me not long after its September release, it quickly became my go-to relax or focused work album.

One of those rare records I can put on and trust that the next 40 minutes will take care of itself.

The album is built around a beautiful concept.

A maritime voyage extending from first light through to the fall of night.

You can feel that arc as you move through the record.

The sense of setting off, encountering changing weather and moods and eventually drifting into a calmer, darker space.

Even without lyrics, it feels story driven, like the score to a day where everything slows down enough for you to notice the details.

It also works remarkably well in everyday life.

The album is gentle enough to sit comfortably while reading but textured enough to reward a full, start-to-finish listen with headphones.

It’s an ideal length for a focused work session, a quiet walk, or a slow evening ritual when you want the moment to feel a little more intentional.

One of the things that makes Daybreak special is how it feels like one continuous piece rather than a playlist of separate tracks.

A melody appears early on and then re-emerges at different points along the journey.

Sometimes carried by flute, sometimes by strings, sometimes by percussion or keyboard.

Instead of feeling repetitive, those recurring phrases act like familiar landmarks along a changing coastline, tying the whole voyage together.

Some moments move with an easy, almost library music type funk (I think I just coined a music genre), while others are softer with brushed drums and slow-burning bass lines.

It feels like a cross between a nature documentary and a late-night jazz session at sea.

Soundtracks shape how you move through your day: Choosing a specific album as your “focus” or “wind-down” companion turns ordinary moments into something more intentional.

Repetition can be grounding, rather than boring: The way certain melodies and textures reappear across the album is a reminder that returning to familiar sounds can be soothing. In the same way a small daily ritual can anchor a busy schedule, musical repetition creates a sense of continuity even as everything else shifts.

Instrumental doesn’t mean background: Without lyrics to follow along, there’s more room to notice the various textures and mood. Albums like this encourage a different type of listening but allow mental space where words feel like too much. Super easy to focus and relax yourself.

Daybreak is an album that feels reliable in the best way.

When it goes on, there’s a sense of being carried on a journey without having to work hard to follow it.

The maritime framing, the recurring melodies and the carefully layered instruments all deliver a listening experience both calming and quietly energising.

If you’re looking for a record that can hold you through reading, focusing on your work or a slow evening Daybreak is well worth a spin.

It’ll leave you feeling more settled and content after the last note fades.

Please share; I'm always keen for great suggestions.

We spend a lot of time thinking about what is wrong.

What is not working.

What is missing.

What worries us.

But what if the very act of focusing there keeps you stuck?

This week's idea comes from Zig Ziglar: "When you focus on problems, you get more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you have more opportunities."​

It sounds simple, but it can totally shift how each day feels.

Problems will always be there.

Bills, deadlines, misunderstandings, uncertainty.

Focusing only on what is wrong often makes everything feel heavier and more overwhelming.

Everything.

While focusing on possibilities doesn’t erase the hard things, it changes how we meet them.

It opens the door to options, ideas, support and best of all, hope.

Our mind has a way of amplifying whatever it pays attention to.

When attention stays locked on what is broken or frustrating, those things begin to paint the whole picture.

Possibilities fade into the background, even when they are still there.

Shifting your focus to possibilities is like adjusting a camera lens.

The problems remain, but other things also come into view.

The next small step, someone who could help, a skill that could be learned, a lesson that you can take forward.

Before you ask, this shift doesn’t require forced positivity.

It simply asks for curiosity: "What else could be true here? What could I try next?"

This is something I’ve stood behind since my teenage years.

It’s served me so well because I start each day asking "What is possible today?"

Instead of dwelling on what went wrong yesterday.

I show up with more energy and openness.

Over time, this tiny shift in focus will change choices, habits and as a result, outcomes.

Here are a few simple ways to practice this concept:

There’s something powerful about remembering that attention is a choice.

Problems may show up uninvited at times, but the lens you use to view them can be adjusted with intention.

The small act of choosing possibilities creates a little more breathing room in the middle of everyday life.

So, next time a problem pops up (and it will), try asking yourself, "Where is the opportunity in this?"

The answer might be small, and that is perfectly fine.

Those small, possibility-focused moments can add up over time.

Because while problems demand your attention?

Possibilities actually deserve it.

What’s one situation in your life right now where you could shift your focus from problem to possibility?

I’d love to hear what you discover.

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