Believers
Belief systems (in context of believing in yourself and having others believe in you) are the most underrated dimensions of human cognition. They function as this complex adaptive mechanism that constantly, and simultaneously, structures our experience and constrains our perception of reality. In other words, it shows us how far we can go but, at the same time, shows us our boundaries. In fact, it would not be far-fetched to say that this operates more than just a mental representation and more so as a mechanism to shape how we perceive and process information itself.
How do belief systems do this? How is it that a vote of confidence, either emerging from within or from another, can have such a profound and double-edged effect on the fundamental ways we perceive the world?
First, we should begin at self-belief. The cliche of believing in yourself is honestly extremely valid – having an air of confidence around you that emerges from within is not too dissimilar from a drug. This concept, however, extends beyond this idea of thinking positively and always uplifting yourself. Personally, I find that self-belief can just as easily propel me into persevering and facing hard and challenging tasks as influence what I focus and attend to. It is almost like maintaining a constant high derived from a flow state that stems from believing you can do something, doing it, seeing positive results, and wanting to very aggressively keep that. In that same token, having self-belief in accomplishing a task and seeing positive results serves as motivation as well. It could very well be that it is an independent contributor to outcomes.
We need events and outcomes that feed into this idea that we are succeeding to enable us to believe that we are winning. Because if we can find that, we can find rationale to believe in ourselves. Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms our existing beliefs. The contextual nature of bias merits particular attention. What appears to be “biased” processing in one context may represent an adaptive strategy in another. For instance, when navigating familiar environments, reliance on established belief structures allows for cognitive efficiency. It is primarily in novel contexts or when beliefs become severely miscalibrated that confirmation bias leads to maladaptive outcomes. In other words, confirmation bias works well in familiar spaces of actions and outcomes and when we believe in ourselves just the right amount – but in a world where to accomplish greater things we need to win unseen awards and go to unseen lengths, does this actually help?
So it’s clear that there needs to be another force of influence that guides belief, but what could it be?
Beliefs rarely develop in isolation; they are fundamentally shaped by social processes. The presence of believers – individuals who validate and reinforce our belief structures – constitutes a powerful influence on both belief formation and maintenance. Believers and supporters are the single most influential metric from which we build our own intuition of self-belief, or at least, we prolong it and strengthen it with believers. It requires a very strong mind to exist contently without at least some notion of another’s “thumbs up.”
I often see it within myself in others in how the relationship between performance and social support renders in two distinct forms: (1) in performance gain sourced from vying for support or approval from others or (2) in performance gain sourced from having others acknowledge your work and outcomes. In both cases, the individual benefits from gaining approval to some degree and, in the short term, results in a net positive. There is of course a massive argument from behavioral theory and social dynamics that obviously plays a massive role here, but this sums up the gist of this correlation.
Believers are the singlemost important asset one can have and nobody should have to work without one. Growing up, I often felt like nobody believed in me and my visions. I often dream high, which pushes me to attempt to work at levels higher than others imagine is possible. I like to treat myself as if I was 10 years older than I am, and often compare my growth and accomplishments to those individuals. However, perhaps as a result of this reach, many never believed in me. My own parents never thought I could achieve the lengths that I am so confident in doing. Personally, this simply serves as a reinforcement loop where I reaffirm and continue to strive, but at those 2am lonely hours, this system manifests itself horridly.
I still struggle to find a solution to this. Fuck it we ball was never and is never enough, despite this construct formed around people, especially males, to just take problems by the horns. I live everyday with confirmation bias meeting my needs to remain content and it is supercharged when talking to like-minded people. In a sense, talking to someone in your position or the position you wish to get to is, in of itself, a therapy that can reaffirm your self-belief and confidence, but is obviously not a substitute for a believer.
What I’ve come to realize is that the search for believers shouldn’t be a passive process of waiting for validation. The dialectic between self-belief and external validation creates a unique tension that can either paralyze or propel us. Perhaps the most powerful approach is cultivating a network of reciprocal belief – surrounding yourself with individuals whom you genuinely believe in, and who in turn believe in you. This mutual reinforcement creates a scaffold of support that transcends mere validation and enters the realm of collaborative growth.
The paradox here lies in vulnerability. To find true believers requires exposing your authentic aspirations, not the watered-down versions we often present to avoid judgment. This creates an inherent risk –- the possibility of rejection at our most genuine level. Yet this very vulnerability acts as a filtering mechanism, separating those who believe in your constructed image from those who believe in your core potential.
What’s particularly fascinating is how belief systems operate within asymmetric information environments. When someone believes in you beyond your demonstrated capabilities – seeing potential you’ve yet to manifest – it creates a cognitive dissonance that often compels growth. This “over-belief” from others can actually recalibrate our internal limits, making previously impossible achievements suddenly accessible in our mental landscape.
I’ve found that the most transformative believers aren’t simply cheerleaders but rather individuals who challenge your self-imposed constraints while simultaneously expressing unwavering confidence in your ability to overcome them. They occupy this dual role of both destabilizing your comfort zone and providing the psychological safety needed to expand beyond it.
The ultimate goal might not be independence from external belief systems but rather developing the discernment to identify genuine believers who push you beyond self-limitation without pushing you beyond self-authenticity. In this framework, reliance on believers isn’t weakness but rather an acknowledgment of our fundamentally social nature and the collaborative essence of human achievement.
Maybe the solution isn’t finding a way to thrive without believers, but rather becoming more intentional about curating a constellation of believers who see your highest potential while keeping you grounded in your authentic self. After all, even the most revolutionary ideas throughout history gained traction not through isolated genius but through the critical mass of believers who recognized potential before it was fully realized.