{"id":526,"date":"2013-12-19T17:42:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T21:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/?p=526"},"modified":"2013-12-19T17:47:13","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T21:47:13","slug":"believe-in-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/2013\/12\/19\/believe-in-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Believe in Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/images\/201312\/Belief.png\" alt=\"Believe in Yourself\" title=\"Believe in Yourself\" style=\"float:left; margin:.5em\" \/>I often have no shortage of belief in myself and my abilities.  When in doubt, I will always &#8220;bet on myself&#8221; when the chips are down to get things done.  That confidence has allowed me to be very fortunate in professional settings.  At times it can be misconstrued and at times I know that people can think that I don&#8217;t have any right to be as confident as I am.  However, earlier this year, I read <em>Ball Four<\/em> by Jim Bouton and was really struck by this passage.<br \/>\n<br style=\"clear:both;\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"font-size:16px;\"><p>\nI&#8217;ve had some thoughts on what separates a professional athlete from other mortals.  In a tight situation the amateur says, &#8220;I&#8217;ve failed in this situation many times.  I&#8217;ll probably do so again.&#8221;  In a tight situation the professional says (and means it), &#8220;I&#8217;ve failed in this situation and I&#8217;ve succeeded.  Since each situation is a separate test of my abilities, there&#8217;s no reason why I shouldn&#8217;t succeed this time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then there is also the case of the professional player who is not professional enough.  He goes on a fifteen-game hitting streak and says, &#8220;Nobody can keep this up.&#8221;  And as the streak progresses, his belief in his ability to keep it alive decreases to the point where it&#8217;s almost impossible for him to get a hit.<\/p>\n<p>The real professional &#8211; and by that I suppose I mean the exceptional professional &#8211; can convince himself that each time at bat is an individual performance and that there is no reason he can&#8217;t go on hitting forever.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He is 100% saying how I feel about my potential for success in any given situation.  Why not me?  Why not now?  Why can&#8217;t I do this thing?  Why can&#8217;t I continue to succeed, or rally to success after a failure?<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, why not you?  Why not now?  Why can&#8217;t *YOU* do the thing you want to do?  Why can&#8217;t you continue to succeed, or snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?<\/p>\n<p>You can.  <\/p>\n<p>Go do it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I often have no shortage of belief in myself and my abilities. When in doubt, I will always &#8220;bet on myself&#8221; when the chips are down to get things done. That confidence has allowed me &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,54,21],"tags":[91,114,90],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fluff","category-goals","category-personal","tag-fluff","tag-goals","tag-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peteonsoftware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}