Why "believe in yourself"?

Question

...when the self is, at best, a catalyst for change. Take away everything else and have yourself float around in space and what happens? You die.

So what's the deal with all this hype about self-reliance?

If you look at the people in history who actually DID STUFF. Were they trying to convince themselves of their own greatness? Of course not. They were busy being focused on furthering a cause, a great cause at that.

Wouldn't the better bit of advice be:

"believe in your cause" or "do what you must"?

Answer 1

Both statements are tied together because if you don't believe in yourself, how can you believe that you can actually help your cause. Without self and the ability to believe you can make a change you wouldn't ever have the ability to make that change. Without a cause, you wouldn't have anything to look inside yourself to see if you can make that change. The best part of all is when you work on a cause without doing it for selfish reasons. Great question.

Answer 2

good point