Confidence & Self-Reliance ~ The Will to Win

by Fr. E.Boyd Barrett, 1917

The best spirit in which to enter a fight is the spirit of confidence and self-reliance. “I’m going to win this fight. I’m sure of that, for I know I’ve got it in me, and I’m going to do my best.”

That spirit redoubles our strength and energy. It evokes all that is pluckiest and most enterprising in us. It fires us. It electrifies us. It gives us the dogged tenacity to hold out in spite of many a heavy blow. It awakens the “no surrender” spirit. It spells victory. It means the Will to Win.

Confidence and self-reliance, combined with Strength of Will, insure success, in so far as it can be insured. Great-hearted, courageous, and intense resoluteness cannot be baulked of victory. To those who have this spirit nothing seems impossible; “impossible” in their eyes is a word made for fools alone.

The Will as a mighty spiritual force, an inexhaustible reserve of power and energy, is there at hand helping, supporting, and seconding their efforts. They know its value, they feel its inspiration, and they trust in its strength.

The spirit of confidence and self-reliance can be acquired. Each task, well and faithfully performed, will increase our sense of power to achieve, it will increase our self-reliance.

Each task well fulfilled will give us good reason to know that we have a Will capable of facing a project and of carrying it through, and this feeling and conviction is the basis of confidence.

The recollection of past tasks well done will help us to face new tasks confidently. The meaning of confidence and self-reliance, and the importance of that attitude of mind will gradually come home to us. Then we shall strive to cultivate it and to make it a habitual state of mind.

This brave, cheery spirit is of inestimable value. It is good for ourselves, for soul and body, and it is good for others. The man who can face suffering and difficulty gaily and gladly, without trouble of mind and without being depressed, is a source of inspiration to others. His buoyancy and cheeriness not only makes his own burden lighter, but it shows others how to bear their burdens.

To be bright, to “keep smiling,” to “carry on” joyfully; that admirable spirit is the natural outcome of confidence and self-reliance — the outcome of the Will to Win.

 The chief enemy and the antithesis of the Will to Win is discouragement. It is a feeling of depression, hopelessness, and to some extent, of indifference. We fret, worry, brood over our troubles and the difficulties before us, and we become downcast. Things look black and gloomy. The trouble seems to grow larger and larger.

Our spirit becomes oppressed. Our energy and enterprise fail us. We feel ourselves heavy and inert masses. All inspiration disappears. Our Strength of Will seems to have left us. We begin first to fear that we shall be defeated, then we anticipate and count on defeat, and finally set ourselves to await it.

We feel we can’t struggle on any more, that we must give up, that failure is inevitable — and then, giving way to discouragement, we throw up the sponge.

What a contrast there is between the but two spirits! The Will to Win, and Discouragement. The first spells success, the second failure. And yet neither spirit can prevail unless we deliberately cultivate it.

Discouragement only becomes fatal when we willfully cherish it and submit to it. The Will to Win only triumphs if we resolutely and deliberately cultivate and develop it. Each of the two spirits is intimately connected with the Will.

The spirit of confidence and self-reliance, which I call the Will to Win is the Will active, full of life, emphatically asserting itself. Discouragement on the other hand is the negation of Will; it is, so to say, the Will effacing itself and giving place to animal feeling and impulse.

Whether we like to admit it or not there is for us, in our private lives, great danger at times of giving way to discouragement. Falls and failures, disappointments, suffering, ill-health, unkindnesses, and betrayals will cross our path in life.

Things that we feared, and that we hated to think of, will happen. Harsh and cruel things will be done to us. Sufferings long and bitter will be ours. All that we must expect and face, but we must face all in the right spirit. We must not give way to discouragement. It is no remedy for ill. It does no good. It makes things worse.

We must face our trials with deep Christian resignation, we must take them from God’s loving hands as gifts, and we must bear up under them with a splendid spirit of confidence, and a Will to Win through.

I now offer a few suggestions, which you may find useful and helpful in dealing with this fatal, perhaps for us most fatal of evils, discouragement.

(1) In doing Will-tasks deliberately cultivate the feeling and spirit of confidence and self-reliance.

(2) Prepare yourself beforehand for suffering. Think well on what it means, its uses, how to make it help you onward and upward, and how to offer it cheerfully to God. Convince yourself that suffering and failure must come and make up your mind how you are to bear them when they do come. Make failure play itself false. Make it a “stepping stone to higher things.”

(3) When suffering and failure have come upon you, hold on tenaciously to your good resolutions. If the first shock has caused you temporary discouragement, try to shake it off as soon as possible. Remove its cause if you can.

If it is a sin, get rid of it without delay. Regain as soon as you can your normal state of trust in God and joyful confidence. If it is physical pain and suffering, some illness for instance, make yourself thank God for it and rejoice for it.

I once asked an old Irishman, who was limping along the road, how he got his rheumatism. He looked at me with some surprise and then answered rather sternly — “How does anybody get it? Didn’t the good God give it to me — praise be to His Holy name.” In that old man, I need not say, there was no discontent or discouragement.

(4) Keep alive within your heart a love for what is fair and good and great. Look round at the works of Nature; observe and study a little the beauty of flowers, of mountains, and of the sea. Read good books and the stories of great men. Furnish your mind with the marvels of science. Open your heart to the call of great causes— the cause of the poor and oppressed above all.

Take an interest in big problems and keep yourself aloof from the sordid and petty pursuits of evil doers. You will find, I think, that love of truth and beauty and great causes, will form a good and solid background for the spirit of Confidence and Self-reliance.

Let me remind you once again that the work of training and strengthening your Will is well within your power. You can make your Will very strong if you are prepared to sacrifice yourself a little, and to perform patiently and perseveringly and in the proper spirit tasks such as I have suggested.

It rests with you, and you alone, to decide whether or not you will do so. In this choice no power on earth can hamper your liberty. Choose then, and if you resolve to perfect your Will, and are faithful to your resolution, your life will be truly great, and you will deserve well of your Church and of your country.

“If you wish to see a perfect country, a Kingdom of God, do yourself become a perfect individual, a Kingdom of God. The perfect country can only be established by individual men and women who are striving after perfection —perfection not only in an imaginary nation which is outside themselves but in the actual nation which is within themselves, in their own brains and hearts and sinews, to mar or to make beautiful as they will.” -Fr. E. Boyd Barrett

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Excellent books!

The Will to Win by Fr. E. Boyd Barrett, 1918 ~ Available here.

Strength of Will by Fr. E. Boyd Barrett ~ Available here.

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