By Dr. Henry Cloud
You have seen it on a thousand cheesy motivational placards: “If you believe it, you can achieve it.” Or as Henry Ford said, and I absolutely love this one, “The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can’t are both right.” Or as Napoleon Hill taught everyone, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Always a Zig fan, I love his version, “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
When I was engaged to my wife, Tori, she wanted to go skydiving together for her birthday. I had zero desire for that vision, but I did have a desire to not wimp out on my fiancée’s birthday. That vision got me to consider jumping out of a plane, but I still needed the belief that I could fly with the help of a parachute and some training from professionals. So, I had to get enough belief to actually do it.
You experience this every day. When you get out of a chair to walk from here to there, wherever there might be, you really believe you can do it. Your desire to get across the room, along with your belief that you can do it, makes it all work.
The same applies to situations you might be confronting for the first time:
- Starting a new career
- Making a never-before-hit financial goal
- Losing an amount of weight that seems impossible
- Getting “undepressed”
- Finding and having a successful relationship, or turning a failing one around
- Learning a new skill
You might have some other deep desire in business or life. And yet, in the deepest parts of your soul, you might doubt whether it is possible for you to realize these visions.
Without a belief that your vision is possible, things break down. The processes we have been discussing waver and sometimes even cease. For example, there is a condition called learned helplessness that has been documented for decades, where circumstances outside of your control lead you to doubt your ability to create an outcome. You don’t really believe you can do anything to make it happen. It leads to depression and negative feelings about oneself and the future. And the result is—nothing happens. Even when the desire is great.
In fact, the desire can make it worse; you want something so badly, but it seems out of reach for you, your team, or your business. That leads to depression and loss of energy. As the proverb says: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” (Prov. 13:12)
Certainly, goals must be realistic. I am not going to ever win the Masters. Not at my age and ability. Nor am I going to play for the Lakers. “If I can believe it, I can achieve it” is just not true. In fact, if I believed that I could play professional basketball, someone who loves me should stop me from investing a lot of time, energy, or money in trying to play in the NBA. No matter what the law of attraction says, my visualizing myself defeating LeBron won’t help.
But, as I often say to people, the “believing it is possible” factor should already be answered for what most of us think of doing. Take the list above: launching careers, making money, losing weight, getting over depression, or finding a relationship. People do all of those things each and every day—people who are probably like you, demographically and otherwise.
So, you can check off the “belief” box in this way: You can absolutely believe that it can be done because it is already being done. A lot of testimonies and stories from other people should tell you that.
Excerpted from YOUR DESIRED FUTURE by Dr. Henry Cloud. Copyright © 2026. Reprinted here with permission from Harper Edge, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
The New York Times bestselling author of Boundaries outlines a step-by-step action plan to rid yourself of the limiting patterns and thinking that are holding you back from reaching your highest potential as a leader or a person.
In this big think book, Dr. Henry Cloud focuses on how you can move from your current state (here) to a desired future state (there) using intentional actions, practices, and structured strategies that every successful endeavor must contain.
Personable, proactive, and full of Dr. Cloud’s characteristic heart, Your Desired Future is a guidebook for a new generation seeking a steady hand on the long road of life.