A person may have an idea about himself that will prevent him from doing good work.
He may have the idea that he is not very capable .A child may think he is stupid,or he may accept another person･s mistaken estimate of it.Older people may be offected by the mistaken belief that they are incapable of learning anything new because of their age.
A person who believes his incapability will not make a real effort, because he feels that it would be useless.He won･t go at a job with the necessary confidence,and the failure will strengthen his belief in his incompetence.
Alfred Adler,a famous psychiatrist,had an experience which can show this.When he was a small toy he had a poor start in arithmetic.His teacher got the idea that he had no ability in arithmetic, and told his parents about it in order that they would not expect too much of him.Gradually,Alfred too accepted their mistaken estimate of his ability,felt that it was useless to try.
One day,Alfred said he could do a problem which none of the other students had been able to solve.The teacher and the whole class laughed.This made him very angry.
Alfred succeeded in solving the problem.This gave him confidence.Now he worked with interest and determination.As a result of it,he soon became extraordinarily good at arithmetic.He not only proved that he could do arithmetic,but he learned from his own experience that,if a person goes at a job with determination and purpose,he may astonish himself as well as others by his ability.
Many people have more ability than they think they have.Their failure is,on one hand,the result of lack of ability,but on the other hand it is often the result of lack of knowledge about their real ability,lack of confidence,and lack of determination.