Everyone tells me to believe in myself and I have very little to work with. Is that what the Bible actually says?

“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”

Jeremiah prophesied while Judah's leaders looked for security in political alliances. He sets two lives side by side: cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD. The difference between the desert shrub and the tree is not the strength of the plant but what it is rooted near. Confidence there is a matter of placement, which is hopeful if you have little of your own.

“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.”

Hebrews was written to believers who had already suffered public shaming and the loss of property for their faith, and were tempted to withdraw quietly. The word translated confidence here described the freedom of an ordinary citizen to speak openly in the public assembly. The writer treats it as something you can either throw away or hold onto, which makes it a decision as much as a mood.