It was the boy’s first time playing little league baseball, and it wasn’t going well. His team of newbies had little skill. Losses piled up, some woefully lopsided. But the boys took their lumps, kept at it, and learned a lot. Before the season was over, they had actually managed two victories.

After the season’s last game, one parent pulled his car up to the huddle, popped the trunk, and brought out a gift: a trophy for each player.

A trophy. Like you would usually get for winning a championship. But these trophies commemorated a season where six or seven losses outnumbered each win.

Gestures like this—now common whenever people do things that produce winners and losers—are meant to boost confidence. But no kid will have a real sense of accomplishment over a gold spray-painted plastic award for a losing season.

A lot of people think self-esteem is all-important. Today’s education system has convinced itself that self-esteem must remain high no matter your level of achievement, or even your level of effort. It wants to protect you from the sting of failure. That is a terrible mistake.

Now, it’s true that discouragement can be a real trap, and a lack of confidence can be a self-fulfilling predictor of failure. You lose enough, and you become convinced you’re a loser. But real self-esteem cannot be purchased at Dollar General.

You don’t feel like a winner when you get medals for just showing up. You feel like a winner when you win.

If you receive trophies for poor performance, your motivation to push yourself to excel will tank. You’ll start thinking that all trophies are meaningless—or, that failure has no consequences, and you deserve that trophy. Trouble is, life doesn’t work that way.

You have to learn to try hard, struggle, and stretch yourself to achieve something worthwhile. And you have to learn how to deal with disappointment, letdown and loss—even when you tried hard. You must be able to fail, get back up, and try harder. As Proverbs 24:16 says, “[A] just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again ….” The only way to build resilience—the ability to bounce back after getting knocked down—is to get knocked down.

Now, if you are truly failing at something, it’s possible you’re not cut out for that thing. You may need to get some counsel from your parents, a teacher, or someone knowledgeable in that area to help you figure out whether you’d be better off trying something else.

But if you are working hard, improving, receiving honest encouragement for your progress—yet still not winning or meeting your goals—don’t give up. Don’t think you’re a loser. You may just need to dig deeper. Work harder. Apply yourself a bit more. Remain patient. Keep fighting. Stay positive.

Be persistent, recognizing the importance of building successes. Overcome a pattern of failure by starting to score successes, even if they are small at first. The sense of achievement with a new skill attained, a difficult project finished, a job well done, is deeply satisfying and motivating. Success leads to success. Don’t let setbacks derail you. Keep working so you can begin to experience the momentum that successful accomplishment brings.

To build confidence, build competence.

Real self-esteem, healthy self-esteem, comes from hard work. It is built, one bit at a time, as you learn self-discipline and self-mastery, as you gain competence and skill—and as you enjoy actual accomplishment.

There is no substitute for these. No victory is sweeter than the one for which you worked your tail off and beat a worthy opponent.

We strive to involve God in all we do. Pay attention to this fantastic statement from Herbert W. Armstrong in The Plain Truth About Healing: “God gave man talents, mind-power (physical) and abilities that He intended us to use and develop under his guidance, and always for his glory, and toward our development in the holy, righteous character of God” (emphasis added).

That is excellent advice to remember in all your activities: Use and develop your abilities in whatever you do under God’s guidance, always for His glory, and toward your development in godly character.

In other words, seek accomplishment with bigger goals in mind than just feeling good about yourself. It’s about learning to work together with God, serving His purposes, glorifying Him, and fulfilling the potential He placed within you.

Don’t have the false confidence of someone who thinks he’s awesome because he has a closetful of cheap trophies. Have confidence in the fact that God wants you to grow. He wants to help you be better today than you were yesterday. He wants to guide you toward success, toward achieving your full, awesome potential.

To get you there, sometimes He’ll let you lose. He will allow you to fail. He will give you correction. Even though that can sting, it is a tremendous gift—because it’s aimed at making you better.

And sometimes, He will give you wonderful, miraculous help to perform something beyond what you could ever do on your own!

Nothing builds your confidence like knowing that God is with you!