The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

The quotation fuses two closely related ideas: confidence is built through action, and a meaningful life is shaped by deliberate choice rather than passive hope. The first sentence frames self-confidence as experiential—earned by repeatedly confronting feared tasks and accumulating evidence of competence. The second sentence generalizes that lesson into a philosophy of agency: “destiny” is portrayed not as luck or fate but as something constructed through decisions and effort. Read together, the lines advocate a practical, will-centered ethic common to early twentieth-century American oratory, emphasizing personal responsibility, courage, and purposeful striving.