“Rediscover my confidence?”
You may be asking if you ever had it.
I know you did. How do I know you did? Because confidence is something we are born with, but talk ourselves out of.
At some point we start to tell ourselves, or believe, that we are not able or brave enough.
When my son at 9 months old began to climb out of his crib, he believed he could and he did it. He didn’t ask me if he was able, he just did it … every time!
There’s a reason we need to put up children’s gates to protect them. It’s because they will try things that we know are not safe for them. Have you ever watched a toddler learn how to ski – they have no fear!
But somehow we talk ourselves out of it.
As we grow we begin to believe we can’t.
You don’t discover confidence, as much as you rediscover it.
Even as a fifty year old and an empty nester, I am rediscovering that I can do so much more than I believe I could.
I surprise myself, and you can too!
Just how do we rediscover our confidence? 
Here are some ways we can find our confidence again …
- Just Begin. Honestly, this is the biggest one. Just begin. When we begin to put one foot in front of the other, step by step we begin to see that we are capable of much more than we thought we are. Our limiting beliefs hold us back from so much, that we never even start.
- Shift your mindset. Our mindset is based on our perspective and how we see our world around us, but that is based on what we have carried forward with us from our past, not on reality. When we shift the negative stories that have held us back and inner language that leads us to “how can I?”, we see so much more that we are capable of. It’s actually contagious!
- Borrow someone else’s confidence in you! When my son was younger and would tell me he couldn’t do something, I would tell him, “just borrow my confidence in you until you have enough of your own!”. Funny how others often believe we can do more than we believe we can do, and yet how often do we hold ourselves back because we are worried what others will think? See the mindset shift that is needed? Borrow what you need, to accomplish what you dream of.
Just keep moving! In my running days, I had a dream to run (and finish!) the San Diego RocknRoll Marathon (named after the rocknroll band at every mile marker). But I didn’t just decide to do it and then go out and run the full 42 kms! Yes, it is a full 42 kms, crazy, right? I did a small run of 4 kms, and I lengthened it one small section at a time. I would set a goal with myself that once I reached a distance goal I could never go back … I always had to do one more step forward. (sometimes it was a sidewalk section and sometimes it was one more house when running through residential areas.) I did one training run at a time. I built up my strength. I learned about exercise and stretching. I changed my nutrition. The key was to keep moving. As I moved, I built momentum, and the momentum built my confidence that I could do it. And I surprised myself with what I could do.
We don’t discover our confidence, as much as we rediscover it. Our confidence is like a skill that we build. By moving forward we have the ability to look back and use our hindsight to see just what we can do.
At the beginning of 2020 I took a look back on the past 10 years and I was shocked at what I had accomplished. I had done things one at a time but when put together, I had accomplished way more than I thought was possible. I had journeyed through a divorce, both children had graduated, I had bought my first house on my own, landed my dream job, and then started my own business! There was much more than that … but you get the picture!
Here’s the thing – You’ve got it!
Rediscover what you are capable of and build the confidence to be who you dream of being and doing what you dream of doing!
One step or run at a time.
I believe in you. If you need to, borrow my confidence in you until you have enough of your own!
