Aaaah, the illusive, misunderstood Self-Confidence. To those longing for it, they see the outward appearance of decisiveness, clarity and poise. And they see it’s powerful effect on others, the unspoken trust and respect it elicits. On the other hand, once you’ve “arrived” it’s kinda anti-climactic, hardly the victorious, powerful, self-important feeling you might have expected. In fact, you wouldn’t even call it “self confidence.” The words sound too cocky, too boisterous, too self-centered. Instead, it feels like peace, fullness, inner-knowing. Chances are, the road you took to get here was a painful and humbling one- you were forced to see yourself for who you truly are, in all the wholeness of your humanity, dark and light. You consider yourself one of many marching to the beat of your own drum. You do what’s right for you and trust that all will be well. You know you can’t save the world; instead you focus on the one person you can change, yourself, and you’ve seen how you affect others over time by your example. You don’t ask for direction or approval from others because you know your own opinion and values are the only ones that matter.
So, self-confidence is less about thinking you’re great and more about knowing and accepting who you are and learning to trust your own internal guidance. Once you learn what your Guidance feels like and regularly follow it with success you become “confident” to follow it again and again.
TRY THIS
For the comprehensive course on “finding” yourself and learning to create a life that’s truly you, check out 7 Secrets for Creating the Life you REALLY want. To start the ball rolling now…
1. Learn who you really are. The Middle Eastern philosopher Rumi says, Whatever you love, you are.” Practice this all week– doing, creating and being around everything that you love. BONUS: when you find yourself loving a trait in someone else, recognize this as YOU and make a plan for being more like this… YOUR way.
2. Practice following your “gut.” Spend a week listening to your body. Check in multiple times of day asking yourself how your mind, body and heart (emotions) feel and what caused these states of mind, bodily sensations and emotions. Write them down. Recognize these as clues to the truth of who you ACTUALLY are, instead of who you want or have believed yourself to be.
