Day #3 – Building Your Confidence Muscle

First thoughts that come to my mind filling in the blanks:

Define confidence: feeling good and strong and knowing that I can do it and be safe and good

How would you know if you had confidence: It’d be a feeling inside. There’d be excitement. Assuredness. Knowingness. I’d feel excited.

I want to build my confidence in the area of: professional life

If I had more confidence I could: accomplish more and be “out there” in the world

When I am with a confident person I feel: intimidated and overpowered sometimes

I am confident ___ % of the time: 25%

If I had more confidence, I would be truer to myself because: I’d be able to give myself more of what I want in life.

Reading And Reflecting

She says that confidence is built on taking risks. And that we all want it, but few of us are willing to do what it takes to get it. It involves feeling our feelings and facing our fears.

Confidence is a function of consistent effort, compassion, and willingness.

We often think that we need confidence in order to do something. But confidence isn’t what comes first. The risk comes first. The confidence follows that.

Confidence is a muscle just like any other muscle in the body and exercising it helps.

Confidence is strengthened by making promises to myself and following through with them. (I’ve broken lots of promises with myself and others over the last several years and I see how this has affected my confidence in general.)

So, can I count on myself? <==== Really good question I’d like to work toward being able to answer YES. I’m totally there for myself. I can count on me.

Top 10 Confident Moments

1. Retelling an experience from a vacation in front of a group of people.
2. Basically anything I did in my classroom the first 3 years I was a teacher.
3. Creating the sales page for the manual.
4. Walking across the stage on graduation day.
5. Attending the Leadership event in great shape.
6. Driving around tonight realizing that something I thought was true, wasn’t. And that I am actually awesome!
7. Going to India by myself when I was 21.
8. Interviewing for a personal assistant
9. Being the team leader of my grade level.
10. Being senior class president and leading pep rallies.

What do I notice about my list? A lot of them have to do with interacting with groups and other people. Speaking. Leading. Interacting with others. Basically showing me that it’s an important way for me to exercise my confidence muscles. Do things with groups. Lead teams. Organize things. Show up and speak. I’ve done it in the past, I just haven’t done it lately.

Activity

3 challenges I’m facing right now. Maybe places I’m feeling guilty or frustrated.

1. Lack of focus in my professional responsibilities (aka. what the hell am I supposed to be doing.)
2. Wrapping up loose ends with projects and completing things.
3. Balancing my work and personal life so that I am constantly energized and replenished.

If I were confident, what would I do differently?

1. Pull all my stuff out from the shadows of my mind and lay out exactly what projects are unfinished and needing attention.
2. Get back in communication with my lists and start helping them with tips and ideas and support.
3. Make lists and have my assistant help me get things going on them. I’d be delegating really well.

What feelings am I afraid to feel around these circumstances?

1. Guilt. Shame. Embarrassment For not doing this stuff earlier.
2. Anxiety about thinking I need to do it right.
3. Overwhelm that there will be too much to do and I won’t be able to break it down enough.
4. Pressure from others (guilt) that will lead me to think I have to rush and will contribute to the anxiety, guilt, overwhelm, etc.

If I were no longer afraid of feeling those things, and I could count on myself, what could be the happy ending for these challenges? (Totally digging this question. Especially the part about if I could count on myself.)

1. Oh man! It would be so great. I would have the information for the manual published in an amazing way that people love and are excited to have. I would feel free and on top of things and seriously back in my integrity. It would be amazing.
2. I would have folders for all of my projects with next actions in them and I would know where I was with each project at any given time. Each day/week/month I would tend to each project to nurture it and make sure that it’s being taken care of. I would be ready to WORK again. And that just means TAKE ACTION. I’ve been afraid to take action and I would be in action again. Yes!
3. I would see how amazing I am and that my feelings are just things I experience. Not things that ARE me and that have to derail me in any shape or form. I would see them for what they are instead of being overwhelmed and consumed by them. I would notice them and also have a healthy understanding that I, at my core, am not those feelings. They’re body sensations, they’re chemical happenings, they’re a lot of things…and they’re not me. That would really help me feel confident. Understanding how my moods are a function of science.

What could you gain or learn from these areas that you could apply to other areas of your life?

This question isn’t really going anywhere for me right now. Too early to try to apply it to other areas of my life right now. Need to just sit with it around this particular topic of getting back into action professionally.

What’s keeping me from getting the result?

Not sure which result she’s asking for here. Maybe the thing I could gain or learn? Gonna skip this one.

More Reading

Feelings can get in the way of truth. So please acknowledge yourself daily. Eventually your feelings and your truth with become more aligned. When you are willing to see the truth instead of acting on just your feelings, you will clear your filtering system of misperceptions.

Love that. I’m really getting from tonight’s exericse that my feelings DO get in the way of the truth. I mistake them for the truth all the time. Yes, it’s true I’m feeling a certain way, but it’s not necessarily true that it’s me or that it means anything about me. It’s like having a cut on my finger. That doesn’t mean anything about me. Just means that I have a cut there. I have a feeling sometimes too. I am not the cut on my finger. I am not the feeling I’m experiencing. They’re both just there.

I must be willing to throw it all away in order to find myself true self. Good thing to sit with too. Am I willing to do that? Not that she’s suggesting we give away all of our stuff literally, but in terms of understanding the metaphoric risk…am I ready?

10 Confident Moments From Today

1. Scheduling the meeting at Panera’s with Susan.
2. Making the smoothie video on my Flip Cam
3. Saying no to oily food.
4. Asserting my opinion about a business matter
5. Driving home from dinner affirming my awesomeness.
6. Realizing that part of my weird body feelings lately has to do with the steroid I’m taking. It’s not me. It’s the medicine.
7. Making the list of actions for my assistant to do tomorrow when she comes in.
8. Doing tonight’s assignment and really going in with the questions that resonated big time.
9. Envisioning my future of success and strength and empowerment.
10. Visualizing the completion of the manual and the information within it being organized and excellent.

What decision has been avoided because I haven’t had the confidence to decide?

Deciding to really go for it with my professional life. Deciding that I can do the things that I think avout doing. I haven’t had the confidence to believe that I can make these things happen, and the truth is that I actually can. So now I’m choosing to go for these things. Woo hoo!

Would you be able to make more money? How much more?

Definitely making more money. Being of service to people again becasue I’d be in connection with them instead of hiding.

If I were confident, would I have the same job? Same friends? Same mate?

I’d have an upgraded house, that’s for sure. Decorated to my favorite liking. Since I’m not in that house yet tho, I’m starting with one room of my home. Making it into my Sanctuary. A place that is beautiful and I can discover my style and what feels good to me. Blues, reds, and purples will be included so far. White too. I will have the same friends, plus new ones. And I will get along with and enjoy my partner so much more than I already am. We’ll be off galavanting doing amazing things together. Confidence will make my relationship with him better and better.

5 Daily Acknowledgements

1. Today, I acknowledge myself for: Taking a nap when I really needed one.
2. Today, I acknowledge myself for: Being gentle with myself and my new assistant as we get to know each other.
3. Today, I acknowledge myself for: Discovering the mistake I made with weaning off of my meds and the big insight I had that resulted from that.
4. Today, I acknowledge myself for: Being really honest in my personal work and just saying it like it is.
5. Today, I acknowledge myself for: Leading a really great team meeting.

5 Clues Your Confidence Is Growing:

1. You can count on yourself. You do what you say and you get the job done.
2. You are willing to feel your feelings and take a risk anyway. No matter how scary things get, you always remember that feelings do not determine success. Risk does.
3. Facing your fears is a daily experience. See fear for what it is: an affirmation of your growth.
4. You have learned to be comfortable in the uncomfortableness of change. You have put your negative voice in perspective and realize it does not run your life.
5. You are willing to give up all you know to discover your true you. You have given up justifying your actions; instead your life speaks for itself. Your main commitment is to keep growing and therefore you have to let go of your need to always be right.

Good things are happening in my life because of me. Not despite me.