Confident
“having or showing self-assurance and self-reliance”
This is a big one for me. It’s a bit of a conundrum like trying to get a job without any experience: how can I get experience when no one will give me the job and I can’t get the job because I have no experience. Likewise with confidence: I need confidence to do whatever it is I want to do but in order to do whatever it is I want to do I need to gain the confidence to do it. I hope that made sense.
So how do we do it? How do we become confident? One way is to look back on everything we’ve accomplished thus far…we can go back as far as your childhood if we have to.
We learned how to walk, we learned how to talk, we learned how to read, we learned how to tie our shoe laces, we learned to ride a bike.
From there we finished regular school, maybe we graduated from trade school, community college, or university. In other areas, maybe we ran a marathon, we traveled to other countries, we learned a new language, we learned how to drive a car, we got our first job. And so on.
We remind ourselves of what we’ve accomplished thus far, regardless of size or importance. We’ve shown to ourselves that we’ve survived it all in some way, shape, or form. Even things that appear to be failures are worthy of consideration because we’re still here and hopefully we’ve learned something from them so as to garner even more confidence in our ability to handle whatever comes our way.
By looking back on our successes, we can remember how it felt when we first did “it”. We can tap into that feeling even now. For instance, the next time we tie our shoe laces, take a moment to be present with the fact that “yes, I’m confident that I know how to tie laces”. FEEL how that feels. Mindfully go through the tying process…noticing how you know exactly what part to put over and what part to put under…we don’t second guess it, we don’t panic, instead we just grab the laces and tie them. That’s confidence.
So really, what it comes down to is knowing, trusting, and believing that we have the ability to handle the full spectrum of experiences, from the “failures” to the “successes”. And as for the “failures“ are concerned…all they essentially are is feedback as in: “Oops…that didn’t go as planned…next time I’ll try it this way instead…or get some more training…or work with a mentor” and so on.
btw… I’m wanting to expand to bigger, better things and a part of me is putting up quite a bit of resistance…this whole post is truly for the benefit of that “part”. And if you’re having a similar experience, I hope this post helps you in some way.
How about you? Is being confident a core value for you?
BTW…here’s what it looked like to begin with …
joyfully,
Maureen
The Mandala Lady
🌟 bringing sanity to an insane world through the art of mandalas
About the 2024 Mandalas of the Day
Each day I will create and post a mandala inspired by one of 366 “value” words chosen randomly. The objective being to discover for myself which ones would best represent my core values…and by doing so, I hope it inspires you to determine your own.
Mandala of the Day 