Achieved Strategies

Lately the topic of confidence has surfaced in a variety of my conversations.  Confidence is an intangible.  It’s not something easily obtained or explained how you got it when you have it.

I like Webster’s definition: A feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances.

To be conscious of confidence you have to know when you didn’t have it. Know the agony, anger, frustration, and the pain when a lack of confidence influenced your performance.  You need to know the rush, the flow, the clarity, the connection to people and your surroundings when confidence is present within you.  There’s no way to be conscious about confidence unless you’ve experienced the polarities surrounding the feeling.

Whether confidence was missing or present, the outcome is a lesson.  A lesson, if you stop long enough to soak it in, which reveals to you a truth not known or one reinforced.  It’s encouragement to keep moving forward.

As for powers, they are actions that propel you forward to apply what you’ve learned from the times you crashed and burned and the times you excelled.  These are the powers that become a part of who you are and how you do “your thing” They are the imprints you leave on anything you “touch.”

And through the ups-and-downs of doing “your thing”, you can turn to your powers to work through whatever circumstances you find yourself entering.

Of course we know that we’ll doubt our powers.  We’ll question our experiences and lessons learned.  And we’ll even turn against the feelings that say, “You’ve got this. You know this.”  In the end, it’s putting yourself in life over and over to learn the patterns that yield confidence.

Confidence isn’t something you work on directly; it’s an outcome of your efforts.  I believe it to be a life long journey – learning to turn to your confidence to guide you.  There is no magic moment when confidence is turned on permanently. It’s part of being human.