I don’t have the confidence to do that!
I could NEVER do that!!
I’m not good enough to be able to……
Have your ever caught yourself thinking any of the above?
I know I certainly have, many times in fact.
I’m happy to say that those thoughts now rarely (if ever) enter my mind these days. It’s a thing of the past for me. And I’m SO glad it is… what freedom!!
I remember back in my earlier years, I was so afraid of getting things wrong.
So afraid in fact that it held me back from trying new things… I was seriously shy and hated going to places with lots of people. Even though I may have been able to hide these feelings from showing on the outside, they were certainly there… bubbling away, holding me back.
In my head were thoughts like the above (and many more) that would constantly tear me down.
That’s right, I was tearing myself down, bashing myself from the inside.
I had no idea how much damage I was doing letting those thoughts invade my mind.
Never the less, this went on for years!
It wasn’t until I began learning and diving deep into how our mind works that I realised something MUST change.
You see, the thing is, confidence is a feeling – the feeling that you have faith or trust in either yourself, someone else or something.
What I learnt was, that we actually have POWER over our own feelings.
How do we change our feelings?
Firstly, we take responsibility for them. We decide that no one else can make us ‘feel’ anything.
Because they can’t.
Second, we decide to change our thinking.
Here’s one of the simplest ways of looking at it I have found.
Our thoughts lead to our feelings, our feelings lead to our actions, and our actions lead to our results.
Does it mean we will never feel sadness, anger, fear or frustration again?
No.
What it means is that we can choose… when we want, to change the way we feel.
We are human after all and we are designed to experience a broad range of emotions…
What if we were to choose to notice, to observe our thoughts in moments of fear or doubt… I wonder what they might sound like?
Similar to the first few lines of this blog post?
Possibly.
What if we were to consciously begin to change those thoughts to something else?
Thoughts that were more empowering?
Thoughts that were more positive?
Thoughts that champion us?
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this one!
