There is a whole world waiting to see you believe in yourself – why keep them waiting?
I can remember so many times when others shifted my trajectory in life by believing in me more than I believed in myself. I can also remember times when the disbelief of others fired my self confidence up to believe in myself even more.
We all have this fire inside, this deep inner spark that is yearning to be ignited.
Right? You feel it, I know you do.
I want to just take this moment to remind you that…
- You know what lights you up.
- You know what energizes you.
- You know what makes you happiest.
- You know the outcome you truly want.
Sometimes you just hide from it because it feels like too much work, or seems too unreachable, or too uncertain, or feels too big for your personal reality.
I get it. And I don’t blame you. Change is hard enough. Believing in yourself through that change can be extremely confusing and challenging. Your heart wants one thing but your mind is trying to convince you to stay safe, to remain stable and to not push yourself too much.
I’m not one to watch a lot of TV, but I’ve been watching Master Chef recently. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a reality tv show with Gordon Ramsey that takes home cooks and throws them into a competition to see who has what it takes to be a master chef. Each week they go head to head creating beautiful culinary dishes inspired by their own culture and upbringing. And through each week of eliminations, one thing remained consistent in their exit interviews: each person felt seen. Believed in. As though someone with authority really saw their talent and encouraged them to pursue it.
And that changed everything.
It was fascinating to watch each home cook dig deeper and deeper into who they truly were to embrace their creativity, their drive, their authenticity and to express that through their dishes.
To them, being a chef wasn’t truly reachable until they had that external acknowledgement from the judges.
Now…we don’t all have to have a celebrity chef to lift us up, but a little validation is nice to hear from time to time. Am I right??
Woo, once that validation happens – watch out, right?
Game ON!
“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”
– e. e. Cummings
What I have learned through the years is that external support is yummy and makes me feel wonderful. However, more and more, I have learned to trust what I know to be true within me. I have seen what works and what doesn’t in my life. I own my strengths and I have forgiven my weaknesses (without trying to compensate for them). I pursue my passions and I speak with truth. Regardless of the competition, regardless of what the ‘gurus’ say is right to do next and regardless of what others think my path should look like.
But I wasn’t always like this. I used to let people walk all over my boundaries. I lacked self confidence. If someone told me I was making a bad decision or wasting my time, I used to think they must know something I didn’t. I used to think that I had to follow the “rules” to be successful and to confident because everyone else did. I used to think that others had to believe in me to keep going, to truly validate what I thought to be true inside. Right?
WRONG.
So how do you start to trust yourself more and seek validation less?
To start trusting yourself more and seeking validation less, I want you to pay attention. Watch for the following things that happen in your life. I know they happen daily and I know that even you tune them out sometimes. Here are my top steps for starting to trust your own belief in yourself:
- Witness your own energy levels as you accomplish tasks. What could you do every day and be happy? What would you like to never do again?
- Watch for that grounding, knowing feeling that you get when you tell your truth. Pay attention to what it feels like to stand up for yourself in a confident, strong way. Not the times when you feel you have to defend yourself or prove yourself.
- Really listen when someone compliments you on a strength of yours. They are witnessing something in you that not everyone has the capacity to do. And taking the time to express that to you. That’s something.
- Always consider the outcome YOU want before trouble shooting. We fall into the trap of putting other people’s needs in front of our own too often when we forget to check in with ourselves first.
- Be honest with yourself about your passions. Stop running from them. Be honest about what you want to do with your life. I have learned too many times over these past few months that life is short. Sometimes way too short. Don’t waste it being afraid to move forward.
- Watch for when you stop making excuses. That’s when you know you’re standing up for you.
- Be unapologetic about what your talents – the world needs them!
- Give others a chance to truly see you. But if they don’t, then move on. There is no sense spending time proving yourself to individuals who don’t get it (reasons for that don’t really matter) when there is a whole world out there waiting to see your genius self step up. Why keep them waiting?
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