Inspirational Awakening

Self-confidence is your assessment of your own self-worth. It plays a large part in determining your happiness through life. So how do you create confidence? Well here's a surprise - you take action! If you don’t currently have much self-confidence, let’s explore the options on how to cultivate this trait within your life.

NFL legend Roger Stauback (Cowboys Quarterback 1969-1979) said, "Confidence doesn't come out of nowhere. It's a result of something...hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication." No, you don’t have to dedicate your life to professional sports or be a super hero to have confidence. It’s much easier than that. It just takes a decision that you find yourself worthy of deciding on which general direction you want to head towards in life (i.e. an overall goal), then following through with the steps it takes to have what you want. Goal setting is an important method of:

Deciding what is important to you to achieve in your life

Separating what is important for you from what is irrelevant

Allowing yourself to feel good by motivating yourself to achievement

Building your self-confidence based on measured achievement of goals

Your level of confidence is not fixed (meaning it can’t be changed) nor will it magically appear at the end of your goal. Being true to yourself means knowing exactly what you want and coming up with a strategy, a plan of how to achieve it. But more than that, it means deciding to have fun while you are in the process of creating something new for yourself. Confidence comes from deciding which specific actions you will take today, following through on those actions, and then recognizing to yourself that you followed through. This means taking a little time at the end of the day to sit with yourself and feel good about your efforts. Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer suggests, "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

No one is forcing you to do something that is difficult (i.e. achieve the goal you’ve set for yourself). You alone decided you wanted to have something you didn’t currently have. You alone decided you wanted to expand your life experience. Your goals are the vehicle through which you allow yourself to have what you want and feel really good in the process. Goals are a solo act. And you alone are the allower or disallower of what you want.

Every time you make a decision during the day, ask yourself this question, "Does this choice take me closer to, or further from my goal." If the answer is "closer to," then you've made a decision to allow yourself to be successful. Notice how that feels in your body. If the answer is "further from," notice how that feels. Decide what choice you can make to feel better, more alive, more expanded.

If you didn’t make the daily choice to support yourself in having your goal, decide if you wish to develop a new potential solution to having what you want or re-evaluate what you want. If your goals no longer hold any attraction for you, then let them go. Goal setting should bring you pleasure, satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

Every time you allow yourself to take a step in the direction of what you want also take the time to celebrate and feel as good in your body as you possibly can. Otherwise, what’s the point? Life is about how good you can allow yourself to feel from the inside out, and setting a goal is the process you go through to feel better and better inside your body as you recognize the power of your own self.

Lasting self-confidence comes when you eventually realize that you have the ability to get from where you are to wherever you want to go. You are the designer of your life. You alone hold the key to your success. Lasting self-confidence comes as you no longer choose fear and self-criticism as methods for motivation. Instead you come to realize it is your job to focus on what you want and create a fertile area for your desire to grow on.

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