We’re all familiar with these kinds of questions:
“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
“What would you do if money were no object?”
They are all nice exercises to help determine one’s true passion but…
If we took failure, fear, and money off the table, would you truly be able to go out and do what you want? Many of my clients struggle with this very issue. We can visualize 100% success without fear. We can daydream our way to thinking that money’s no object. Yet many of us still couldn’t get out there and do what we want. WHY?
Because, deep down, we don’t believe we can.
Yep. Our own lack of self-confidence gets in the way. It stops us from a complete belief in our own ability to succeed. This lack of confidence can manifest itself in a bunch of ways. Any of these sound familiar?
“My client/audience/customer/colleague will find out that I really don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“How can someone like me possibly deserve that level of success?”
“Damn it! XYZ Competitor just did what I want to do. Why should I even try?”
I’ve said all of these things to myself at some point. However, over the last several years I’ve gotten much better at stopping myself and reminding myself of my own skills, expertise, and value. One way I do that is by keeping a “How I Added Value” list, next to my Gratitude List. Every day I list at least one way I added value to a fellow human being. After a while, I felt myself truly believing in the value of what I can do.
So now, I pose one more question to you:
What would you do if you were 100% confident in yourself?
Start a business? Ask for a raise? Take that solo vacation? Set better boundaries? Think about it. And then head down to the responses and let us all know. We’ll cheer you on!
Originally published at www.barbarabellissimo.com.
Originally published at medium.com