Who doesn’t have an insecurity? Right?
So why are some people more confident than others?
Insecurity is a fear. Fear is cowardly. The great ones still fear, but they don’t choose to focus on fear.
Think of any man or woman who ever did anything worthwhile. What if they chose to focus on what they feared?
Examples:
Desmond Doss – a non-combatant, which means he didn’t carry a gun, who rescued 75 men from the top of a cliff, one at a time, while under fire. You’d know him from the movie Hacksaw Ridge, released in 2016. (Source)
Rukhsana Kausar – a 21-year old woman who fought and killed militants who attacked her and her family. Three armed men came to her parents’ farm in Jammu, India. One of the militants had come to marry Rukhsana against her will, and when her parents resisted, he began beating them mercilessly. Rukhsana and her older brother were hiding under the bed on her parents’ orders, but did not stay there for long. Says Rukhsana, “I thought I should try the bold act of encountering militants before dying.” (Source)
Irena Sendler – saved 2500 children from the Nazis. When the Nazis invaded her native Poland and rounded up all the Jews into a walled-in ghetto, Sendler knew what was going to happen. She was a social worker and got credentials as a nurse so she could sneak food and medicine into the ghetto. What she snuck out was even more phenomenal: It’s estimated that Sendler and her group helped get approximately 2500 children out of the ghetto—sedated and placed in the bottom of toolboxes or lying in burlap sacks at the bottom of her truck—and sent them through a network of likeminded comrades to Christian orphanages, where they were given new identities. She kept their real names in a jar buried in her backyard. (Source)
Perspective.
We worry what others will think when we send an email…
We worry what others will think when we launch a new business…
We worry what others will think if we decide to leave work early, even if for a worthy cause…
Get perspective. When you’re running short on confidence, simply consider your focus.
If we can learn one thing from those examples I shared, it’s that the focus was not on fear, nor self. Instead, the focus was on a greater purpose.
We could all use a greater purpose, because in that purpose is a focus on a mission.
Whether small or big, what is your mission? On earth? At work? Who’s counting on you? Will you choose to overcome fear, and follow through?
Thanks for reading. If you’d rather listen, download the latest episode on my podcast (free), now available on iTunes.