Weekly ideas to stimulate reflection, inspire new possibilities and encourage new ways of doing and being.
1. Test the water
This week’s word is: Confidence
Confidence comes from the Latin word confīdentia. Confīdentia is made of the prefix con, meaning “with”, “together”, “completely” and the verb fīdere, meaning “to trust”.
Confidence is the feeling of trust and firm belief in yourself or others.
What is your definition of confidence and how do you relate to it? Discuss the question here.
2. Experience the initial wave
To broaden your perspective, take few minutes to read the following thoughts and notice what comes up for you.
I.
"Confidence is a skill, not a trait. You’re born with it and you build it every single day of your life.
Research proves that confidence is built when you try, when you fail, when you grow and when you stretch yourself. That’s why you’re always building it". Mel Robbins
II.
“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” Peter McIntyre
III.
Confidence is associated with assertiveness and self-assurance. Humility is associated with modesty and reverence. Great leaders are able to find a balance between being confident and humble. Excessive confidence leads to arrogance and arrogance is more the result of insecurity than high self-confidence. Confidence is self-satisfied, while arrogance requires external validation.
3. Dive deep
To deepen your awareness and spark new discoveries, I invite you to take few minutes this week and consider the following:
Trust exercise. We have a predisposition to overlook the ways in which we trust ourselves. This corrodes our self-concept and makes it difficult to develop confidence. This week, take a piece of paper and, at the top of the page, write: I trust myself to… Once you have done that, create a list of all the ways you trust yourself by filling in the blank as many times as you can. Any kind of trust, no matter what it is in, is important because it is trust.
Build your confidence exercise. How do you make others feel confident and capable? How can you grant that same grace to yourself? This week, I invite you to make a list of all the things you are good at, including your strengths, qualities and values. Once you have done that, own up to the things you excel at, give yourself permission to take pride in them, give yourself credit for your successes and focus on designing your life around those things.
4. Ride your radiant wave
Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy has studied the positive effects of confident body postures on our hormones. An individual’s posture sends messages to the brain that can actually change the way you feel. This week, I invite you to practice a “power pose”. A power pose is a stance that evokes feelings of confidence and it involves adopting a body position that conveys openness, strengths and determination. Experiment with different poses and find the ones that make you feel most empowered, confident and ready to tackle any challenge.
Comments