“Outwork self doubt and face it til you make it,” Kaylor Betts.  This is a great follow up to our discussion about energy, effort, and flow yesterday.  Our ability to push ourselves depends on where we focus that energy.  Whether we doubt or believe, the energy is spent.  Push ourselves beyond what we think we can do and what we think others will think of us and keep going.  It’s uncomfortable to do something new or to put ourselves out there in a way we haven’t done before.  But the more we do it, the more we face it and practice, that new behavior/belief/environment because second nature to us.  We feel more naturel about it.  Then the learning becomes the doing and the doing becomes the being.  Know we can adapt and adopt new behaviors and beliefs with practice, patience, and persistence.  Shut the noise out, even the noise in our own heads and simply practice our steps or the new behavior with patience and persistence and the results will surprise you every time.  Aim high to hit the mark and you WILL hit it every time.

One of the most challenging things to face is ourselves and to confront our “weaknesses”.  Our mind has the power to stop us in our tracks, every time if we let it so this requires the utmost honesty.  We can’t pretend we don’t waste time, we can’t pretend we don’t let ourselves get distracted, we can’t pretend the world is against us every time.  We need to be able to own our part in it because part of the reason why we feel self-doubt is because we know there is a mismatch in what we say we want and what we are doing, coupled with the fear of doing something we haven’t done before.  Most of us aren’t very good at hearing what is being said whether it’s our inner voice or other people—we are looking to respond or make excuses.  But when we sit face to face with ourselves, not only do we need to get honest about what we are hearing, we need to create space to ACTUALLY hear what is being said. Hear those instincts we ignore so well need to be front and center and we have to be willing to listen better, and that means hearing truths we may not want to hear.  Once we know the truth, the action becomes clearer. 

Listening without action doesn’t do us any good.  We end up in the same spot, making plans but repeating the same day over and over again.  When we face ourselves with honesty, we can come up with a plan because we learn to make the distinction between what we thought we wanted (what we were told we wanted) and what we actually want.  We have to address whether or not we’ve really been putting in the energy toward what we say we want.  We have to look at the amount of time and dedication devoted to what we say we want.  Have we really done all we can do?  This most certainly means getting out of our comfort zone.  Push beyond what we think we know, beyond what we think we can do, push beyond the discomfort with radical honesty, and that is where we come out on the other side, happy, healthy, and whole.  Like I spoke about yesterday from David Goggins, the body will adapt to what the mind tells us.  If we think we can make it, we will make it—and we will find ways to make it.  Get control of our thoughts and we get control of our lives.