“Confidence isn’t a gift, it’s a discipline,” Loren Ridinger.  I felt this was an appropriate follow up to the conversation yesterday because when it comes down to taking that leap, if the hold up for us is self-worth, we have to learn to work with what we have.  We have to remove the stigma that confident people were born that way or that we have to fake it til we make it. Confidence isn’t always innate.  It is learned and we learn it through proving to ourselves what we CAN do and that means we spend a lot of time doing things we didn’t know how to do before we learned it.  It’s a discipline which means it’s a practice.  And that’s ok.  We all need space and grace for learning and time and dedication to adapt the practice of becoming who we are.  We have to learn to not be disappointed when confidence isn’t a snap decision or a quick change.  We spent a long time telling ourselves one story so it will take time to learn a different one.

So the discipline of confidence means being willing to be a beginner and admit that we don’t know something.  It’s ok to not know something, that isn’t a deterrent to figuring it out.  The only way we won’t figure it out is if we refuse to do it, if we keep repeating the same story.  Everyone starts as a beginner so it doesn’t matter what we have to learn.  Our job is to take what we know and grow it and dive in.  Success is guaranteed with time if we stay the course and we don’t have to compare that with anyone else.  We set the bar for success.  We determine what that marker is and no one else can be measured against it just as we can’t measure ourselves against anyone else either.  We keep going until we hit that place where we can say, “This is what I wanted.”

Choose how we see ourselves and don’t let anyone talk us out of it.  That is also a discipline and also a really hard habit to break.  But what happens, what would happen if we showed up for ourselves.  We don’t want to live a life where we just get through.  I heard we don’t die when our hearts stop beating, we die when we stop believing in ourselves.  So choose to live in a way that reflects what we want and know that all the little pieces we put together, as imperfect as they may be, all those pieces make up the story of our lives.  If we are determined enough and focused enough we teach ourselves a new way of thinking and believing and that is when we become disciplined enough to realize what we are responsible for.