Build your own Confidence Cottage
A place to revisit whenever you need confidence to overcome the challenges in your life
Gratitude grows like a tendril of grass needing sunlight, leans toward it, thrusts pale sprouts under concrete, seeking a crack of warmth, then shoots upward to the beckoning light where it grows green and free!
Grass is confident in its need for sunlight. It’s not a nice-to-have. For grass, and for all of us actually, sunlight is a mandatory-for-life necessity.
There will always be concrete.
Knowing what you’re grateful for, what brings you life as much as sunlight brings life to grass, gives you the confidence to overcome obstacles and discover the cracks in the concrete in order to push through to the sunlight.
And there will always be cracks in the concrete.
Last week we began the process of reflecting on past successes as a way of remembering how we made our way around the obstacles of life in order to get where we wanted to go, to find our own sunlight.
All of us need a Confidence Cottage.
It could be a small vine-covered cottage with a white picket fence in a charming village … or it could be a tiny cabin overlooking a peaceful lake. This is not your full-time home with worries about roof repairs and unmade beds; it’s a retreat that’s always ready for your visit. Lights are always on (but waste no electricity), the fire-place is always glowing, there’s always a steaming cup of tea smelling slightly of cinnamon, and the cat is always purring. This is where you come to renew your spirit so make it whatever you want it to be.
On the mantle (or maybe in a corner cupboard), there are five objects, each representative of your most significant life successes (from the list you made last week). Perhaps, there’s a picture of you winning an award you worked hard for; or maybe a small stone frog that reminds you of that time you took a leap into a new project that changed your life, or maybe it’s a pressed flower from a time when you said yes to love.
What are those five objects that each represent one of your successes?
Workbook action: On the same page in Gratitude Mojo where you made your list of successes, now pick five significant ones and find an artifact to remind you of those successes you remember with pride.
You might want to put these objects anywhere in your cottage where you can see them and be reminded of times when you called up your courage and confidence to take action in your life. As you look at them and relive those times, you can express gratitude for the challenges you faced and for your ability to create solutions and find your way around the obstacles to reach your objective. You might also want to be grateful for any of the helpers you found along the way.
For example: On a shelf above my computer, I have a colorful owl, an alebrije (Mexican folk art sculpture) from an artisan couple I met at a fair while I lived in Mexico. Many of my friends thought moving to Mexico at 71 was less than wise, but those two years were a gift I will always treasures. Owls are wise and he reminds me that what might not be wise for someone else turned out to be absolutely wise for me. I’m proud of uprooting my life in order to live in a different culture and now believe it was the wisest thing I could have done at that time.
Revisiting your Confidence Cottage builds and supports your confidence for facing your current challenges. Another way to make it easier to revisit your cottage is to make a visual of it. A simple drawing with a few words describing the successes you choose to remember and the artifacts that represents each one is all you need to prompt your memories and spark your confidence.
We have created a short overview of the process; to get your free copy, just email info@gratitudemojo.com, subject: Confidence Cottage.
If you missed the first part of this exercise, here’s a link back to it:
More: CampReinvention offers a similar and powerful exercise titled Mindset Museum, which also builds on reflecting on past successes in order to shift mindsets.
Please share something you would put in your Confidence Cottage and what it represents to you. Comments on this post are only open to paid subscribers who are working with the Gratitude Mojo journal.
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In good times and challenging ones, practicing gratitude helps us recognize the good things in our lives and build resilience for the challenges that come our way. Gratitude journaling is one of the best ways to better understand yourself and deepen your practice of gratitude.
Gratitude Mojo, the workbook/journal we are biased toward, is designed to guide you to a better life, in whatever way you define it. It comes as a printable pdf with paid subscriptions … and also includes a copy you can gift to a friend. We’ll write more about the transformative process of doing this work with a friend in future posts.