Sunday Feast: Energy and Confidence

How can you be more confident?

                                      What do you want to accomplish this week?
                                                       Is it a stretch for you?
                                 If it is, you may need an extra dose of confidence.
                                                      Here's a magic formula:
                              Reflecting on your past successes boosts confidence;
                                        confidence boosts energy and motivation;
                                      energy and motivation boost life and success.
                                                                     Period.

Recently CampReinvention.com caught my attention with their tagline: Because your age is just a number. They help women over 50 reinvent their lives and I loved this quote about how our brains work:

When you’re reinventing, there are three important things to remember about your brain:

1. It has a negativity bias

2. It seeks evidence

3. It makes up stories

That may sound daunting, but it actually contains the keys to greater success if we understand how to work with our brains rather than against them.

Negativity bias: this survival skill makes us remember hazards, failures, and missteps. We can offset this by consciously remembering our past successes.

Workbook Action: On the left side of a page at the back of Gratitude Mojo, start a list of every success in your life, big and small, Just a list, leaving blank space to write after each success. Fill the page with anything from finishing high school to cooking your first Thanksgiving dinner for your inlaws, to making partner at your law firm, selling your first piece of artwork, or helping your child accomplish something important to her. 

What successes made you proud because they took effort or stretched you in some way?

Over the coming week, review that list, relive some of the most memorable successes and start to jot down notes about what personal traits helped you achieve those successes. Did you persist in spite of setbacks? Did you ask for help? Did you wake up early to put in extra effort? Did you build on one tiny success after another? What was it that YOU did that helped you realize those successes?

The action I took that ended the stream of rejection slips

I started dreaming of being a writer when I was in the fourth grade. There were no early signs of talent, just the dream of an avid reader. However, decades rolled by with nothing to show for the dream other than rejection slips, lots of rejection slips. Suddenly, I was in my forties with no sign that anything was going to change. I was tired of sending query letters about things I wanted to write about; it was time to find a different way in.

Meanwhile, desktop publishing had become a thing, so I went to my employer with the idea of doing a marketing newsletter. The idea was approved and I started learning how to write and layout a newsletter. Unfortunately, my employer had too many problems and shut their doors, leaving me unemployed, but with three months of severance and one new skill.

So, I started my own newsletter, MindPlay, found a list, and dropped 300 copies in the mail. A few subscriptions came in and opportunities started appearing. Slowly, my confidence increased and I sent out a fax about a book idea (this was in ancient days before Internet) to 21 publishers. Three asked for more information and one offered me a contract … based on the fact that I had a newsletter with a small subscriber base.

The pattern I recognize from this past success is that I kept moving toward my dream of being a writer and found a different path around all those rejection slips.

Please share one of your successes and some of the patterns about how you made successes happen in the comments below. Next week, we will take this exercise to the next level.

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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.

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