Life is messy. No matter how much effort you put into getting things organised and under control, there’s always something that can come along and throw it all into chaos.
If we believe that we need to have everything sorted in order to be confident in our ability to deliver, then we stand no chance.
The pandemic has been a fantastic example of how something completely unexpected can completely change the way we go about our lives. We had to adapt and do it quickly – and we did. While it was tough, it changed the way we lived our lives and we got through it and even discovered new opportunities along the way.
But it doesn’t need to be a global event for our lives to be upended:
- a change of boss might mean priorities shift and all the plans you have suddenly need to change
- a shift in company strategy might mean that the project you’ve invested so much in gets redirected or even cancelled.
- a health scare might result in you having to scale back and let go of some of the big things you’ve been pushing to achieve.
It’s easy to build a picture of what we think things should be like, and tell ourselves that once we’ve made it happen we will have proven we can do it and our confidence will increase. This approach to self-belief is based on our ability to control the world around us and deliver what we said we would, missing the fact that we can’t predict or control the future and uncertainty is always there.
Confidence and certainty don’t come from outside of us. They come from within. They come from the realisation that even though life outside of us is messy, chaotic and uncertain, we have the ability to cope with it all.
You are strong and resilient. We all are.
You have dealt with uncertainty and change throughout the whole of your life – and you’re still here, doing it every day. You have coped with everything that has been thrown at you, and at times you even thrived.
You had the resilience to find your way through, and that resilience is there with you always, in each moment.
Seeing this has been revolutionary for the way I live my life, and it could be for you too.
When you start to notice that in each moment you are ok, and you are coping with the things you need to cope with – you start to trust in yourself.
And the more you start to trust in yourself, the more confident you feel.
The confidence you discover isn’t that big arrogant statement that you put on a show when you’re trying to demonstrate it to others. It’s a quiet, inner calm that comes through when things get tough.
It’s an inner knowing that even though things are changing again, you’ll find your way through.
Take a moment to yourself right now.
Close your eyes, take a deep breath and go inside. Notice that right now, in this moment, you are ok.
Take another deep breath and notice it again in the next moment.
That place of ok-ness is always there, inside you, available to access… even when life is chaotic outside.
And when you sit in that place of calm, quiet resilience, you find you’re much better at finding your route through the mess and uncertainty of the outside world.
If you’d like to explore these ideas further and discover this place of resilience within you, my one-to-one coaching sessions are the best place to start. Over a series of sessions, I support you to experiment, notice and apply these ideas to whatever is happening for you, building your confidence and self-belief at work, and in the rest of your life too.
A package of 7 sessions costs £900 and is usually spread over 4-6 months. If you’d like to know more contact me or you can book a chat with me here.
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