Make Confidence A Fuel For Your Tough Days

When life throws its curves, it's not always possible to brush off the non-positive feelings. You've got to have the ability to feel all the feels.

True, deep self-assuredness allows you to do the opposite of pushing challenging feelings down and away.

The most powerful confidence on tough days is the kind of self-trust that helps you acknowledge and even welcome any feeling without judgment (whether perceived as good or bad) and trust that you have what it takes to move through it with meaning.

I've recently had some emotionally challenging days as significant shifts are happening in my family. As a result, I've had to step into more leadership, responsibility and caregiving in ways I haven't since my Dad passed away in 2002.

While the tasks have been a lot to manage and carry, the feelings that go with change and transition have been even heavier.

But because confidence-building is practiced over time, my work on and through others has prepared me for these challenges.

Here's a way to shift your thinking:

Think of your confidence-building like filling a gas tank. You fill it. You use it a little in regular life. Over time your tank expands. And you fill it even more.

Then when you need your full tank for a long (or demanding) journey, you've got what you need and more than enough confidence to keep you resilient.

Just remember that the "filling" doesn't happen overnight. It's practiced over time and works faster when you have a proven process to be consistent.

My way of "filling my confidence tank" is to uncover, affirm, and honor my value, strength and contribution to every situation with how I prepare myself for the day.

Through my transition, I've been using the confidence I've kept topped up with the image-confidence tools and esteem-boosting frameworks I teach my clients.

I've dressed intentionally in my Hue and Style® details that work to activate my brain and my heart to use the stored confidence in my tank. Details like:

• My deepest neutrals (not always black), not to hide but to ready myself for stability, the stability needed for the day.
• Sporty-Eclectic details summon the seriousness of my daily missions.

^{(Do you know how to do all of that with the clothing and colors in your wardrobe?)}

No one said life was easy all the time, but I know for a fact that even with I drawing my confidence tank to be resilient at this moment, I have more than enough stored up to keep myself healthy and my priorities safe through the change.

Not only that, I've attached how I "see myself" at this moment to the vital areas that keep that confidence tank from going to empty in a flash, including:
- re-assessing supportive relationships (The 5 C's in 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙐𝙥 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 ⁣), and
- practicing self-care, including rest and creativity (like my drawings here)

Trust me, and I know that when "life be life'n," as my good friend says, it can be easy to think of confidence as an object that you lose and long to get back. So today, I challenge you to think about it more fluidly so you can fill your tank with it in the good times that will prepare you to fuel you through the tough ones.

 

 

 

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