Being confident in your abilities. Feeling confident in your ideas and knowing how you´re going to manifest them.
But how can you possibly SHINE if you´re not confident in what you´re shining for? In what you´re radiating? In what you are (or what you desire) living and doing and being?
A confident person expresses what they want, when and how. The more they express, the more the idea starts to take shape. The more shape it has, the easier it is to make it real.
I personally find it hard to express my intentions, or even just ideas I’m considering. First of all, I haven´t got a community of like-minded people around me. People who would cheer me on, believe in me and my ideas. It´s difficult to be a confident artist, for example, and be confident in your ability to make a living from your art, if the people around you have different values and ideas. If other people aren´t confident in your idea, your plan, your dream, it can be difficult to be confident in yourself.
The funny thing is the more confident you are in yourself, in your ideas, plans and dreams, the more other people just can´t resist being confident in them too!
It´s like, if you manage to win yourself over first, other people (on the whole) tend to be convinced too. Like when I told my friends and family back in 2012 I was going to Vietnam for 6 months, I was bursting with confidence. It was not going to fail. It was not going to be a bad move. I radiated positivity, and other people´s hesitations – like, “You shouldn´t go/ It´s a daft idea / You´re wasting time” didn´t have the power to knock me down. And I did it, I went for it.
But what do you do when seemingly no one in your life ´gets´ you?
What do you say when they change the energy from inspirational wonder and ‘you could ABSOLUTELY do that! You could rent a studio! You could work abroad! I know someone who can help you!’ – to a more hesitant, deflated, reluctant energy of ‘There’s too much competition to make a living from it’, ‘your service isn’t good enough to sell’, ‘going back to uni now is not the right time’, ‘you can’t afford to’, ‘you have too many responsibilities what if it doesn´t work out?’, ‘your dream isn’t a dream you should aspire to’.
It’s so horrible to be bursting with pride and passion for your ideas just to hear them get knocked down by people.
Some people in my life just laugh off my ideas like, “ha, yeah! University in India….good one!” and think I’m sweet and naive, others think my ideas kind of interesting but still impossible, and there are the dream stompers.
The funny thing is the people are only reflecting what I believe to be true.
I´ll be honest,
I´m not confident in my yoga abilities, and I´m especially not confident in my power to turn it from a hobby into my life.
Make yoga my life?! That´s a pipe dream. It´s silly. My own yoga/healing blog… online membership… retreat business?! It´s farfetched, inconceivable. It´s above me.
No wonder then that if these are my thought patterns, that´s exactly what happens. I stay small and the same. My shine dims. I see other people do incredible things in similar fields (Like Yoga with Adriene´s recent Yoga RoadShow where she sold 3000 tickets), and flood myself with thoughts such as “She´s better than me.”, “I could never do that.” and make excuses, “Maybe after a few more years I´ll be ready to think about it”, instead of thoughts that could actually serve me, such as “I can be an inspirational teacher like her” and “I´m ready NOW to start thinking about what I´m going to do”.
When we feel like we´re up against a current of barriers and people whose values want us to forget, repress or block our dreams and go with the current of everyone else, we need to step out.
Go find a different sea.
Find a community of people who ‘get’ you and your dreams.
Who won’t make you hesitate or suppress your true calling.
Grow your self-confidence.
There’s always going to be people who don’t ‘get’ you. There’ll always be people who say you’re a dreamer. That it isn’t possible. Who won’t support you.
If I BELIEVE my dreams can happen, then they’re going to happen.
I’m a strong advocate that we all have the power to create and change and do and be whatever it is that turns us ON. That lights a fire in our hearts.
Step 1. Every time I want to hesitate I say, ‘I’m willing to believe in my dreams.’
Step 2. ‘I believe my dreams are conceivable. I’m willing to believe they could happen if I put in the work.’
Step 3. When people don’t support my ideas I don’t let their judgements shadow my own beliefs. I remember that they may lack self-confidence in their own ideas and dreams which is why they lash out on me and mine.
Step 4. My dreams stem from the core of who I am. Every time I shun or repress or ignore or get embarrassed by my dreams, I’m unconsciously shunning, repressing, ignoring or getting embarrassed by myself. When I work on growing my self-confidence, I allow myself to shine and my desires to blossom.
Step 5. I’m not afraid to express my desires. It’s only by expressing them that we can really make them happen! Write about it, talk about, let them consume you. Spend time researching, making notes, thinking, gathering. Find a sea of people who want to talk about it too, who support you.
One of the best compliments I’ve ever received was from a friend of mine in London, who said ‘Sarah’s someone who, when she says she’s thinking about doing something, she bloody goes and does it.
Now I’m working on standing up for my beliefs and my dreams, and radiating love and passion for them. When others see the fire in my eyes, they get it, they see the picture I’m talking about- that’s when they realise how possible it is.
And the more I talk like this, the more I believe how possible it is.
And then you realise you’re a someone who, when thinking about doing something, bloody goes and does it. You’re a change-maker. You’re a dream builder!
Next time you’re thinking about an idea, a plan or a dream, don’t hesitate. Be confident.
There’s nothing silly or embarrassing about your dreams.
I want to repeat that, there is NOTHING silly.
Or embarrassing.
About your dreams.
The fact you came up with this idea in the first place, that you materialised this into thought and language, into imagery in your mind, is one small step away from bringing it into reality. It´s just waiting for you to bring it into existence.
With love,
Sarah
P.s Sunrise photo taken on my first morning in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Pps. Two lovely girls were confident enough to try some yoga at the public swimming pool, in front of about 50 people splashing and playing and booming club music. I put my anxiety to one side, said I am Confident, and this happened:
