Do You Believe in Yourself?
This is a trick question
Dear Foxy Friends 🦊,
The beauty of believing in yourself is that you don’t have to. I once fell for the idea that believing in oneself = confidence = sticking the landing & success. I was mistaking a kind of devoted relentlessness with bravado.
It was my good friend and brilliant coach, Melissa Ford, who pointed me in a new direction. A few years ago I was crediting a professional shortfall to not believing in myself. It was time to flex my ambition muscles and believe in myself!!! 💪🏼
Melissa leaned back in her elegant white office chair and let a bit of space settle in. She smiled her warm, mischievous smile, and nodded in a way that said she understood.
“Yeah, I used to think I needed to believe in myself too. Then I realized that believing in yourself is just another hoop to jump through.”
“Check please!” 💥💥💥💥💥
The idea of giving up the battle to believe in myself sounded like Nirvana, like less weight to carry.
[Here’s Melissa and me in Chicago with Marc Chagall.]
Think about all the pursuits you’ve gone after, not believing you’d achieve them but did that stop you? Maybe sometimes. But not always. There have been the biggies! It could have been an unimaginable career, an athletic event, a big life change, a relationship. Cooking your first Thanksgiving, planting your first garden, writing a poem. You might have uttered a million times, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” and carried on. Mhmm that’s the truth.
What keeps us in the game beyond “belief”? Maybe: Commitment, curiosity, adventure, mystery, why-not-ness, community, expression, talent… and getting down to work with an open mind to what you might stumble across along the way.
I’m here to remind you, if you’re on the verge of discrediting yourself, no belief in your big bad self is required. There’s nothing to prove. Just you going all in and engaging with the playful nature of Life. Isn’t that enough?
Xoxo 💋
Watch my Beauty Q & A with Melissa here. At least tune in to the first two seconds to hear her laugh.
