Everything you ever wanted — before Christmas. On your best self. GO.
Fighting builds confidence. The ability to defend oneself and one’s friends builds confidence. The ability to take charge and to make things happen builds confidence. The ability to move, to build momentum toward the things we say we want builds confidence.
Creative Confidence is really about action and momentum, which is exactly what people are. We are what we repeatedly do, You want creativity? Start by making the decision to act more Creatively. You want leadership? Start by being a thought leader first. Make & Create useful things. Human qualities you desire but feel you don’t yet have all start with making the decision to be more like it. You decide who you’re going to become. You are what you tell people you are. And you work toward those things every day through intention + action + consistency.
Every day: intention + action + consistency.
Confidence is such a strange one because we tend to tie it to things outside of us: big, fancy house; fancy cars; fancy website; fancy app; fancy job; big, fancy degree from big fancy university; fancy wife / spouse; fancy dinners; etc. Only it isn’t tied to those things. No. Turns out that confidence is an inside job. It is the things we think about and the things we actually do all day every day that build up or tear down our own confidence. Yes: we do it to ourselves! Noooo!
Well, it turns out that that is the good news because that means we have the power to do something about it. We got ourselves into this mess and we are the ones to get ourselves out of it. Isn’t that powerful?
## You at your best.
When are you at your best each day? When are you at your best at home? At work? At school? In the gym? Alone? With people? At the bar / restaurant? How’s it feel? What do you look like? What three words would best describe you in this state? How do you want to be? If you were to be perfectly perceived by others, what do you look like to them? You already are those things. Focus on being more of them, more often.
Speak up. Say what you see.
I’ve been taught by the greatest coaches and trainers on the planet to say what I see. It is fundamental to coaching to call the room. It is also fundamental in comedy to call the room. It’s your life — you call it. It is your shot.
Like shipping the creative work, Saying what you see takes guts. Not just anybody will do it. No. Most of us walk the earth, paranoid about what others will think if we speak up to say what we see. How about we get over our own damn selves already and say it, call a spade a spade. “See that thing there? That spade? That’s a SPADE.”
Confidence + Courage
Any great coach will tell you it does no one any good to pull punches, to pretend everything is hunky-dory when it isn’t, when there are unpleasant, unspoken things drifting below boil. Far better to get them out and deal with them on the table. Besides, you’ll not only build confidence in dealing with them head-on, but you’ll also build Courage! Confidence + Courage! And like confidence, everybody wants more courage. But you gotta practice it!
I own this.
The world’s best will tell you it all starts with ownership. Owning the problem. Owning the relationship. Owning the difficulty. Owning the hard feelings. Know what the genius is in owning the hard things? It means we can do something about them! Well, we’re the owners, right? No matter then how hard the situation / the shit we find ourselves in, we get to do something about it! We own this. I own this. Say it with me. Say it 5x. It feels good to speak it, to say it. I own this.
Peoples’ chief struggle is they place all the ownership into others’ hands. They place it in the boss’s hands. They place it in the spouse’s hands. They place it in the parents’ hands. (Yes, still…) They place it in the government’s hands. (Dear God, no!) They place it in hr’s hands. (Oh, My God — NO!) They place it in anybody’s hands but their own. They throw up their hands, emphatically state there’s nothing they can do about this situation, and then they push off the matter to anybody else. Who do ya got!? No ownership. Therefore, there’s nothing to be done about the matter from them. And the life of passivity and resistance persists.
Taking ownership is the exact opposite of passivity and oh-woe-is-me. Taking ownership = action. Taking ownership = intention. Taking ownership = consistency. Taking ownership = Momentum. Taking ownership = creative practice. Taking ownership = marching toward what you want.
Oh, and everything you’ve ever wanted.
Look at what taking ownership gives you: only everything you’ve ever wanted! The gift of everything you’ve ever wanted, and it isn’t even Christmas. The all encompassing feeling that I left out from the above list is Power! You took the power back by owning it. You own the situation. You own the complication. You own the resolution. You own the story. Those other people don’t get to decide who you’re going to be today — you get to decide who you’re going to be today. You get to decide how you’re showing up for people who need you today. You get to decide to emphasize and maximize your best today, whoever and whatever that looks like for you. You get to decide to maximize and live out of your strengths today. You get to decide to feel strong today. You get to decide what you want and how best to get there today. You get to decide how you’re going to express your beautiful, creative self today.
What’s the thing that encompasses them all? POWER. You took your power back.
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