30 days: Day 1 – Confidence

I’ve decided (belatedly) to follow blogger (Tina’s) ’30 days of self-love initiative’ which she kicked off on her own website in September last year. Her challenge (for other bloggers) was to bring about a positive change into their lives through some personal reflection on a daily basis; which she instigated by introducing a daily theme. Today is day one (for me anyway), and her theme is confidence.

“All of us have unique strengths and qualities that we should not ignore or gloss over, but instead lift up into the light and proclaim as our own with pride and joy.

Do not forget your strengths by focusing on weaknesses, because we all have those too. BUT those do not define us. Our strengths define us. Something else to remember. You are stronger than you think. You may not believe so, but you have the power to change everything. You have the power to turn your life into something beautiful. You are reading this post and stepping out to love yourself more, then in turn love others more, and then have the potential to change the world. Yes, YOU! Each of us have that power and simply moving, or even desiring to move, towards a positive place speaks volumes.

Be confident in what you can do! Trust in yourself and the changes YOU can make and that can happen in you. We all start somewhere. 

Take a few moments to quietly reflect on confidence and recognize what you have to offer. You have something! Focus on that throughout the day. Whenever you feel down, remember who YOU are and what you have to be proud of. Don’t negate it!

What do you have to be confident about?” 

I recently had to identify my strengths through another blogging challenge and I found it really difficult, so ingrained is that DO NOT BRAG notion. I did, however, grudgingly come up with some. But, in all honesty I developed these by reflecting on what my strengths (once) WERE: athleticism; willpower; and competitiveness. Things I once was and indeed, could be again. Perhaps.

Now, however, I have to do more than that. I have to be able to articulate WHAT I can do, or what I’m good at. Hmmm…. it’s almost like asking what value do I bring to the world. OMG.

(Okay, am back after only minor hyperventilation.) What do I have to be confident about? I feel like I need a disclaimer here to say that I’m really not vain and I don’t mean to say I’m GOOD at these things…. Wow – who would have thought this was so hard? (Sorry, by the way, for the stream of consciousness writing!) Okay, I’m back. Focussed and ready to go. *Gulp*

I can write. Well-ish I like to think. I used to write a lot for work, which meant I hated doing it at home. When I wrote often at work I found it easy to string together the bureaucratic-speak we so often use in government. And I was fast. I could whip up a Ministerial or Premier’s Briefing note in no time at all.

For someone whose internal thoughts are those of a complete bitch, I am very nice to people. I have the sort of job where I am a point of liaison. I am a conduit and I have to make my boss’s (Chairperson of a Board type thing) and the Board members’ lives easier. I’ve worked in a lot of roles like these, where I have to get stuff from people at short notice and task people to do things for me. And, I always acknowledge good work and try to consider the impost my requests have on others.

I am a good daughter. I am devoted to my parents, feel great appreciation for everything they’ve done for me and try to do everything I can for them (despite the distance between us) to help them as they age.

I have a nice smile. (OMFG – the physical ones are hardest to articulate) It’s a bit of a pasted-on smile, but I have big almost-straight teeth and dimples. I can smile like I mean it and mostly I do.

I’m a good problem-solver or trouble shooter. I can think laterally. I’m not an overly process-y person but I generally find that I can offer a solution if someone comes to me with a tricky problem.

I believe I’m emotionally intelligent. I can read peoples’ responses and behaviour and be in tune with their feelings. My brother is almost completely the opposite, so I think I got his share of that gene.

I’m quick-minded. I pick up things quickly. My mind suffers a little from ADD and I sometimes find it hard to sustain a long thought, as my mind jumps onto a tangent midway through, but I am excellent at multi-tasking and keeping a lot of balls in the air.

Wow! I think I’ve done pretty well. I may think of more but I don’t want to get too carried away, as my head may explode from the swelling. As per the challenge, though, I will try to remind myself of these things when I’m feeling frustrated or self-conscious over coming days (and perhaps the positivity will embed itself somewhere in the recesses of my mind).