Everything hinges on this

Your confidence grows when you find that one thing upon which everything hinges and then get in your reps.

One thing.

When you ask yourself what is the one thing that summarizes you at your best, truest self, it can feel pretty overwhelming. But remember:

Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

It is, indeed, difficult to choose one thing that summarizes your best self. It takes hard work and hard choices to boil down the essence of who you are. But it’s worth it. For example: you might remember a presidential administration not so long ago which managed to boil down its message to:

Yes we can.

It was hard, creative work to cull the many good intentions of that campaign into one simple, memorable phrase. But it served its purpose well. This can be true for you in your own personal life. Once you find your core image or phrase, it is incredibly focusing and powerful.

Eureka! 

So: ask yourself who or what you love most on your best day. This is where you begin to find that one thing, upon which your best self hinges. For example: you might find that on your best day, you feel good in your body. Which means that when you take the time to make your physical well-being a priority, everything else falls into place well. Your work is better; you are a better partner; all of your interactions are improved.

Then, your worst. Ask yourself what your worst day looks like. You might find an easy match between your best and worst days. You might find, on reflection, that your worst days are when you don’t feel right in your body, for example. This is not always the case, but often you will find a match between your best and your worst days, and they will be opposites. Learn from this reflection and then lock onto the elements of your best day on a more regular basis.

More of that, please.

Now, get in your reps in that good space. Remember that confidence comes from repetition. Put another way, you are confident about what you do over and over again; positive or negative. If you repeatedly do what makes you feel bad, you will gain confidence in feeling bad. The same is true if you do more of what makes you feel good, that one true thing that gives you energy and puts a smile back on your face.

Do it over and over, and you will be confident that you can return to your one true thing — on which your best self hinges — over and over, almost any time, at will.

Consider this.

Please listen to this short talk (about 14 minutes) by Dr. Ivan Joseph, about the skill of self confidence. Then come right back for today’s takeaway.

The takeaway:

Find the one thing on which your best self hinges. Then get in your reps — to be your best, confident self.

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I can help you become confident of your one true thing.