AppliedProsperity.com

YOU WON'T FIND CONFIDENCE OUTSIDE OF YOURSELF

Sure, that 'one more book' or 'one more seminar' might be a valuable tool for progression; but everything you need to succeed is found in your own level of confidence.

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I know that success requires a level of confidence.  Not a lot, mind you.  Just one measure more than any given level of fear or doubt.

Often, I find myself looking for techniques or tools.  Yes, even though I've taught myself and others that MORE education, one more book or seminar, another technique - these aren't typically the lasting answers*; I tend to revert back to the tempting safety of finding another item or experience to add to my tool kit.  

*sometimes they are, but only after we've developed the core confidence we'll discuss today.  Once we have this, we're also much more guarded as to what and how much information we allow into our minds.

One reason for this is there are so many people telling us, shouting at us, that they're information is the key we need; perhaps that's what we're missing?

However, with thought - and at times in an attempt to get away from thought for awhile - I am reminded that less is more; that getting rid of that which isn't essential to survival is the key to confidence.  And confidence is usually all that is required to get us to move beyond a level of survival or status quo.  Confidence will take us to the very level of accomplishment that we seek.

Here's an example.  Imagine you are standing outside a castle in the clothes you're wearing now (never mind that it's the medieval times and others are looking at you strange for the way you're dressed).  You know that an opposing army is about to arrive and attack this castle, and your job is to defend the castle while taking command of the opposition.  In a matter of minutes, 400 soldiers on foot and horseback will arrive and you're standing here, alone, in your street clothes without a weapon in hand.  How confident do you feel?

You might feel more confident of the situation if you had a sword.  Okay, now you have a sword in hand.  You might feel more confident if you knew how to wield that sword, and if you had a shield.  Perhaps if you had a horse, and others to fight the upcoming battle along side you.  Maybe you're more confident if you had 500 soldiers on horseback, all with swords and armor and shields; better yet they're all in front of you and there's a seasoned commander who's never lost a battle preparing this army.  If this is the case, then you would likely feel even more comfortable just on the inside wall of the castle; better yet, instead of on the ground, you're high up in the tower with no windows and the access to you has been blocked.  Well, if we're going this far, why don't we remove you from the scene, altogether; you're on a different continent with no relationship with the battle, other than your knowledge that it is taking place.

Isn't it interesting: what started out as a desire for a tool or some help in order to feel more confident, soon became more tools, more resources for help.  And notice how these tools and the other individuals soon became, instead of confidence, a relief from the situation - perhaps in real life, your original intention.  The more tools you had, the more people you had fighting your battle, the less your chances of participating in battle.  What started out as tools for finding confidence only led to acts of cowardice, as far as the situation was concerned.

This isn't to say that you couldn't have had confidence with the army at your side, or being led by someone with experience.  Don't mistake my illustration to say that tools aren't helpful, or that it would be a wise thing to not seek resources to give you the greatest advantage.  The analogy is here to paint a picture; one meant to cause some introspection:  When we seek after that one more key ingredient, are we empowering our position or delaying our involvement in our objective.  Are we fooling ourselves into acts of cowardice, stemming from fear or doubt?

Confidence has nothing to do with a situation.  The situation might dictate that we would do better with this, have more leverage with that (and situations can always be improved, allowing us to always find lack - an unhealthy focus on that lack could lead to fear/doubt). 

Confidence is what you have left when everything about the situation is stripped away from the mind.  Confidence is stripping away your own abilities and inabilities.  It's when you find what's left when every thing that surrounds you is no longer seen and all personal characteristics are ignored.  

When you come to this point, you'll find, like I did when my personal 'stuff' was no longer present in my life, that you're okay.  You'll find that you're healthy.  You're surviving - and more.  Your ideas are good, your reasoning is sufficient for now and even for making progress.  It's at this point - when you TRUST yourself - that you'll make the best decisions based upon the information you have.  You may want to recognize what's lacking in a situation, but only in your trusting yourself that you're finding optimum solutions for moving forward.

You'll see that trusting yourself and your ability to reason is confidence.  When you know you'll do your best and you trust that you can adapt if that best is insufficient to the situation, you have confidence.  

There are three main challenges we face in achieving confidence. 

Challenge #1  There are so many tools available to us, it's easy to feel we're always lacking in any given goal or situation; like there's always something that's readily available to us that would make our progress easier (hint, it's true.  AND, if you wait until you've got everything you can have, the opportunity will have passed to move forward.  It's like you were just moved to that SAFE continent without any valor to your name).

Challenge #2  We tend toward looking at situations rather than ourselves.

Challenge #3  To get to that point of full trust in our own abilities to reason, that point of stripping away all the layers of knowledge and information and tools and judgments etc., to where we can see ourselves as someone who is able to respond to any given situation - to be this exposed, even to ourselves, can seem to challenge our confidence beyond our ability to act.  It's like we started with the army and the leadership and the armory and we're asking ourselves to voluntarily give these things up that we may discover our ability to act appropriately in this and other situations.  

Once we can gain this self-trust in our abilitiies to reason, confidence is ours.  And once we own our own confidence, we are victorious in all situations.

--Dave Charbonneau, C.E.R.

"Everybody was Kung-Fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightning
But they did it with expert timing"
--Carl Douglas

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