From Victim to Warrior
Photo by Jordan Donaldson | @jordi.d on Unsplash
According to “Psychology Today” and “Merriam-Webster,” the definition of confidence is:
A belief in oneself and/or a feeling or consciousness of one’s power or of reliance on one’s circumstance.
After reading both definitions, it makes perfect sense why internally I have struggled with confidence. The idea of “belief” has been tainted from the beginning of my career as “fake it ‘til you make it” has always been my motto. I have certainly never felt powerful either (although, I fake that well, as I can command a room).
Even as I moved up the corporate ladder to supervisor, director and yes, VP, instead of feeling worthy and competent, I felt afraid and completely unsure of myself. What if they knew I was faking it? What if the point was to expose me vs. empower me? With those thoughts consistently on my mind, I chose to expose myself first, especially when things got hard.
Hello victim.
The more issues felt out of my control, the more I wanted to express how out of my control they were. At one very low point, I even felt compelled to “lose it” – tears, stomping, slamming doors. Now, I’m not saying expressing emotions and feelings at work is bad. Vulnerability is an amazing leadership skill demonstrating courage and true humanity. These emotions were not that and certainly were not serving me or my coworkers. In hindsight, what would have served me most was recognizing those “out of control” feelings were actually being dictated by my own thoughts.
Hello mental fitness.
According to the New York Time’s bestselling author of “Positive Intelligence,” Shirzad Chamine, mental fitness is your “capacity to respond to life’s challenges with a positive vs. negative mindset.” For me, faking positivity always came naturally. In fact, most people would probably describe me as a confident and optimistic person. Being mentally fit is not simply about expressing positivity though. As the definition states, being mentally fit is a mindset, which means you also have to believe it. In comes the hard work.
Like physical fitness, increasing mental fitness cannot happen overnight. It takes time, dedication, and choosing to believe you can make a change. I started small, adding in moments of “focused pause” every few hours to quiet my mind. I then began recognizing how often sabotaging thoughts like “you aren’t smart enough” were overtaking my brain, and I consciously chose new empowering thoughts like “you are learning every single day.” I found the gifts and opportunities from the struggles I’ve endured throughout my life. I learned the power of having empathy for myself, which is far more productive than sympathy. And finally, I realized that choosing to BE FIERCE far outweighs choosing fear.
Hello WARRIOR!
This year I began my entrepreneurial journey…a dream I never knew I had. Do I know for certain I will succeed? No, but I’m choosing to believe that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
You’ll notice my story has a consistent theme: choice. We all have a choice. That doesn’t make life’s challenges any less hard. I still have fear, but my mental fitness is allowing me to look fear in the eye and see the possibility of success. I’m choosing to say goodbye to that ugly victim. This warrior is now in control and not afraid of failure, because failure just makes me stronger.
