BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

Have you ever stopped to think about how believing in yourself can make you more confident and enable you to do things you never thought about doing before? I don’t know if you are like me, but I’m hoping I’m not the only one that might not be too confident in every aspect of my life.

I’ve noticed at work that if I am more confident, or better yet, have the support and open communication with my supervisor or co-workers, that I can accomplish more.  It is a struggle for me to not feel overwhelmed with everything, but trying to have a more “I can do” attitude is very beneficial. I need to keep reminding myself that yes, I can do this task or that item.  Yes, I’m definitely a work in progress with that struggle!

Gaining some confidence in one area of your life will strengthen you in other areas of your life as well. Being confident and open minded has definite benefits and carries over to all aspects of one’s life.  If you are more confident, you are willing to try new and different things. It can open up a whole new world for oneself. New opportunities, new challenges, and new adventures in this journey of life.

I recently did my first back to back Third Day concerts!  Since they were so close to the area where I live, I just couldn’t resist going to both!  The second day I traveled over 3 hrs on some slightly crazy roads by myself. It was a little scary but I just told myself I could do it.  The second concert I went to by myself but felt like it was what I was suppose to do. It was a nice quiet, reflective time. It was a little scary being alone in a big town, finding my way around, and walking the streets, but I did it. I had to believe that I could do it and then just do it! I would just have to deal with whatever happened. In the end, it would all be alright.  Knowing there are people praying for you is also something that can help you believe in yourself more too.

One of my friends I’ve come to know through social media recently made a trek to the state of Washington to do a good 3 hour hike on Mt. Rainier. It has been a dream of hers to do this, and despite some physical limitations, she has been working on training and strengthening her body for this endeavor. She believes in herself enough to step out in confidence and do this. She has been greatly blessed through this experience already and has more adventures in going to Hawaii to visit some good friends. It will be her first time there.

Doing these writings weekly has been a big step in believing in myself and trying to have enough confidence in myself to try to express my thoughts to share with others….sharing the Christ in me. Often times, fear and doubt creeps in, but I try to remind myself of the people that share with me how they have been blessed through my sharing.

Recently, all spur of the moment, a co-worker & myself ended up donating blood. It was just too coincidental that I had read about a fellow blogger doing a “How Can I Help” ministry of caring for a month. One of the things he did one day to help others was to donate blood. The one day at work I was getting coffee on another floor when I heard an announcement for a blood drive that day at work. What are the chances that I was on that floor at that exact time of the announcement? We don’t get announcements on our floor, AND I have never heard any announcement on the floor I was on either! I thought to myself, well, I’ll go right after work to see about donating blood. It has been probably a good 25 years since I donated. Much to my surprise, I half jokingly mentioned the idea to my co-worker who I remembered had always wanted to donate blood before but never did. I was really shocked that she mentioned we could do it during work time, and she said we better go right now before she chickened out.

I tell that story to show that we each believed and had faith in each other to do it, and we found out that together was better! A friend was praying for us during our donation so that was powerful how God worked that out too. I am very proud to say we both actually followed through with donating the blood and even survived! We both agreed it wasn’t quite as bad as we expected, and that we would be willing to do it again. It felt good to believe in ourselves, have confidence and step out knowing we were helping others through the donation.

What helps us believe in ourselves? I think knowing who we are in Christ is a big factor in that. We need to continually remind ourselves of Bible verses that will give us strength and encouragement. Having people believe in us and encourage us is another huge factor. Sometimes, we all need that human factor or voice to help us gain confidence in ourselves. Someone encouraging or reminding us we can do something can go a long way.

On the flip side of that, sometimes our words can damage someone’s self esteem and set us back in that fear and doubt more. Often times I think we don’t even know we’ve done that until it’s too late….the words have come out and can have a lasting effect. I mention that to help make us aware of maybe thinking a little more before we speak. Our words can have a huge influence on people.

Can you think of times in your life when you encouraged someone to believe in themselves?

How about people that have believed in you and helped you believe in you?

Have you ever thanked those people?

It is much easier and better to encourage one another rather than cut down and discourage another.

Be on the look out for who the Lord puts in your path for you to help them believe in themselves!