Roaring Like A Lion Or Meowing Like A Kitten?

At times getting ready to really go after our goals requires us to dig deep and perhaps face some fears. If we are always afraid of new situations and challenges, we may never accomplish what we want to. Do you choose to hear the lion of confidence roaring or the scared kitten?

Roxanne Goodman gives you good points to consider.

I remember when, as a 9 year old, while participating in an elementary group class sing along, I was ridiculed and felt extremely small for singing the harmony of a song instead of the melody like everyone else. In that embarrassing moment I decided that I was never going to sing in public again. That decision made me not sing in public, but also not speak or allow myself to share my feelings and thoughts with anyone for years to come. I wanted to share and contribute my thoughts to conversations going on around me, but did not dare for fear of being put in that same position again; rejection.

 

During my elementary and high school years I did not dare answer the questions that the teachers were asking, even though I knew the answers. And I did not even have the courage to let people know, when asked to do so, that the idea that I was sharing was my own.

 

I learned through the years that my perception of myself was keeping me in a prison of my own design. Not circumstances, not other people, just me.

 

I realized that I was in a place that Anais Nin described so eloquently when she said, “and then the day came when the risk it took to remain tightly closed in a bud became more painful than the risk to bloom.” So I made a decision that I was going to change and in order to do that, I had to change my frame of reference.

 

Image credit: Ray Wenderlich

Consider your confidence, Proctor Gallagher Institute