This March, we focus on Unleashing Confidence! This is our newest theme, replacing last year’s Live Simply. We feel that most people stand to benefit from improved confidence (with the exception of very few people).
We all have things we’re very confident about. Perhaps we take pride in our sense of style, or our values, or maybe we take pride in the organisation of our files and folders. Pride can manifest in many different ways. Nonetheless, understanding our pride is key to understanding what is important to us. We would not take pride in our style if we didn’t value a sense of individuality. We would not take pride in our strong values if we didn’t think consistency is important. We would not take pride in our files and folders if we didn’t think organisation, cleanliness and efficiency are important. Asking ourselves, "what am I truly proud of?" can serve as a window into our internal lives. What do we value and what are our beliefs about ourselves? These are important questions, sometimes without clear answers, but valuable to ponder.
On the other hand, it’s also important to ask ourselves, what am I not proud of? These may be things with room for improvement in the simplest sense, but it may also be something about with we feel guilt or remorse. Discerning whether we feel shy or guilty about a matter is key to understanding why we lack pride about certain things as well.
For those things about which we are shy, it may be because we lack practice. For this, the fix is simple. For those things about which we are guilty and remorseful, an apology is maybe due.
However, we often find ourselves feeling guilty about things that we could not have controlled, especially when a loved one is involved in the outcome. For these, we may never fully overcome our remorse, but a great way to mitigate this is to be proud of someone else. For example, we may feel remorseful about an injury a loved one sustained for which we feel somewhat responsible. Instead of focusing on the guilt and making the issue about oneself, channel our energy into pride for our loved one, for the way they coped with their injury and how hard they work to recover. Unleashing confidence need not be about ourselves at all times—we can share our confidence with others be transferring pride to one another.
This may often be the most valuable thing you can do for someone you care about.
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