Two (incredibly common) toxic, confidence-killing behaviors
1. Subconsciously seeking approval from everyone around you.
Some people love to stir up controversy and drama for no apparent reason. Don’t buy into their propaganda. Instead, imagine what would happen if you spent this entire day, and every day hereafter, with all your energy directed toward your most positive possibilities. Rather than being annoyed, be amused. Instead of getting angry, become curious. In place of envy, feel admiration. Life is too short to argue and fight for the approval of those who can't be pleased.
Stop focusing on them, and start focusing more on YOU.
Believe in yourself and your ability to succeed. Believe in your intuition, especially when you have to choose between two good paths. Believe that the answers are out there waiting. Believe that life will surprise you again and again. Believe that the journey is the destination. Believe that it’s all worth your while. Believe that you are confident enough to see it through, without everyone's approval.
2. Dis-empowering yourself with weak self-talk.
“Why me? Why me?”
That's the kind of self-talk that holds so many of us back.
What we need to be thinking is, “Why not me? And why not NOW?”
But, again, so many of us feel like we have to wait: to be hired, to be good enough, to be chosen—like the old Hollywood cliché, to somehow be “discovered.”
Discover yourself!
What you’re capable of achieving from this point forward is not a function of what happened in the past, or what other people think is possible for you. What you’re capable of achieving depends entirely on what you choose to do with your time and energy starting now.
In every situation you have ever been in, positive or negative, the one common thread is YOU. It is your responsibility, and yours alone, to recognize that regardless of what has happened up to this point in your life, you are capable of making choices to change your situation.
And it all starts with changing the way you think about it.
When you think better about your circumstances, you are able to live better in spite of them.