Child-like Confidence

Once upon a time there was a young girl named Michelle. She was beautiful, smart, funny and brave. She thought she was the bee’s knees and could do anything in the world she wanted to do. She loved to draw and would create masterpieces everywhere she went and then she would hand them out to anyone and everyone. She loved animals and thought she might be a veterinarian of course if she didn’t become an artist or an art teacher.

Over the years as Michelle grew up, slowly but surely her confidence started to chip away. What she once knew she could do she started to doubt and then eventually she just knew that she couldn’t quite do anything right. It didn’t matter that everyone told her she was talented, smart, and capable. She only knew that she wasn’t really that great of an artist. She could never be smart enough to be a veterinarian and let’s face it, she didn’t have the guts to deal with death and injury to those poor little animals. She figured she could still be a teacher but not an art teacher because everyone knows that they only need one of those per school and she would never be good enough to be that one teacher who won the job. Her dreams fell away.

As she got older and older she kept trying new ventures, trying to find something that would make her as happy as she was when she was a carefree child but nothing seemed to work. She felt lost, worthless, and every bit of a failure. She embarked on a journey of healing for herself and she cleansed out years of negative thinking. She washed away the pain and began to fill herself up with positive thoughts and spent time remembering that small child who had the world at her feet.

Even as she continued to heal she was brought back to fear and doubt time after time as if she was being tested. Sometimes she would pass the tests with flying colors and other times she would squeak by with a passing grade. But she began to notice that no matter how difficult the tests were, she always seemed to pass and things started looking brighter.

One day she had this great idea for a new project but she just felt that she didn’t know enough to bring it to fruition by herself and she just KNEW she wasn’t a business woman! She could never do all that business stuff! So she started thinking of the perfect person to partner with and lo and behold she found her. Her friend was the yin to her yang and brought a wonderful balance to project.

They started getting together and having conference calls to work through the business plan and figure out the structure and poor Michelle thought she might die. She knew her brain wasn’t set up to do these things and she was tested with fear and doubt once again.

And then something strange happened one night on a call. It was as if she had an out of body experience and she was listening to the words that were coming out of her mouth as she spoke about the vision, the liability and the structure. She found herself thinking, “Who is that woman saying all those intelligent things? Wow, she really sounds like she knows what she is talking about! There is strength in those words and a confident intelligence. HOLY CRAP! THAT’S ME TALKING!!! I might just actually know what I am talking about! I might be as good of a partner to my partner as she is to me. I actually have something to contribute! I think I can do this.”

In that moment she seemed to be transported back to that little girl she knew so many years ago. She felt herself in that perfect little body, with her big smile and fearless attitude and she once again believed in herself.