Believe in Yourself!

I have been musing about believing in myself more. I have a certain amount of confidence in myself, but I think I can believe and do more.

In the last few days of each year, I like to ponder what I want to do and be in the new year. It is such an obvious time to start over, to wipe away the challenges of the past year and to refocus thoughts and actions to create life as one wants it to be.

I had a good year in 2011, thanks to my clients, the people who believed in me enough to allow me to guide them into more creative and expressive communications. Many of my clients also had a good year. I received many emails and calls from clients who told me stories of their success in speaking, presenting, acting and leading. And that is what I live for! But, I think I can do more.

The last three hours of 2011, I felt some old parts of me dropping off like an invisible cloak of resistance falling away from my back and shoulders. Lately, I have been setting an intention to let go of my need to hold tension and contraction in my body. It was lovely to actually feel as if some limitations were leaving my inner landscape! It is exactly what I have desired to happen. I was experiencing a subtle sense that I am suddenly freer to do what I want to do. All that remains is for me to decide what to create.

Hmmm. What to create? There are some things I want to do with the rest of my life. And now there is nothing stopping me. I just need to believe in myself. That's it, just believe. I can do that! Wow! Yes, I can do that! And so can you!

So my message to you is to believe in yourself. You have gifts and talents and abilities that are valuable to others. Sometimes, however, your talents are invisible to you because they are things that you do so easily and effortlessly. It is hard to value what comes so easily, but what is easy for you may be hard for others. So your easy stuff is valuable to others. All you have to do is give what is easy for you!

What if you don't know your value, what if you don't know what your gifts and talents are? Then start asking to perceive it. Say prayers and do meditations where you ask to see your value to others. Let the answer come to you as your desires. Watch for what you desire. Your desire will lead you straight to your gifts and talents. Then, believe it. Just believe in yourself. OK, but, what does it mean to believe in yourself? Here is what I think you have to do to start believing in yourself:

• Step 1. Realize that you have something to give, to do, to be, that adds value to humanity, even if you don't know what it is.
• Step 2. Accept that it might be possible for you to contribute something to make a difference. Just allow for the possibility.
• Step 3. Take some action by doing the first thing you can think of to move towards it.
• Step 4. Keep following the flow of action - what's next, and next and next. Let life take you there without knowing how it will happen.

I heard a story about Eckhart Tolle, the author of The Power of Now. He was living life very poorly in Canada, teaching a few students about presence. One day he thought to himself, "I could be doing more." So he decided to move from Canada to California. It just seemed the place to go. And soon he had a place to live and had written his first book which became a bestseller.

So, for 2012, I wish us all a year of delightful adventures in expression. Let it be a year of opening to be and express all you were meant to be. And believe in yourself - BE LIVE your dreams and desires. They are the whisperings from your Soul that lead you to be more of who you are.