Continuing with lessons learned from my latest Brian Tracy book, one of my favorites is this: a lot of self-confidence comes from aligning your decisions with your values.
One of the first exercises in the book is to work out your values and goals. It's a straight lift from his excellent book, Goals, but with a different purpose. Having already iterated that process several times, I could coast past this one and get to the payoff. While Brian chattered away about how to determine your values and goals, I decided to mentally adopt the Catholic Catechism wholesale as my values. That shorthand allowed me to concentrate on subsequent lessons. Here's the essence of those lessons:
When you make a decision or take a position based on your deeply-held values, you gain a strength that comes from without. Criticism is partially defanged because you can correctly claim you are pursuing something higher than yourself. It encourages courage, too. To not defend your decision is to betray your higher calling.
Yesterday, my wife and I encountered Beverly, a crippled, homeless woman on a street corner. Before the light changed, I gave her $10 and chatted with her. Had my wife objected, I would have been more confident to disagree as I felt I was doing Christ's work. It wasn't that I was doing it for me, I was doing that which I had been called to do. My self-confidence would have been greater as I was borrowing strength from external values.
Good stuff, that.
Odds and ends:
- Brian Tracy, I love you, but could you get someone else to read your book next time? This one sounds like it was recorded in your kitchen.
- Beverly asked us to pray for her. If you joined in, I'd appreciate it.
- My wife object to Beverly's gift? Ha! That's a laugh. My wife is kinder and more giving than I am.
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