Remember that, despite what Instagram says, success doesn’t happen overnight.
Imagine you have a goal.
Let’s say your goal is to run a marathon. (If your stomach just churned at the word ‘run,’ don’t worry, this isn’t an article about running).
Let’s say you train for a year, transforming your daily habits to get up at 5 am, Monday-Friday to run for an hour before your busy day starts.
A year later, you take a bite of your well-deserved energy bar and pose proudly with your medal. You did it! You ran the marathon. You achieved your goal. Snap! Your family captures the moment with a photo.
That photo gets a prime place on Instagram and gets all the likes and the shares.
Now think about the small steps you consistently took every day that got you to your goal. Did you post photos of all those moments? The blisters on your toes? The exhausting early mornings running in the dark when you’d rather have stayed in bed? Probably not.
We often only share the end success story with the world on social media, not the behind-the-scenes stuff that fulfilling dreams are made of.
This creates the illusion that achieving goals is easy and quick, and it happens in one effortless giant leap when the opposite is true.
To achieve your dreams, you take small, consistent steps every day. Those unseen moments of discipline, those moments when you show up for an audience of one (you), become the habits that help you come out winning.
Let’s celebrate those too.
Show Up For Yourself Every Day.
When you get up in the morning, it’s easy to start the day in a negative funk. In her book ‘The 5 Second Rule’, Mel Robbins shares how to create the day by high-fiving the most important person in your life, the one who is staring back at you in the mirror: YOURSELF.
Tomorrow morning take a few minutes to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how you’re going to show up for yourself today. It might be one tiny teeny thing- but it’s all these small steps that will carry you to your end goal.
Is it to do 20 minutes of exercise?
Is it to shop for groceries on your lunch break so you won’t be tempted to order pizza tonight?
Is it to make that phone call you’ve been putting off for weeks?
You see, when you make a promise to someone important who you love (YOU!), you’re more likely to follow through with it.
You’re Worth It
We all have those mornings where we feel like we can’t show up for work, let alone ourselves and our dreams. That’s part of being human.
In those moments, who do you want to scroll to in your contact list? Which friend always says the perfect thing to snap you out of it?
What if you could embody that friend to yourself?
You can!
You can develop a phrase- a sentence or two that you can say to yourself when those wobbly moments happen. It should be personal- something that speaks directly to your insecurities or any negative thinking patterns that drag you down. It could be something as simple as this:
You are so loved, and you are worth showing up for today.
Why not grab your favorite hot drink and take some time to sit down and write your phrase. You can pull it out when you need it or even better, stick it on your mirror to tell yourself every morning (just like a friend would), so you can keep showing up with those small steps every day.
Shake It Up
One way to boost confidence is to get yourself out of your comfort zone by trying something new.
What have you ALWAYS wanted to try?
A bungee jump or to take a Zumba class? Maybe it’s just going out to enjoy a glass of wine with friends when you usually decline.
You’ll be amazed where a ‘give-it-a-go’ attitude will take you- you could make new friends, establish work or self-development opportunities, or learn a new skill.
And if not, well, what have you lost?
I try to do this once a month- why not join me? Last month I tried a hot yoga class for the first time in over five years. This month I’m going to work on letting go of items I no longer use. Everyone’s got extra stuff. Why not put that stuff to good use by giving it to people who really do need it? There are lots of personal benefits to new activities like this, like how giving improves our mental health. Plus, you’ll likely feel an extra sense of relief from decluttering your space.
It’s All In the Planning
Planning is vital for success. Use a journal and write down your PLAN. Planning to the smallest detail with checklists and short-term and long-term targets will guide your everyday actions and keep you motivated.
Let’s go back to our marathon example. If you were to plan a running training program, as hard as it is, when you’re able to run ten miles after ten weeks, you could celebrate that milestone. It’s so much easier to keep going when you see results.
A detailed plan will keep you on track when you have those above ‘non-showing up’ days. If you’re feeling down or overwhelmed, you can look at your plan for today, repeat your phrase to yourself- then go and get it done.
The Only Way to Fail Is To Give Up.
On the days you struggle to show up for yourself, the challenge is responding to yourself with love and compassion instead of judgment.
You haven’t failed. Sit with yourself for a moment and understand your feelings. Then dust yourself off, and keep going.
Whatever dream you have, the pathway to success is lined with self-confidence. Putting these deliberate self-confidence hacks into your life will help make those dreams a reality.
And let’s cheer each other on by sharing not only the celebratory end goals but also by sharing the seemingly-mundane-but-actually-magical everyday steps we are taking to get there.
If you’ve shown up for yourself today, well done.
Why not tag me on social media so I can cheer you on?
You’ve got this, friend. I believe in you.
