On Confidence & Action

“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.

Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.

Perhaps the action you take will be successful;

perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow.

But any action is better than no action at all.”

― Norman Vincent Peale (Author of The Power of Positive Thinking)

Thomas Edison worked on over 3,000 different theories to develop an efficient lightbulb. I assume there was a point where we went home, ran his fingers through his bushy hair and said something like, "Mary, I don't know with certainty that I'm ever going to get this light bulb thingie to work, but I'm going to keep taking action until one of my failures leads to success."

A few years ago I was deeply stuck in my career. Even if someone had told me that my dream job was mine for the taking, I would not have been able to tell you what that dream job was.

I was that stuck. And I really beat myself up about it: "but it's my life! I SHOULD know!"

Now that I'm a coach and I talk to people on the regular about feeling stuck and finding a more fulfilling path, I've been thinking about what Vanessa today would go back and tell Stuck Vanessa. For starters:

👉"Vanessa, be a little kinder to yourself." (This is great advice that applies to pretty much every situation.)

👉"Try something, anything."

Or, illustrated:

From Nowheresville to Confident, In As Many Steps As You Need:

Confidence is an outcome.

It's the result of taking action, again and again.

Free download!

I created a list of 14 ways to jumpstart confidence by taking action.

👉Download the PDF & drop me a note on your favorite action.

👉Forward the PDF to someone who would benefit from it.