If I sit back and think I come to the realization that I can't count more than a handful of decisions that I have loved enough on my own since high school. My first step in rumination of that fact it to think that maybe I just had it way more together in high school. But it takes mere seconds to realize for certain that isn't true. While I was a bit more confident in high school, well freshman through junior year, I must admit it was a confidence that comes with youth. One that has been pampered and never let fall too hard.
Also, looking back, the past always looks prettier than it was. While I was more certain of some of my decisions in high school, they weren't very big ones. I did mention that I was more confident until senior year. Guess what, senior year was the year of meaningful decisions. Before that I could decide for sure I wanted to be a lawyer and it wouldn't matter for a long while. Senior year rolls around and I need to make a decision on where to go after high school and my false sense of confidences shatters. I remember the feeling, the fear, the frustration... I remember it so well because I feel very similar with my life right now.
I'm at this place where forward movement needs to happen (bold, italic and underlined, very, very serious stuff). It is imperative to my development into an independent adult that forward movement happens. It is imperative to everything that I start creating decisions that I love.
There is an insistent, inescapable must in my life right now. One that my body and mind are doing many things to try and avoid.
Why?
It all comes back to confidence. In order to find a decision or a route or a next step to love unconditionally, one has to be confident enough in ones decision making abilities and from there their own abilities to carry out the actions necessary.
Basically, sometimes I find options that I think I love. I sit with them for a second or two, and more recently I've started, like baby steps started, trying some of my ideas out. But I constantly check them with other people and I am greatly affected by people's opinions. It doesn't matter if I think they are spouting hypocrisies left and right... some little part (Seth Godin would call it the lizard brain) will take heart of their negativity and believe it.
Confidence. Something people assume I have a lot of. Not in the way of being cocky, but in the way of being self assured.
Really, I second guess just about everything I say, write, and think I am interested in. Through this action of second guessing I've created very shaky, uneven, and totally uninhabitable ground to try and build a foundation on.
Confidence? Ha!
So where does that leave me? It leaves me second guessing, it leaves me constantly changing my mind, it leaves me unsure of things I think I'm interested in.
It leaves a big gaping hole instead of a place to put my next step forward.
Is it time to fill that hole? Yes. Do I know how.... no.
I want to be the person high school me imagined I would be. Smart, put together, figuring things out, confident, able to start a relationship... I want to be the person who is so confident in her decisions, or at least her ability to take care of business, that she doesn't need anybody else's positive opinion. (She will always share them with her closest confidantes regardless.)
I want to be the person people think I am. The one that has her head on straight and can get things done. The one that is everything that I don't feel that I am.
Where does one start changing how they feel about themselves? How do I get out of this doubt? What do I have to do to create a solid foundation for my dreams and wishes?
Questions I will be continue asking until I figure it out.
xoxo
