Wisdom to navigate through life's challenges
If you google search ‘self-confidence’ you’ll get multiple variations on a theme. Essentially it is an attitude or belief about yourself which enables you to trust in your abilities, knowledge, judgement, and decision making to exert quality control over your own life. It’s about understanding your strengths and having awareness of the things that aren’t in your strengths zone.
Once I had a manager who told me I was too positive and that my optimism cast doubt on my credibility. This feedback was given immediately after presenting, an update on a transformation programme I was leading to an Executive at work. A presentation I felt had gone incredibly well. It is moment etched in my memory. I was confused. I am a natural optimist and my positivity in the meeting wasn’t a façade, it was a conscious choice.
My third blog was about planning for the year ahead – an anti-procrastination plan for the niggling to-do’s. A year is a long time though, what about the more pressing stuff? How does someone who is prone to putting things off, actually get stuff done on a daily basis?
Being hospitalised and in isolation with Influenza and exacerbated asthma, I was suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world where I could hear; hushed voices in the corridors, beeping machines and hurried footsteps. There is something very humbling and sobering about hearing the excited buzz of the aftermath of someone being saved from a cardiac arrest and the realisation that the next time the emergency buzzer rang that person wasn’t so lucky. Sat in my bed thinking about how the hospital ward ran like a well-oiled machine and reflecting on what an amazing job all the staff do, I had an unexpected encounter with the hospital cleaner that had a lasting impact.
A blog about my first real setback, and how it kick-started my career confidence journey.
I had a chance discussion with someone at work who told me that when she was younger, she really wanted to become a midwife. We were stood in a call centre, the two are not very similar. Her dream never went anywhere, the opportunities for her back in the day just weren’t there – this was how she summarised it.
