There was a time in my life when I used to feel optimistic for everyone around me. I would follow their thoughts and their lives, sure that whatever they set their minds to, would work. I did not have this inner belief for myself, and so, I made many lists and starts and stops because I just did not shore up those feelings inside of myself.
Gradually, I found, as work became steady, and I was able to do the things that I was trained to do, I began to feel this same sense of confidence intermittently. It came up in particular when I worked with my partner, to keep him focused.
It has taken three decades for me to finally come to a place where I feel a sense of myself. It is so strange that although I never left what I wanted to do, it has taken this long to come to terms with it, all of this time.
This new found realisation also makes me want to reach out in other aspects of my life as well. I want to move without hesitation in my bearings and dealings, see how my confidence navigates my world.
I feel as though I am trying on a skin that is new but a long time in the making.
How did I finally get here? It has happened through decades of reading and experiencing and making many mistakes and never feeling as though I knew anything at all. The difference today is that not knowing anything at all is not a stickler, it is not a punisher, it is not a surpriser and it is not something to fear or to be stumped by.
It came to me immediately as I wrote, and I would say, figuring things out through writing has helped immeasurably, I actually wrote to myself...

get out of your head,
and into your life.

Those simple lines did it for me.
Along with the realisation that I deserved to give myself the gift of confidence that I give so easily and effortlessly to others.
Because it has taken me so long to get here, I must assume that it was meant this way. I understand now that you can move forward, sideways or whatever way you perceive you are going, dependant on what you allow yourself to be ready for.
I spent a great part of my adulthood in fear. Fear of making mistakes, fear of disappointing others, fear of independence, fear of myself...there comes a point where fear begins to look like worn letters on a billboard sign, a sign with no back, only props.
It does not mean that I do not get a tingle of anxiety, it does not mean that doubt does not nudge me. No, instead, what I have today, is an understanding that fear is what it is, a moment of stepping into the unknown and the unknowable and allowing myself to experience this illusive thing called L-I-F-E. It is but a moment that cannot be held to, for it is fleeting, it is fast and anything can play within its gossamer corridors that are vast.
Does it mean that I now know everything? Hardly, but again, in the embracing of the unknown and the awareness of emotions and choices as just an aspect of who I am and what life is, I actually come off the treadmill of thinking that worrying and keeping my desires small would somehow keep me overlooked and thus, safe. It may have done this, but it also kept my life small and my dreams unfulfilled. I am fully aware that this is harsher than the truth. I did not have a small life really. I have so much to be thankful and happy for, when I say small, I simply mean, for all of those times that I let doubt and fear prevent me from my life. I played it safe and sound, but I also lost an opportunity to see what I could do and where I could go and be.
I let lack of resouces influence what I could do. I saw lack of money as an obstacle, and I shut down my expectations.
So, what changed? Two belief systems changed my thinking, as I wrote before, they liberated me from myself and they came to me this year.