We’ve all got at least one thing that we have consistently told ourselves we are not capable of doing, a belief that we have created for ourselves that limits our progress or prevents us from going forward. Mine is cake. It was always very frustrating because of my love of cooking – I never felt able to create desserts with the same passion and skill as the rest of the food world, which just seems to come naturally, like an alchemical potion.
It really is no good to anyone.
With five prolifically laying chickens and an abundance of eggs, I only very recently decided to start baking sponge cakes. The first time was amazing. I followed the recipe to the letter – something I never do with other cooking, it’s usually just an amalgamation of 3 or 4 recipes. But it turned out perfect and puts my wrong belief to shame. Now I bake one cake a week and share it with workmates or friends, to consolidate the new-found confidence.
You can do this too.
Not necessarily with cake, if that’s not your thing, but whatever you believe that you can’t do may actually be a bald-faced lie that you have been telling yourself for years. So here’s an exercise that you can try, just to start you off. It’s hard work and you may worry about whether or not it will turn out alright but the thing is this:
You will never develop the confidence to do it if you do not try.
An Exercise for the Soul
- Pick your thing – Just something small. Doesn’t have to be huge but it helps to listen to yourself and the words you use when you speak about certain activities that you’ve never had the confidence to do. For most people there is at least one big one.
- So now, go and do it. Doesn’t matter if you do it badly the first time, you can keep trying.
- Be kind to yourself. Don’t make judgements. Treat yourself like you would treat someone else who was just learning to do something they believed they couldn’t do.
- Do it someone else’s way. If that doesn’t work for you, find someone else’s way that does. Perfect the process.
- Then do it again. Keep doing it until that belief has blown away in the whirlwind of your amazing new skill. Step it up a notch every time you do it, too.
The more times you do it, the easier it gets. Plus, if it’s cake, like with my thing, you get to eat cake, and share it with your friends.
Happy Wednesday, folks.
Here’s some confidence cake, with cherry butter-cream icing that I baked on my last day off….. Next I will try some dietary requirements cakes.
If you want someone to help you build your confidence, it might be worth booking in for an appointment with me.
Central Highlands Pain & Wellbeing 