Clarity, Confidence, Conviction

Clarity, Confidence, Conviction

The beginning of a New Year feels the same as when I begin a new journal. All the pages are fresh and blank inside a beautiful bound book, ready to be filled with the adventures of my life. This feeling is both exciting and full of the anxiety as I anticipate the unfolding of this New Year. The one thing I know is that I have taken my finger off the pause button and am ready to live full-out! As the lead coach of Living at YES! I am committed to saying “YES!” to life. How about you?

Have you set your intentions for the year, begin to have clarity in what you want to create for the year or is your life still on hold waiting until you know exactly what it is you want? Are you answering, “Um…maybe, I don’t know, let’s wait and see.” How many times have you heard yourself offer this response? Did you realize that these responses are much like pushing the “hold” button to experiencing life? Your life is on hold when you are not living at “yes?”

“Living at YES!” means you live your life full-out. You are open to possibilities, to opportunities. It means you live your life with Clarity, Conviction and Confidence. “Living at YES!” means you have learned how to enjoy the present moment and that you embrace all that life has to offer. You have become more fully empowered, allowing life to unfold before you with ease.

“Living at YES!” does not mean that you say, “yes” to everything that comes your way. When you live at “yes” you are empowered to say “no.” There is a verse in the Christian Holy Book that says, “Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.” In other words, be clear in your choice.

Clarity
Living in the power of choice means that you are not a victim to life’s circumstances. When you know you have a choice, you are living in freedom.
In order to be clear on your choice, you are first acknowledging that you have a choice.

“I don’t know” and “maybe” are phrases of doubt. When you live in the energy of doubt, you are shut down to life. Once shut down, you soon begin to lack the confidence necessary to take the next step moving you forward into your life. and doubt soon grows into fear. Living in doubt and fear can soon become paralyzing. Once paralyzed, choice is not an option and you feel like a victim. When you live your life as victim, life responds by creating more circumstances that support you feeling like a victim. The life force energy, now being cut off from its natural flow, will begin to be reflected in your health, your relationships, your physical body and in you wallet. You may begin to experience stiff joints, a decrease in your cash flow and an increase in your waist size. You may begin to experience stress in your relationships and just too many hard days at the office.

Living in doubt is like having a hidden virus in your computer, the invisible bug that has been slowly creeping its way into your files, contaminating them. You only notice it when you realize you have become locked out and unable to access what you need.

Life offers us basically two choices. One choice is to repel life and the other choice is to embrace life. We are either embracing or repelling. When you live in doubt, you are actually making the choice to push life away. Ironically, what we are pushing away is what we want to experience most.

I once heard someone say that when we say, “I don’t know,” we are really saying, “I am too afraid to take any action; I am too afraid to take the next step towards embracing life.” “I don’t know” is really a response that signifies that one is shutting down.

Moving forward with Confidence

A survey by a Harvard Psychologist showed there are two things that make people happy. One is that they know exactly what they want - clarity; and two, they know they were moving towards getting it – confidence. Life feels great when you realize your goal and know you are confidently moving towards it. What is confidence and what gives someone confidence?

Confidence is having a feeling of trust within yourself. When you live with confidence, you are feeling good about yourself and you trust that you will respond to life’s situations in an empowering way. Like self-esteem, confidence grows as you place your awareness onto it. Every action you take that you can feel good about, every step forward that you take, even when feeling the fear and doing it anyway, builds your levels of confidence. Confidence builds as you build your confidence – one-experience–at-a-time.

Quoting myself from last week’s article, “when you live in the energy of doubt, you are shut down to life. Once shut down, you soon begin to lack the confidence necessary to take the next step, moving you forward into your life. Doubt soon grows into fear. Living in doubt and fear can often become paralyzing. Once paralyzed, choice is not an option and you feel like a victim. When you live your life as victim, life responds by creating more circumstances that support you feeling like a victim. The life force energy is being cut off from its natural flow.”

In the movie, The Secret, Jack Canfield offered the following analogy. “You can drive from NY to CA in the dark with your headlights shining only 200 feet ahead of you.” Once you have clarity, you can take the next right step towards your goal with confidence. You put yourself in the natural flow of the life energy force trusting that you will know what to do next. Your level of confidence builds each step of the way.

Remember that we are all a little unsure when we try something new. Our confidence may get rattled a bit, but when you can step back and sit in your clarity, you recommit with conviction.

Conviction
The word conviction means having a strong persuasion or belief. I heard this word frequently spoken in a former religious setting. It would be common to hear someone say they have a strong conviction for Christ. Meaning, they have a strong belief, they are convicted, in the teachings of the religion. Let’s take the word conviction out of the religious context. What are your convictions?

In the core of you, what are your beliefs? When you examine your core, what is the Truth that lies deep within you? My studies in metaphysics have taught me the importance of knowing what I believe. I learned that my beliefs are the basis of how I interpret my life’s experiences. How I view and respond to my life’s experiences is based on what I believe. My beliefs are formed by the thoughts I have, which are fueled by my emotions.

What strong beliefs do you have? What perceptions of the world do you hold firmly as your Truth? When we came into this world, we entered free of thinking. We were just busy having fun. Then, as time passed, we were programmed and trained on how to perceive and respond to the world.

At the beginning of this series, I stated that “Living at YES!” means you live your life full out. You have learned to enjoy the present moment and you embrace all that life has to offer. When you examine your beliefs, do they empower you to live in full expression? Do your beliefs allow you to stretch your comfort zone?

Empower yourself to stop and explore the beliefs that hold you back, that keep you from really being who you are and doing what you are meant to do in this lifetime. Empower yourself to live with strong conviction, making the necessary changes from the inside out.

Make it a priority in your life to live with Clarity, Confidence and Conviction.
Live at YES!

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