Everyone has looked into a mirror before. Usually right when you wake up, or when you’re about to leave the house. Sometimes it’s a cursory glance just to make sure you don’t have any part of your everything bagel stuck in your teeth. For the somewhat “high maintenance” people it might be more of a prolonged look to make sure every hair is in its proper place. No matter how much time you spend in front of it we all check it every day.
There’s another mirror that we check every day but it’s not visible to the eye. This mirrors reflection is who you believe you are. The picture to the left is of a regular house cat that sees himself as a lion. I loved this picture from the second I saw it. I truly believe that you are what you think you are.
Everyone laughs at the guy on the dance floor twitching like he’s having a seizure. It doesn’t look like he can dance a lick to you but he’s on the floor all night having the time of his life. In his mind he’s the best dancer that has ever lived and that’s all that matters. The really funny thing is the criticism is usually coming from people that are standing up against the wall afraid to even get out there.
How many times have you heard the story of the Cinderella? A beautiful woman that never thought she was because of the people around her. She didn’t see how special she was until someone (the prince) made her realize it. What changed? When the prince came looking for her she was still in shabby clothes. It wasn’t what she wore but who she was that was special. I’m shocked with how many people don’t believe in their own self worth. Maybe it’s the people around them. When someone is telling you over and over again that you’re worthless it’s hard to think that you’re not. Maybe something happened in their lives that made them feel this way.
I hear stories all the time of young kids being cut from a basketball team and never playing the sport again. In their mind they feel that since they were cut their worthless. They truly believe that no matter how hard they work the outcome will always be the same. My junior year of high school I didn’t make the varsity team. I used that as motivation, I never doubted myself, I just figured that I needed to work harder to show the coach I belonged and that’s what I did.
Growing up my mom thought I was going to be a math prodigy. I would add, subtract, divide, and multiply with the best of them. We would go to the store and I would play this game where I would try to add up everything the cashier was ringing up before he/she finished. Then I got to middle school and someone introduced me to Algebra. If x is this and y is this then what was this?? I had no idea what was going on. I couldn’t understand any of these new concepts and I told myself from that point on I was horrible at math. So all through high school and college I was a D/C- math student. I stopped trying, I didn’t care about math, and I would use the wonderful excuse, “when am I going to have to solve for y in real life”.
Little did I know that because of a mix up in my core classes at college I would have to take a math course about eight years after college. The math course was calculus and being that I purposely avoided Math throughout my college career I had no other options. The difference was I went in with an open mind and put in about eight hours a week working on calculus. I ended up passing with a 74, for a kid that never got above a 65 in high school I was pretty pumped up. I realized that when I finally told myself I could do the work I was able to do so.
What messages do you send yourself every day? Do you believe in what you do? Are you confident enough to believe in yourself even when no one else does? If you don’t believe in yourself who else will? Understand that the confidence you have or don’t have is determined by you. You control it. If you believe in yourself others will too.
Imagine a coach right before a big game telling his/her players that not only was he/she scared to death of the other team, but he/she didn’t think the team was prepared enough to win. The other coach is too good and so are his players. How do you think that pre-game speech would go? How could anyone follow that coach into battle knowing that he/she didn’t even believe in himself/herself?
“I’d be more afraid of the army of sheep being lead by the lion, than the army of lions being lead by the sheep”
Remember it starts and ends with you. As soon as you start believing you’re special you’ll feel that way. Don’t let anyone or anything break the belief you have in yourself. Why see yourself as a kitten when you can see yourself as a lion? Each one of us is unique in our own way. There’s something about us that makes us stand out. Don’t let the ones standing against the wall stop you from dancing; maybe they’ll even join you.
