Confidence: It's your secret, and it's your relationship to your now

Confidence, ultimately is about doing. What's your secret? How do you do what you do? Isn't that a favorite question of interviewers?

We want to know how successful people do what they do. We all want to shape our future. Yet all we have is the present. Our connection to the present is the shaping of our future. The famed Los Angeles Rams football coach used the say "The future is now". And how right he was. And the measure of our confidence is something essential that we bring to the present moment.

Confidence is the belief that we have the resources to do something. We have our personal gifts. They are our secret. We have what is necessary to achieve what is most important to us. Confidence is not imaginary. It is a deep seated belief in life itself. It is also personal, and universal . It is best mixed with humility, and hard work and it results in experiences. A low level of confidence produces a low level of experience, and a high level of confidence a higher level of experience. But confidence always produces experience. Steve Prefontaine used to say "someone may beat me, but they will have to bleed to do it" That is a form of confidence that showed a high level of commitment.

We can know confidence by looking at it's opposite. A lack of confidence is evidenced by a fear of acting, not being quite sure, never feeling enough resources are available, even by not doing the work. It is not honoring the space that we should take up, not knowing who we are, not shining forth. Fear and uncertainty are things that keep confidence from manifesting. So a confident person does not allow as much of these hindrances to work.

Over the last few months, even years, a definition of personal confidence has been forming for me. I must manifest who I am, and not think, that I don't matter, for I know I do, I must. This is my responsibility. It is what I intend to do now.

“Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?” (Robert Shaw)
Faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
May you have successful running and living- Scott

Practices To Promote Progress

The Mind/Body headed in one direction is the path of progress. It is the way to step outside the ordinary and come closer being who we are. So what are some practices can help us achieve our potential?

Four components of life are thinking, sensing, feeling, and action (or motion) - M. Feldenkrais. All these components are inextricably linked, so to improve one may improve all.

Action is the first practical idea toward improvement and transcendence of the ordinary.

Notice that thinking and acting are tied together with sensing the environment. So learn about running form. Learn about your own running form. Learn how to cooperate with gravity, use momentum, and alignment and balance. Learn to use ground forces. Learn from others. Use video. Find a running form coach. Strip away the unnecessary. Leave what is the best use of your unique self and structure.

We have an inner sense of balance, and alignment too.

Notice that our thinking shapes our action. It interprets our sensing and creates and links with our feeling. This is key. Years ago I thought that affirmations were non sense. I did not think they could evoke change, they seemed like more of a trick , something that my mind would not buy into. But I had it backwards. The commitment exists first, and then the action takes place. We decide and then we "make it so". If we look at the four elements again, we see that the greatest affirmation is acting, which is actually expressed in motion. The united will starts with the intention in the mind and follows a path that creates a different acting, one where we act and move consistently with our intent.
Let your physical movements express your intention!

I recently decided to make an instructional video. But when I viewed my first attempt, I discovered that my facial expressions were saying the opposite of what I intended. In the second attempt, I dialed up the energy level, and connected in a much better way with the message I intended. It was a beginning. It was progress. It was not only much better but the sensing of what I needed to do spilled over into other areas of my life. Changing my physical actions changed the process.

Keep sensing !
Next - How to explore outside your comfort zone.