K-Mart and Self Belief

Self Belief – I recently quit the security of a permanent government job because I felt like it was making me kinda sick, both physically and mentally. It wasn’t the people, I had an amazing and inspiring team around me, it wasn’t the students and the demands of the role, although there were elements and challenges that were, to me, often tiring and predictable. I’d just got to a point where my whole mind and body said ‘no, not this’.

My dear friend, Soraia, with her great wisdom and kind heart, shared this simple statement with me and said there was power in knowing what wasn’t right even if you weren’t completely sure of where you were heading. She was so right. Thank you Soraia. After a period of confusion and me googling the symptoms of burnout late at night I decided to just ‘lean in’ (this phrase is overused I know) to what I loved – art and art making but also sharing my knowledge about art, particularly ceramics and watercolour with others. This lead me to an art teaching role in a school (previously I’d worked in diverse learning) with it’s jam packed daily rush to do, get done, meet outcomes, tick boxes, do more, innovate, inspire and correct. Consequently I found myself using the term ‘unacceptable’ a lot and ‘get out!’  ha ha, no I hardly said that but boy, I won’t lie, some days I could say it AS the students enter the classroom! Seriously though, teaching art was a step closer to where my heart was leading me.

So speaking of heart let’s get to the point – self belief – I believe there exists a range or continuum of this essential trait which we all tend to hover around – not in a fixed way but as an average, so to speak. I know we can all look at our life experiences and pinpoint moments or significant memories that affected us and say aha that’s why I am this way or that but I think there’s much more to it than this. To be a person with lots of self belief requires confidence in your abilities, your judgement and your positive qualities. It ties in with your self esteem and then feeds into your actions and decisions – will I take this risk and trust that I’ll be okay, if I fail will I be able to stay upright, when things are hard can I keep pushing through?

So back to me, after all, it’s my blog – I finally got some of this stuff - $2.50 from K-Mart – a little mirror (bear with me this is an analogy I’m attempting here) – I looked carefully and saw the things I’d achieved over time and with application and determination, I put aside, after consideration, the opinions of others that I could see were reflections or projections of their own level of self belief. We’re all on our own journey here so no judgement intended. I came to see my own weaknesses and limitations, many as there are, not as something to hold me back but as something that I can keep working on and believe that I can keep going and make some headway regardless.

There’s more to it than this of course, nothing is ever simple is it? The other glaringly obvious factor that is needed to get a bit more self belief rolling in, is the people you choose to have around you. But that’s a whole other topic.

My question to you is where is your ‘self belief’ at? Did you ever need to buy a $2.50 mirror from K-Mart or are you someone who’s felt high in the continuum?