Power Habit #1: Self-Assuredness & Self-Belief – Clarifying Your Vision

Self-Assuredness—Vision. Intention. Belief.

One of the most striking features of people who seem successful, and who others aspire to emulate, is their self-assuredness.

They have an air of certainty and conviction, and they seem to lack any self-doubt or insecurities. With one eye on the future, one eye in the present moment, they are focused on what they want to achieve and aren’t anchored to their failures in the past.

They are someone who others say, “She knows where she’s going.’

Yet hope as we might, just as there’s no magic wand you can wave to instantly transform your body into a fit, athletic, muscular physique, there is no magic wand to increase your self-assuredness and self-belief. Some genetics do come into play, but generally your fitness and physique is a result of discipline and the habit of regular exercise.

So too with self-assuredness and self-belief—it requires regular mental exercise.

Although success is multifactorial and differs from person to person, there are common fundamentals that you can replicate and make part of your day-to-day routine. These fundamentals are Identity (‘I Am’), Purpose (‘I Will’), and Conviction (‘I Can’).

#1: Identity: Clarifying your vision of who you are—I Am!

#2: Purpose: Amplifying your intent—I Will!

#3: Conviction: Reinforcing your self-belief—I Can!

All three traits—I Am, I Will, I Can—build your faith in who you want to be and what you want to do.

It’s like a mantra: “I am! I will! I can!” The more you repeat it in the gymnasium of your mind, the stronger your faith muscle becomes.

What you give regular attention and nurture to is strengthened.

Attention and nurture are the equivalent of regular workouts at the gym. All three components—I Am (Vision), I Will (Intent), I Can (Belief)—build and strengthen your faith muscle by constant repetition and discipline.

The opposite is also true. Failure to achieve your desired outcomes is a common result of a weak or atrophied faith muscle. Failure commonly follows those who have mind fog and no clear vision of what they want, or even who they want to be.

Failure commonly follows those who are more certain of failure than they are of success. Failure also tends to follow those who are lacking in the self-belief department.

So the first step to transform your life into success is to build and strengthen your faith muscle.

Power Element—Faith (*From The Power of YOU! How to Manifest the Life You Want by Dr. Scott Zarcinas)

Identity: Clarifying Your Vision – I Am!

“I am!” is the most powerful statement of being there is.

In fact, there is no other statement of being. Everything you think about yourself and explain who you are to others begins with, “I am!”

I am… a teacher, doctor, lawyer, banker, bus driver, student, cleaner, husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister.

I am… Australian, American, European, African, Asian, Arabian, British, Indian, Polynesian, Latino, citizen of the earth.

I am… a warrior, lover, activist, hippy, musician, footballer, baseballer, priest, rabbi, imam, writer, ballerina, artist, soul of the world.

In my book, It’s Up To You! Why People Fail to Live the Life they Want and How to Change It, I discuss how everything begins with who you are, your “I am”.

From you arises all your thoughts, dreams, hopes, desires. From you arises the beginning of all inspiration and motivation for being the person you want to be and doing the things you want to do.

From you arises your purpose and meaning, as well as all the plans and strategies and mechanics of how you can be and do what you want.

Your ‘who’ is the foundation upon which your ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ is built.

You therefore need to know yourself, and you need to know yourself well. This means knowing who you are now and who you want to be.

People who achieve success know the importance of this, and they make a habit of continually defining who they are and identifying their “I am”.

So don’t think small. Don’t be small.

Small-minded thinking is disabling and self-limiting. When your ‘I Am’ is identified with a small, limited sense of being, you disable yourself as much as you would if you wore a blindfold and tried to walk with your shoelaces tied together.

You stumble forward. You don’t know which direction to take. You don’t know what you should do next. You keep bumping into things and making a mess.

One day, or even one week, of this would seem bad enough, but imagine spending your entire life in this state. Imagine spending your entire life thinking you’re small, limited, isolated, and powerless. Unfortunately, this is a common reality for most people.

More often than not, though, the underlying issue affecting our capabilities is not our lack of ability or our lack of know-how, but our clarity of vision. Specifically, the clarity of vision of who and what we are.

But what blindfolds us? What gets in the way of seeing clearly? What prevents us from having 20/20 vision?

The parable of The Pastor’s Wife gives us a clue.

Every weekend, a pastor’s wife noticed the next-door neighbour hanging out her bedsheets on the clothesline. But every weekend the sheets were stained and dirty.

“What’s going on over there?” the pastor’s wife asked her husband. “Her sheets are always filthy.”

The pastor looked through the kitchen window beyond the fence to the next-door neighbour’s clothesline, saying nothing.

Again, the same thing happened the following weekend. The pastor’s wife, noticing the sheets on the neighbour’s clothesline, shook her head and complained at how filthy the sheets were. Again the pastor said nothing.

The same thing also happened the following weekend. And again. And again. And again, until the pastor decided to do something about it. Before the neighbour hung out her bedsheets the following weekend, the pastor filled up his bucket, propped his ladder against the kitchen window, then wiped away the dust and the grime that had accumulated from the rain and wind.

Later that day, the pastor’s wife looked across at the neighbour’s clothesline, and said, “Oh, look, the neighbours must have bought a new washing machine. Their bedsheets are sparkling clean.”

The dust and grime on our windows to the outside world is our constant mental chatter.

The negative thoughts that churn in our head, the resentments, the judgements, the fears, the hatreds, the angers, the jealousies, the gossips, the worries, the vanities, the wants, the desires, the rejections, the shames, the blames, the never being good enoughs.

These are the things that smudge our eyes. These are the things we must wipe away before we can see clearly.

But why should we care? Why should it matter whether or not we see clearly?

Because those who are crystal clear on who they are, what they want to do, why they do it, and how they do it are far more successful than those who don’t have that clarity.

They are far more successful than the small-minded ones who see the world and themselves through dirty and dusty windows.