In my early life, believing I could do anything I set my mind to, was akin to understanding a foreign language. No hablo ingles! Not only was I incapable of conceptualizing that, I was disconnected from the idea that my life and its future was within reach or within my control.
As a young High Schooler, I had a strong overwhelming sense of my imminent and immediate demise. My death anxiety did not hover over me like a cloud, rather, it loomed and lingered around my excitement.
In anticipation of life’s great accomplishments, getting my driver’s license, graduating from high school or going to college I faced a real and legitimate fear of death. I couldn’t visualize my death or the potential action which may cause it, I just knew I would die before I could relish in the pride of my accomplishment.
Those thoughts did not have a voice but thrived in silence.
Truly believing I could do anything I set my mind to took years to develop. It required a fervent conviction that surfaced only after seemingly endless tribulations I believed were out of my control and left me at the starting gate long after the race had begun.
There are several notable steps that reframed my perspective and changed my attitude. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see them coming when they arrived, but I undoubtedly found them after they left thanks to my lifelong friend Hindsight.
Surprisingly negligible and simple, I slowly started accomplishing things I feared I couldn’t and began collecting small successes. This pattern of accomplishment enabled room for confidence and pride while illuminating what I did to get there.
The small successes showed me what confidence felt and looked like in a time in my life when I didn’t even know what it was.
It’s impossible to teach someone how to be confident and proud, they are both innately inherent components of the process of success and accomplishment. Feelings, outcomes and results. We do because we are.
That’s why we feel shitty when we fail. It sucks! Even if failing eventually enables success, the feeling in the moment is deflating and defeating.
Fortunately, despite my self-imposed angst, I eventually started to believe in myself. The shift in mindset highlighted the connection between positive efforts and actions with positive results and outcomes and laid the foundation for future accomplishments.
It single handedly extinguished my premature and unwarranted fear of dying.
Again and again and again in my life, this pattern of thought has delivered everything I set my mind to. I knew if I didn’t quit or give up, I would get there. Forward, backward, up, down, straight or winding, it didn’t matter.
With persistence the result was delivered as ordered.
The power of believing I can do anything I set my mind to created the limitless belief exemplified by the resilience and perseverance my Hungarian grandparents so humbly illustrated. They had so much more on the line than I ever have or will ever dream to have. I won’t let them down.
Every day I strive to reach higher than I did the day before even if what I want is beyond my grasp. If I don’t, how can I do better tomorrow than I did today? Believing I can do anything I set my mind to supports endless possibilities and endless outcomes.
There is no other way to live.
