Welcome to Confused To Confident Where There Are No Mistakes

Hello all you wonderful women. This is the first post on my blog, Confused to Confident. I'm excited to start this journey with you. Going from being confused to being confident, in all areas of your life, will bring you joy and fulfillment. If this is your first time here make sure you check out the information in the side bar, it helps explain how the site can best help you, then come back here to start your journey.

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​Let's get started on our topic for today, making mistakes. We have all done things that didn't turn out well or we wish we wouldn't have done. Typically, we call it "making a mistake." What if we started looking at those mistakes as learning opportunities instead. 

No one likes making mistakes, especially when the outcome is life-changing. Sometimes, however, making mistakes can be the best path to living a better life. This only happens though if you take the time to learn from the mistake. You can't get discouraged or dragged down when things aren't going the way you planned. Confident people look at the facts of the situation and start on the task of turning what seems bad into something better.

You can check out my recent mistake, that may have saved my life, in the video after the activity.​ 

Famous People Who Made Big Mistakes

Thomas Edison said, "Every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." You may have to go through many "wrong" ways of doing things before finding the way that works best. To help motivate you to work through your mistakes, let's look at a few people you may have heard of that have had to endure failure in order to finally succeed.

Thomas Edison was already mentioned. He made mistake after mistake in trying to create a light bulb. I, for one, am very glad he didn't give up or we would be sitting in the dark. Walt Disney is another well-known person who struggled through many setbacks. His mistakes cost him the rights to his first cartoon character, lost him his job, and caused him to go bankrupt. He used the information he got from those mistakes to create an entity that millions around the world go to for entertainment. More recently are the struggles of Steve Jobs, with Apple, and Richard Branson, with Virgin. If you don't know of their mistakes, just Google their name with the word "setbacks." ​

This list could go on and on but the key here is that, in many cases, making mistakes is a vital aspect of moving forward. It's necessary to learn from your mistakes and head in a better direction with the next attempt.

This week's activity will help you change how you think about the things that don't go as planned.​

Activity - No Mistakes

Step 1

Pick one thing you have done that you felt was a mistake or that wish you had done differently. Then rate how intense the negativity feels to you right now. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being, “It’s not that big a deal.” to 10 being, “I’m so upset about this I can barely function.”

Example:

I broke my toe going out the door to get the mail without shoes on. Rated an 8 because it hurt bad.

Step 2

Think about why you did what you did. What good had you hoped would come from the action or decision?

Example:

I would save time not going to get shoes and put them on, only to have to take them off when I got back in again.

Step 3

Now comes the hard part. You need to separate the facts from the emotion and pain the action caused. Write out the facts of the incident. It helps to write them so you can easily cross off any "feeling" words that may creep in.

Example:

I was walking fast out the door. I didn’t lift my foot up high enough over the threshold so my toe caught. I had no shoes on. I was going fast enough that the force broke my toe.

Step 4

Looking at the facts, ask yourself, "What good can I get from this experience?" What positive information can you learn from it?

Example:

Slow down when walking barefoot. or Take time to put on shoes when going outside

Step 5

Re-rate the feelings you have associated with the situation now that you broke it down to learn from it.

Example:

I rate mine a 2. It still hurts, but now that I focused on what I can learn from it, it is unlikely that I will let it happen again.

That’s all there is to it. Your emotional rating should have gone down. Finding a positive in something helps to take away from the negative. If it hasn’t gone down much, you may want to go back and look for other positives, or things you can learn from it. You may want to write them down to make them more powerful, and so you don’t forget in the future. The key is to use your new knowledge in the future, to make your life more fulfilling, and to prevent the same mistake from happening again. If you want to know how my recent mistake saved my life you can read it, or watch the video, below.

The Mistake That Saved My Life

The Mistake

My daughter was having a bad day all around (you can read about her ordeal, and the need for appreciation, in a future blog). It was late in the day and she was picking me up from the airport. At our airport it’s easier to park and come in to find someone than try to connect at the curb. On this day, I already had my bags by the time she got parked but, in the few minutes her car sat there, it wouldn’t start. The battery was dead.

Amazingly enough, there was a service vehicle just pulling up behind the car next to us. Apparently they needed help to change a flat tire. I asked if he could jump our car when he was done with them. He happily got the car started just a few minutes later and, when I asked what we owed, he said it was a free service.​

I felt I should give him a tip but all I had was a ten-dollar bill and my daughter had nothing. Rationalizing that ten dollars was too much for a tip, I didn't give him anything but, after we left, I kept feeling I should have tipped him. That thought kept eating at me for a few days until I decided to run it through the mistake process.

What I Learned from the Mistake

My desire was to not spend ten dollars. What I learned was, I need to follow through when I get a feeling I should do something, even if I can find reasons not to do it. After processing the learning experience, I was able to let it go. Here comes the interesting part however.

Interesting Part of My Mistake Story

A couple of days later I got the desire to take a relaxing bath. I had just put the ingredients for coconut bread into the bread maker but knew that it ran automatically so I wouldn’t need to worry about it. Lighting a candle I slid down into the warm, soothing water. After relaxing a bit I decided to do some sense recognition. I paid attention to everything I could see, then everything I could feel, everything I could hear, and everything I could smell.

​When I got to what I could smell, I sensed the smell of fresh baked bread. (Try saying those three words three times fast). Anyway, when I sniffed I could only smell the candle but, when I thought about what I could smell, the bread smell was there. I felt that something was wrong with the bread and I should get out and check on it. Then I started rationalizing. I didn’t smell anything burning, I was REALLY comfortable and relaxed and I had been saving this bath bomb for years, waiting for just the right time to enjoy a bath. Put those together and I didn't want to move.

Then I remembered the lesson I had learned from the tow truck driver – I need to follow through when I get a feeling to do something – so I dragged myself reluctantly out of the tub. When I opened the bathroom door, there was smoke everywhere. I ran to the bread maker and unplugged it. For some reason the dry ingredients flung over the side of the container, onto the heating elements, and were starting to burn. There is no doubt that the entire contents would have burst into flame had I not caught it when I did.

Fatal Part of My Mistake Story

​Let me clarify three things here. The first is, all the smoke alarms in my house are taken down during this time; they expired and I was waiting for new ones to arrive. Second, the way my house is set up, the fire would have blocked me from escaping to an exit before I would have known there was a fire. Third, there is no window in the bathroom. It's very likely that my life was at risk had I not checked on the bread. I would have definitely talked myself out of getting up had I not learned to listen to my instincts.  Making the mistake of not listening to my instincts, in not paying the tow truck driver, saved my life. I'm glad this concept really works and, by using it, I will be around to write next week's blog post. Hope you come back and check it out.

Let me know if you tried the "No Mistakes" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where Good Can Be Found In Bad

Hello all you wonderful women. It’s great to have you here this second week of my blog posts. Thank you so much for all the good feedback last week, I really am thankful to have followers who are willing to get involved. It lets me know you are ready to take charge of your life, which is a good thing!

Today we are going to expand on the idea, that there are no mistakes, and start looking for the good in seemingly bad situations. For those of you who didn’t read the post on mistakes last week, you may want to check it out here. It relates to this same concept of finding the good in what seems bad.

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Things happen in life, some we perceive as good, some as bad, and some as horrible. The most important thing to remember is, we determine if something is good or bad. It’s our thoughts and beliefs that make something good or bad.

For example

Say one morning you were running late and you missed your bus to work. As you waited at the bus stop, fretting about how you were missing a meeting and wondering how you were going to get everything done being an hour late, the new good-looking neighbor, that you had been wanting to make a connection with, pulls up and asks if you want a ride. You can focus on the fact that you missed your meeting and are behind for the morning, which are not good things (unless of course you don’t like meetings and find them a waste of time anyway), OR you can focus on the good aspect of getting to meet the new neighbor.

Of course, not all things that seem bad are as easy to find something good in them as the example above, but if you really try to step out of the situation and look at it from a different perspective, you can usually find some good that can come out of it. 

Here's a tougher example

Most people would find it very difficult to say there is anything good in a child disappearing yet, when 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered, her mother made sure good came out of it.

It would've been easy for Amber's mother to have gotten dragged down by the bad of the incident. Many of us would be so devastated, in seeing only what horror had happened, that we would hardly be able to function. Amber's mother didn't do that however, she saw how she could make the bad situation into something good. She inspired the AMBER Alert.

In the last ten years over 800 children were rescued because of the AMBER alert program (www.amberalert.gov). It will always be a loss for Amber’s family yet something very good came out of the loss. Hundreds of children have been saved because of the loss of Amber yet her mother wouldn’t have been motivated to promote a program to help save children unless she had lost her own. 

I'm sure Amber's mother is finding some comfort knowing that the loss of her daughter is saving hundreds of other children. That's the idea of this post. Looking to find some good in your bad situations will help them seem less bad. You may even be able to find humor in them as my daughter did in her very bad day.

You can check out my daughter's very bad day, and how I helped her see the good in all the bad situations, in the video, or text, after the activity.​ 

This week's activity will help you change how you think about the things that don't go as planned.​

Activity - Bad to Good

It’s easier to make light of the situation when it isn't our situation. This activity is short but it may take some practice. If you need help, be sure to post it in the comments so the community can help you to see the problem from an outside perspective.

Step 1

Think of one bad thing that has happened to you. It can be something recent or something that has been bothering you for a while.

Step 2

Imagine a friend coming to you with that very problem. Think about you sitting down to lunch and them struggling to get out how confused and upset they are about the problem.

Step 3

What would you say to them? How would you comfort them? Would you have possible solutions? Is it one of those things an outsider would laugh about? What could you do to help them feel less bad about the situation? 

Step 4

Write down your answers from Step 3. I'm sure you've figured out, those are the same things you can tell yourself.

By making the problem someone else's, it's easier to see some of the good that can come out of it.

Warning

If you have others that you often share with, you need to be careful about using them as a sounding board. We usually pick friends that have the same viewpoints as we do. If your friends just get bogged down in your pity party, the process won't work well. You want positive input or none at all. 

Laughing At A Very Bad Day

I’m going to tell you of my daughter’s really bad day.

Lost Opportunity

Her day started off with her getting up late and having to rush to make a meeting. It was an important meeting, she was negotiating a long-term sponsorship with a major corporation. Since she had been rushed and was feeling stressed, her presentation lacked the conviction needed to get the corporation on board long term. They did, however, offer her a one time $4,000 grant and promised to keep an eye on the organization for possible future sponsorship. She totally discounted what she did accomplish and focused on the fact that she didn’t get the long-term commitment. This left her grumbly the rest of the day.

Lost Car

The next setback came when she arrived back home and couldn’t find her car in the airport parking lot. We both were flying out the same day so I had driven to the airport. She had been on her phone and didn’t pay attention to where I was parking.  When she got to the airport parking lot, she walked around clicking her key fob listening for her car to beep. It took her nearly half an hour of clicking before she could determine where the sound of her horn was coming from. Of course she focused on the frustration of not being able to find her car rather than the good thing that she had a car new enough to beep when you push the key button. She could have had to walk every floor, row by row to find her car. That could have taken hours.

No Gas

Once she found her car and started it, she remembered it was nearly out of gas. Already being frustrated about walking around in the heat to find her car, this only irritated her more. She composed herself enough to use her phone to find the nearest gas station, which was only a couple miles away. When she got there, however, they were out of business. Nearly in tears by this time, she searched and found another one nearby. She did get there and filled up with gas before she ran out. Again, her focus stayed on the negative; she almost ran out of gas and the first gas station was closed. She totally missed the good in the fact that she didn’t run out of gas. She also had a phone that helped her find close gas stations and they weren't in a dangerous neighborhoods. 

Dead Battery

Later, when she picked me up from the airport, in just the few minutes it took to come in and get me, her battery died and her car wouldn’t start. Like I told you in last week's post, just as we were getting the number for AAA, a service truck pulled up to the car beside us to help the guy change a tire. The service guy had us started in less than five minutes. On top of that, there was no charge, yet my daughter focused on it being  just another bad thing that happened.

Finding The Good

As she was telling me her woes for the day, I couldn’t help but thinking there seemed to be a pattern. For everything bad that happened, there had been something good that went along with it, yet my daughter was so focused on the negative she couldn’t see the positive in each situation. When she started complaining that she would now have to spend money for a new battery, I had to stop her.

I started with the fact that she HAD the money to be able to go out and get a new battery. For many people this could be a huge financial burden. They may not even be able use their vehicle until they got their next paycheck. They may not have any money to buy the battery until then. Then I pointed out all the other positives that came with each "bad" situation.

Thankfully, once I pointed out all the good things, she was able to redirect her focus from the bad to the good. She ended up actually laughing at it all. Sometimes things keep happening until you get the message being given (I will go into this more in a future post.) I think my daughter’s message that day was to look for the good in life. That's a good message for all of us to remember.

Let me know if you tried the "From Bad to Good" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where You Can Answer The Question, "Who Am I?"

Hello all you wonderful women. Knowing who you are and who you want to be, is the key to becoming an amazing, confident, woman. Rarely do any of us take the time to sit down and figure out if we really like who we are but it’s one of the most crucial things we need to do. You must like yourself! Knowing, and liking, who you are, is very important if you are to enjoy life.

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Who Are You Chained To?

If you met someone who was really irritating you, you'd probably try to avoid them as much as possible. Imagine if you had to be chained to them every day and night, it might be difficult to be happy. That’s what’s happening if you don’t truly like who you are. If you don’t like yourself, it'll be difficult to lead a happy life. 

Most people are comfortable with most aspects of themselves but there are very few people who like everything about who they are. Today's activity will start you on the first step of fully liking who you are.

Finding Out Who You Are

Before you can determine if you like who you are, you need to figure out who you are. Not what you do but who you are! What do you believe in, what makes you happy, how do you see yourself, how do others see you? If you have no idea how to answer those questions you have a little bit of work ahead of you. If you have a general idea, take some time to fine tune it, get very specific.

Ideally you could take a weekend at a posh hotel, with a view of the beach from your room, and return home with very specific knowledge of who you are and who you want to be, but, if you’re like most of us and only have 15 minutes over lunch while you chew on your tuna wrap, that will work too.

Just get started and work towards a complete picture as soon as possible. After all, why would you want to spend another minute being someone you don’t like; it’s better to be all you would want to be, isn’t it? You can use this week’s activity to help you get started.

Not Setting Goals

To be clear, you are not looking to fulfill goals or achieve all your desires here, although both of these things are a part of what will happen as you go. What you are doing is figuring out how to most fully enjoy the process of everything you do by first loving yourself. Life is made to enjoy and if you are not enjoying at least 90% of the minutes you live, you need to make changes. After doing the activity you should know if one of those changes includes making changes in who you are or how you see yourself. 

What You Will Learn From The Activity

There are two sets of activities you can do this week, the quick, online, version, or the printable extended version. It’s best if you do the extended version but even doing just the quick activity will give you a better idea on what makes you who you are.

The activity will also show you how far you are from where you want to be. This is very helpful since we all like to know how far it is and how long it’s going to take to get somewhere.

Just like travel time depends a lot on the traffic, the time it will take to get to your life’s ideal self, will depend a lot on how busy you are and how much time you're willing to commit to the process. You will, however, have a good idea of how much work it's going to take to get there, how far you need to go.

Just know, that the sooner you arrive to living your life as a person you admire, the better life you will have. Being the person you want to be builds the confidence you need to start experiencing the best there is in life.

Activity - Who Am I?

If you only have a few minutes, try the Quick Activity, if you have more time, or want to print off a more in-depth version, I would suggest you have the full activity emailed to you and print it out. Making printed copies works well for re-doing the activity in a few months to see how you have progressed too.

Step 1

​Look at each pair of personality traits below and write down which one in each pair sounds most like you. Remember to pick the one that represents who you are, not who you wish you were.

Explanation:

The exercise should be done quickly, spending only a couple of seconds for each choice. Using your first reaction usually gives the best results.

If you get stuck on one, move past it and come back to it at the end. When you revisit it, see if one of the terms is something you don’t like about others. Often the things that we don’t like about others are the same things we don’t like about ourselves.

Traits

High Energy - Low Key

Animated - Relaxed​

Loud - Quiet​

Brave - Shy​

Intense - Mild​

Bold - Meek​

Activity - Rest​

Neat - Grungy​

Charming - Abrasive​

Casual - Classy​

Step 2

Once you have a list of your personality traits, go back through and determine which trait you admire most in each set and write it down. 

Explanation:

Don't look at the first answers you wrote down, just go through the list fresh and write which trait most appeals to you.

Step 3

Now compare the lists. Are the personality traits you admire the same ones you feel you have? If so great! If not, you have a couple of choices. Look at which traits are different; taking one at a time, decide if you want to follow up with choice 1 or 2.

Choice One:

You want to change that trait about yourself.

Choice Two:

You want to change the perception you have about that trait.

Examples:

If you desire order but live in chaos you may choose to take steps to be more organized. This would be changing who you are to better fit what you admire.

If you are complex and envy people who are easy-going, you may want to change your perception and learn to embrace your complexity.

Look at which changes would most help you be who you want to be. Don’t shy away from ones that may seem too difficult to change, just let your dreams go wild and choose your greatest desire. Liking who you are is too important to put off just because it may seem to be a challenge changing.

How To Make The Changes

If you do the activity this week you'll have a start in finding joy in life. This activity can be tough, especially if you do the extended version, but it's so worth it. I'm not giving you the steps to make the changes now because I want you to have time to make choices on what changes you are going to make. Next week we'll go a step further and work on the process of moving from where you are to where you want to be. You have a destination, next week you'll create a map on how to get there.

If you are completely happy with who you are today, that’s great! Check out next week's post to find out how to get started improving other areas of your life.

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Let me know if you tried the "Who Am I" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where You Can Have Any Life You Desire

Hi all you wonderful women. This week we’re going to look at having the best life you can imagine by learning how to get from where you are, to where you want to be. If you did the activity in the last post you have a better understanding of who you are and how it may differ from who you’d like to be. If you didn’t do last week’s activity, can I suggest that you do. You can find it here. It was great for evaluating your life to figure out who you are.

What do you do when you have to go somewhere you’ve never been before? Several years ago, you would take out a map and draw out the best route, or ask for specific directions from the person at the place you were going. Today most of us take out our phones and type in where we want to go and it tells us every turn we need to make to get there. There isn’t anyone who would just get in their car and start driving with no clue as to what direction to go. It sounds crazy to even think about doing that. There’s no way you would ever get to where you needed to be. So why do most of us do this very thing when it comes to living our life? We may have a list of what we want to get done each day, some may even have yearly goals, but how does it all fit into the big picture of who you are and what you want from life? You must have a plan, a map of your life.

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There's No App For Your Life

Maybe someday there’ll be an app on our phones that gives step by step directions on exactly what to do next in our life, an individualized route for each of us to live our life to its fullest, but for now we have to create those directions ourselves. Don’t drive another day down the road of your life without a map. For this week’s activity I’m giving you the outline for your map, you just need to fill it in and follow it.

The Law Of Attraction?

I am going to say here that this is basically a step by step guide to the law of attraction. If you think that stuff is all a bunch of garbage, just finish reading and see if you might be open to a different perspective.

I have to agree that just wanting something is probably not going to make it appear, if it did everyone would have everything they ever wanted. That definitely is not the way it works. What will work though, is if you truly believe you will have something, or will be able to do something, you will. You have to feel so sure that there’s no room for even the tiniest bit of doubt. You’re probably thinking, “Sure but I don’t believe that, so what now?” This week’s activity will show you how to make that happen. Again, if you’re skeptical, just read it. You may want to read my current personal example at the end too.

Activity - Get What You Want In Life

To start this week’s activity pick ONE thing you want different in your life. I realize you may want many things but you must focus on one thing at a time. Those of you who did last week’s activity could start on a personality trait you want to change.

After picking one thing you want to change in your life it needs to be written down in a specific way. It’s important that you’re very specific on what you want and when you want it. It’s also important to put it in a positive, present tense. The statement needs to be written in a way that you know when you have reached your outcome. Here are a couple of examples to explain what I mean.

Poor Example 1:

“I want a better personality”

This is unspecific, has no time, is not in the present, and there is no way to know when it is accomplished

Good Example 1:

“By December, I speak in such a soft-spoken voice that sometimes my friends can’t hear what I am saying.”

This is specific (speak in soft-spoken voice), has a time frame (by October), is in the present, like you already do it (I speak), and you know it has been accomplished if friends are asking you to repeat yourself.

Poor Example 2:

“I want to be rich”

Again, this is unspecific, has no time, is not in the present, and there is no way to know when it is accomplished.

Good Example 2:

“I have one million dollars to spend as I want by December 2018.”

It is specific (one million dollars to spend as wanted), has a time (by December 2018), is stated in the present (I have), and it will be easy to know if you have it.

Step 1

Write down one thing you want, making sure:

- It is very specific

- It is stated in the present tense

- It has a time frame

NOTE: If you are far from believing that you can have this thing you want, give yourself a little more time to get there because you will have a few more steps to take, but don’t put it so far out that it won’t even matter anymore. After all you want that fulfilling life sooner not later.

- You will know when you have accomplished it.

Example 1:

“By December, I speak in such a soft-spoken voice that sometimes my friends can’t hear what I am saying.”

Example 2:

“I have one million dollars to spend as I want by December 2018.”

Step 2

Write down what you believe now about this accomplishment. 

This should be fairly easy since you live with this belief every day, most likely even commenting on it. If it's a personality trait you are trying to change, you may even make jokes about yourself to cover it up. Be honest and open with this assessment. No one will need to see it except you.

Using the examples from above here’s how that may look.

Example 1:

"I have a very loud voice that sometimes offends people when I am talking to them."

Example 2:

“I'll never have a million dollars."

Step 3

This one may take some thought but is the key to this process. You need to come up with a statement that is closer to what you want than you are at now but is still believable to you. 

You’ll need to find a statement that you can believe fully even though it may be a stretch at the time. Remember believing in what you are saying, with a deep feeling behind it, is what’s going to bring results.

Using our examples again, here are some possible statements.

Example 1:

​

“I whisper when telling a secret.”

“I talk quietly when I’m on the phone.”

“I sometimes make my voice quiet when I talk.”

Example 2:

​

“If I add up every dollar I have earned in my life, I've had one million dollars.”

“I’ve never been starving on the street so I know I will always have enough; my ‘enough’ is now getting bigger.”

“I have some money I can spend any way I want to.” (You can say this even if it’s only $1.00)

Step 4

Take some time, at least twice a day, and say this new statement. Put feeling into it and really sense it as being completely true until IT is your new belief instead of your original one. Every time you catch yourself thinking or saying your original belief, replace it with the new statement.

Step 5

As you are saying your new statement, give thanks or thoughts of appreciation for it. The more you appreciate what you have, the more you will have to appreciate.

Example 1:

“I’m glad I can sometimes make my voice quite when I talk.”

Example 2:

“I’m so lucky I have some money I can spend any way I want to.”

Step 6

Once you completely believe your new statement, without a doubt at all, and you never revert to your original belief, go back to Step 3 and come up with another statement that is even closer to your ideal.

You'll continue to repeat this process until you're believing you will have what you want. This may take you only one or two rounds or may take many small steps. Each round may be as short as a day or as long as a month. Just stick with it, repeating, with feeling, the newest statement every day, and you will get there

Here's how that may look when you have gotten one step away from your ideal.

Example 1:

“I can talk quieter.”

(Unless you are physically incapable, this is a true statement)

Example 2:

“I like having a million dollars.”

(You would if you had it so this is a true statement

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Remember these key items:

* All your statements (except your current belief) must be:

Specific

Stated in Present Tense

* Your final statement must be:

Specific

Stated in present tense

Have a  time frame

Be stated so you know if it has been achieved

* The newest statement must be a step closer to your desire than the prior one.

* You must say the newest statement at least twice daily, feeling the truth of it, until it replaces the prior belief.

Congratulations on completing the first route on your map to a better life. This exercise can be done with anything you desire but it’s best to only be working on one thing at a time. If you want to see how I put this into action you can read one of my latest personal desires, and see its progress, below.

Getting What I Want

All My Life I've Wanted A Lamborghini

I have always wanted a Lamborghini. Before I even started driving I fell in love with those doors that go up instead of out. A couple of years ago I decided to put having a Lamborghini on my list of things I was going to have and I wrote this down. “I am driving a red, convertible, Lamborghini, Aventador Roadster in five years.”

My original belief was that I would never be able to afford a nice car like that. Of course all my friends and family reinforced that statement whenever I told them that was the car I wanted.

My next statement was fairly easy. My statement was “I can buy a brand new red car.” That seemed reasonable since I had once bought a brand new truck.

My New Car

Amazingly enough, it wasn’t but a few weeks later when I went out of town and ended up in a red convertible Camaro rental car. The joy I got out of driving that car was indescribable. I have a saying on my mirror, “What makes you happy? Then do it.” It made me very happy driving that car so when I got home I looked for one to buy.

Let me explain something here. At the time I had no job and very little in savings but I had a burning desire to be driving that Camaro. I’m not going to go into all the details, if you want you can request them from me below, but I will say I had that car in my driveway within a month.

My Next Statement

My next statement was another easy one and it only took me a couple of days to fully feel its truth. “I drive a cool red hotrod convertible.”

I absolutely love driving my car and I thank God for it quite often (you can thank whoever or whatever you want just so you show appreciation for what you have). I get quite a few compliments on it and people wave and smile at stoplights. The wind blowing in my hair makes me feel alive and free. I know these great feelings will be even more intense when I am driving my Aventador.

My statement now is “I'm driving my red, convertible, Lamborghini, Aventador Roadster in five years.” and I fully believe I am. I will post pictures when I get it.

Let me know if you tried the "Get What You Want In Life" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

I'm terribly sorry to say that, due to my computer crashing, which has all my files and video editing software on it, I won't be able to add video to the posts until I can get a new computer and repurchase the video software.

Hopefully Santa will help by bringing me both for Christmas.

In the mean time, looking for the good in all this, I guess it's good to practice reading skills. 

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where There's Always Plenty of Time

Hello all you wonderful women. Have you ever said, “I don’t have enough time.” or “There’s not enough time in a day”? Does time always seem to be running out before your "to do" list is done? I’m going to show you how to always have enough time.

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With the busy holiday season in full swing, I thought it might be a good time to approach the subject of time. Not having enough time seems to be a theme for a lot of people. Time is one of those things that we never seem to have enough of. Very few of us seem to have time to get everything done let alone to just relax or take care of ourselves. We are constantly saying we are too busy for this or don’t have time for that. Herein lies the problem. We have as much time as we want.

Time Is Relative

Try holding your breath for a full minute. Most of us can't, that's too much time. Yet if we want to rest for a minute, it doesn't seem near long enough. Time passing is relevant to our thoughts. If we think time is going by too quickly and we can't get everything done, it will and we won't. If you believe there's plenty of time, there is.

We need to start training our brains to KNOW we have plenty of time. Today I’m going to give you some practical activities to help you start seeing you do have enough time, but the key is, to train your brain to feel it. The more you focus on a lack of time, the more you will have a lack of time. The more you focus on having plenty of time, the less stress you will feel about time and the more time you will have.

If you want more in-depth information on training your brain check out this post on Directions To A Great Life. For now though, this is a simple way to "get more time".

The next time you find yourself “running out of time”, stop, take a deep breath, and say “I have all the time I need to do what’s important to me.” That one statement will create a sense of more time, just try it. Today though, try the exercises here to start creating more time in your life.

What "I don't have time" Really Means

Have you ever asked someone to stop after work for a drink, or to chat, or to get together for lunch to catch up, and got the answer, “I don’t have time”? Be careful when you say this because what you are really saying is “You aren’t important enough to me to use my time on right now.”

Time For What's Important

That may sound harsh but it’s true. We all have the time for things that are important enough. Think of this example: you are swamped at work, don’t plan on stopping for lunch, and haven’t even taken a bathroom break in hours. You were just going to call your husband to pick up some dinner because you planned on being a few hours late getting home, you have to get this project done this week.

Then your phone rings and it’s a call from the hospital saying your husband was just admitted with a heart attack. I would bet most of you would drop everything at work and leave for the hospital immediately. (I'm assuming here that you care about your husband dearly) Suddenly, everything that was so pressing just moments before, becomes way less important.

You may try to find someone to take over the project and dole out some of the tasks to whoever is nearby, but your focus is now on your husband. He’s more important than a task at work, at least he should be.

We use our time on what is most important to us. So, the next time you say, “I don’t have time to…” really look at what else is taking your time.

Take Time For YOU

The blog posts here on Confused To Confident always ask you to do something. I’m sure many of you don’t take the time to follow through and DO them because you “don’t have enough time”. Taking the time for YOU is the most important use of your time there is, even more important than taking time for family members. After all, when they go over the rules for loss of oxygen on an airplane they always say to put on your mask first then help others. They know that if you don’t take care of yourself first, you won’t be alive to help anyone else.

It's Important!

It takes time to stop and put gas in your car but if you don’t do it, you are going to be stranded somewhere. The same is true for leading a fulfilling life. It takes some time to get, and keep, your life moving in the direction that will be most joyous for you. If you take the time to refuel, however, you’ll go a lot further, a lot quicker.

Unless you look forward to pushing your car as your weekly workout, you aren’t going to skip filling it up. I would like to suggest you treat your life with the same respect, unless you just like trudging along in frustration. In our hectic lives, especially during the busy holiday season, take some time for yourself to recharge and refuel. You'll feel much better and handle things much easier if you are fully gassed up and ready to go. YOU must be most important to you.

The activity this week will help you find time to re-energize yourself, but you have to DO it.

Activity - Plenty of Time

Step 1

"Find" more time by cutting out time wasters.

Example 1:

This week don’t go on social media at all. If you are one of those rare people who use social media as part of their job, ONLY do it at work and don’t extend work hours this week, fit it in. Also, don’t pretend it is important for work because you need to keep up on what others in your industry are doing or any other stretch of work “need”.

You can copy and paste this message for all your social media.

“Hi everyone, want to let you know I’m going to take some time for ME this week. I’m not going to be on social media all week so I can use the time to relax and de-stress. I invite you to join me in this week-long retreat.”

Example 2:

Keep the TV off all week. No movies, no videos, no shows. This includes on your computer if that’s where you watch these things. If watching TV is how you interact with family, try playing a game or going for a walk, or playing in the snow. Those will be much more memorable events. Those are the kind of things that build strong ties, not watching someone else’s life on TV.

Example 3:

So you don’t get the idea that this is just a “give up your electronics” scheme, another big time waster is opening mail, or email. For one week, don’t open your mail. If you have to open mail, or email, for work, do it only during work hours and, again, don’t extend your work day to get it all done.

If you were on a cruise, you wouldn’t have ready availability to email and you certainly couldn’t look at anything that comes in the mailbox, your life won’t end if you put off looking at it for one week.

You may think, yes, but then I have all that to go through when the week is over. That’s true but you can do it all at once. It’s a lot faster to scan a big pile all at once than little bits every day. Just try it for one week. Take a week and time yourself whenever you are opening mail, or email, then take the next week off and time how long it takes you to do it all at once when you return to it. You may like getting it all done at once so much that you make a regular practice of it.

Example 4:

Each time you go to do something, evaluate if it’s really important that you do it. If you skip washing the floor or scrubbing the toilet this week is it going to be the end of the world? Soaking in that tub in the candlelight is way better for your life than scrubbing down the shower door. I’m not saying to live in a gross mess but skipping some of those chores on occasion gives you more time to take care of yourself.

Step 2

Do things with your new found time that enhance your life.

Example 1:

Relax. Take time to do nothing. This is difficult for me so I usually do it by getting a massage or pedicure. I can just sit there, close my eyes, and relax.

Example 2:

Do something fun. Skip through the park, or mall if you live where there’s snow, take up a new hobby or restart an old one, do whatever you like to do for fun. The only stipulation is that it has to be active. You can’t just sit and watch TV. It must be engaging and active.

Example 3:

Try something new. Do something that you always thought might be fun but were reluctant to try. Just do it. Don’t hold back, don’t worry what others may think, just do it. This is great for your brain too. If you haven’t read the post on Increasing Brain Power check it out here.

In summary:

Train your brain to feel an abundance of time.

Clear time wasters from your life.

Take time for yourself.

These things will all give you a sense of "plenty of time." Try them and see how much more relaxed your life is, even while accomplishing more.

Let me know your thoughts on time by commenting below.

Thanks!

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where We Can Keep Our New Year Resolutions

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Hello all you wonderful women. It’s the start of a new year. Many of us use the beginning of the calendar year to start on self-improvement projects. These are best known as “New Year Resolutions”. The problem is, most of us don’t follow through with these resolutions. This week I’m going to explain why our new year resolutions usually dissolve before the end of January and how you can create resolutions that last.

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Resolutions Improve Our Lives, Right?

Most of us have a desire to improve our lives. The fact that over ten billion dollars are spent every year on self-improvement materials shows the desire is there. The problem comes with follow through. Actually taking the action needed to make the change seems to be the sticking point. I see it even on this website. Confused To Confident is here to help you change your life. I have activities every week that will help you make those changes. Even though many of you read the posts, how many of the activities do you actually do?

An Improvement Or Punishment

This is the time of year we tend to get on ourselves about needing to DO things to improve our lives so please don’t sit there thinking you resolve to do all the activities on Confused To Confident from now on. Those kinds of thoughts are actually what cause us to fail in following through on new year resolutions. Our intentions are good but we go at them almost like it’s a punishment we need to force on ourselves.

Take for instance one of the biggest resolutions made every year, to lose weight. We resolve to exercise more and eat less, but think about how that sounds. If I loved exercising more, I would already be doing it. If I wanted to eat less, I already would be. One of the key focuses for Confused To Confident is to get you to have a more fulfilling, joyful, life. I, for one, don’t think doing things I don’t want to is very joyful. So, what do we do? How can we improve our lives and enjoy the process of improvement?

The Core Of The Issue

Let’s continue with the weight loss example. So you want to lose weight. First ask yourself why. Do you want to fit into clothes you can’t anymore? Did your doctor say you need to lose weight for your health? Do you want to feel better about yourself? There are many reasons for losing weight, so just saying you want to lose weight doesn’t get to the core of the issue.

Getting to the core of the issue is the first key to why we fail at keeping our resolutions. Making our resolutions too general causes failure. As you can see in the example above, each different reason for wanting to lose weight has a different core motivator. You may not want to spend money on new clothes. You may be afraid because of your doctor’s diagnosis. You may have general self-esteem issues. Each of these needs to be addressed differently than just “losing weight”

The activity for this week is to alter one of your new year resolutions so it's something you'll stick with because it’s enjoyable.

If you want to know my New Year Resolution for 2018 check below the activity.​

Activity - Keep Your Resolutions

Step 1

State your general resolution (You've probably already done this since we're already a week into the new year)

Example 1:

I want to lose weight so I’m going to exercise more and eat less.

Example 2:

I want to lose weight so I’m going to exercise more and eat less.

Step 2

Narrow down the specific desired outcome you want from this resolution. (Dig deep and be honest)

Example 1:

I want to be more attractive to men so I can find a partner.

Example 2:

I want to live longer, in good health, so I am alive for my children.

Step 3

Decide if there’s a different way you can better achieve your specific desired outcome

Example 1:

To find a partner who loves me just the way I am, I can be more self-confident and get out of my house and meet people

Example 2:

I can spend more quality time with my children now

Step 4

Come up with one FUN way you can best accomplish your specific desired outcome and state how this action will help and how it is fun.

Example 1:

I’m stopping for a drink after work at a classy lounge one day a week. This will help me come in contact with more people thereby increasing my chances of meeting a great partner. It's fun taking some time for myself every week.

Example 2:

I’m finding a new community class that I can take with each of my children every session. The classes help me become more active, thereby improving my health, and it's fun spending special time with my children.

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You can see how the resolutions in both examples changed drastically. The new resolutions are very specific in getting the results wanted but more important, they're stated in a way that will bring joy to your life while accomplishing your goal. What resolutions do you think would be easier to stick to? Depriving yourself of food and forcing yourself to do exercises you hate, or going out for a drink and having fun with your children?

Notice too that the resolutions are stated in the positive, present tense. For more information on setting goals in the most productive format see this blog post on​ Getting What You Want In Life.

My New Year Resolution For 2018

The Statement

I have my bench cleaned off every morning before I leave my bedroom.

My Reasoning

I live by myself and tend to just leave stuff out when I'm finished for the day, especially if I need to come back to it later. I decided to start respecting myself more this year and, as a part of that, I wamt a clean space to live in. On the flip side of that, I feel like it's a waste of time to keep taking things out and putting them back.

About mid-year, yes you can make resolutions anytime during the year, I decided to make my bed every morning. I kept hearing how making your bed can make you feel better about yourself. Again, my first thoughts were, "But I just have to unmake it again every night, it seems like a waste of time." I wanted to do something to make an improvement however, so I tried it. Funny thing is, I found a way to make it very fast and it really does make me feel better walking in my room and seeing the bed made.

So what does this have to do with cleaning off my bench? The bench is in my bedroom and, now that the bed is always made, the bench being full of stuff is the only thing that makes my bedroom look messy. I figure if the bench is always cleared off, there's one room I can walk into and know it will always be completely cleaned up, with nothing laying around. I actually started this resolution the first of December and I'm absolutely loving walking into my bedroom now.

How My Life Improved

These two things were quick and easy yet they've made a huge impact on how I feel about myself and my home. The original resolution was that I was going to keep my house cleaner but I knew, from past experience, that it wouldn't happen because I hate cleaning. By breaking it down into small little parts, that are quick and easy for me to do, I'm able to accomplish my overall goal in time. 

Now that I've experienced how good it makes me feel to walk into a clean room, knowing that I am able to easily keep it clean, it will be much easier to expand the chores to other parts of the house, but I'm saving that for next year.

Let me know if you tried the "Keeping Your Resolutions" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where There's No (Unqualified) Fear

Hello all you wonderful women. What are you afraid of? Your list may be long, or you may only have one or two things you fear, but generally, fear makes up a large part of what we choose to do or not to do.

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Have No Fear?

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” or “Fear is our greatest enemy.” but did you ever stop to think about how much fear is a part of your life? Fear comes in all levels of intensity, and some of it can actually help us. Have you ever grabbed a jacket because you were afraid it might be cold in the theater or store or …? Or, brought along a snack to a softball game because you were afraid you might get hungry? Those fears can help you. They are a qualified fear.

Qualified Fear

A qualified fear is one where you look to past experience to determine what might happen in the future. If you’ve been cold when you went to a movie in the past, it's logical to fear that it may happen again. Now some of you may be saying “That’s not being fearful, that’s being smart.” I’m not saying it’s not sometimes smart to pay attention and act based on a fear. All I’m saying is, it is a fear of being cold that prompts you to bring a jacket.

It Is Fear

Let’s look at another example of qualified fear. Most of us look both ways before crossing a street. Why do we do this? We do it because we're afraid a car may come and run us over while we're crossing. This is a good practice based on what we know could happen. Even if you’ve never been run over by a car, you can tell by the cars whizzing by that you should be afraid of getting hit if you don’t wait until the way is clear. Now, what if your house was the only one at the end of a dead-end road. Chances are you would cross that street without looking for cars. You don’t have the fear that a car will be coming. Even though it is possible, the chance is low enough that you don’t fear it.

We make a lot of everyday choices based on fear. If we had no fear, we probably wouldn’t live long. Look at little kids, they don’t know any better, so they’d do all kinds of dangerous things if we didn’t stop them. They have no fear. The same can be said for those strung out on drugs, they do crazy, dangerous, sometimes deadly, things because their fear level is highly reduced. So those who say “Fear Not” don’t really mean to have no fear at all.

Unqualified Fear

What is meant when people talk about overcoming your fears is to overcome your unqualified fears. Unqualified fear is the fear that keeps us from growing, that raises our stress levels unnecessarily, that holds us back from things that could make our lives better. Let’s look at a couple types of unqualified fear. The first is typically called worry. We worry we're going to be late, we worry when our kids stay out too late, we worry we're going to say something dumb at an interview. This type of fear is unproductive and causes unneeded stress.

Let It Go

Think of it this way. If you can’t change the outcome by anything you do, then let it go. You being afraid about something bad happening does nothing to make a positive difference. Some people even believe that by focusing on the bad that could happen, you can actually create the negative outcome. Whether you can create a negative outcome or not, you definitely harm your health by being in the state of fear for a prolonged time. I’m not going to go into all the negative health affects fear can have, that would be another entire post, but those long periods you sit and worry about things that you can’t do something to change, can cut years off your life.

Can You Change Things?

The key to this type of fear is not being able to do anything to change the outcome. Let’s look at the example of being afraid you'll be late for a job interview. If you are still at home and have this fear, you may be able to do something about it. Maybe don’t eat breakfast or skip the second layer of mascara. It doesn’t matter what it is, you still have some control, so the fear is working for you by motivating you to hurry. At this point it's a qualified fear.

Now, let’s look at that same fear after you start driving. How fast you go is mostly out of your control. There are speed limits and traffic controls you need to follow, and screaming at the car in front of you is not going to make it go any faster. At this point the fear is working against you. It’s building up stress which makes it more difficult to remain calm and react quickly in traffic. It also puts you in a harried state of mind when you walk in for the interview. If you are going to be late, you’re going to be late. At least walk in calm and composed. Also, if your mind is relaxed, you are better able to come up with a great excuse for being late. During the drive, it has become an unqualified fear.

Don't Hold Back

Another unqualified fear is the type that holds you back from greatness or fulfillment in your life. Things like turning down a once in a lifetime trip with a friend because you're afraid you could lose your job next week, or, you're afraid to quit your job and start your own business, even though you have enough clients lined up to keep you going for at least a year, are fears that hold you back. These fears are a little more tricky and need to be evaluated closer. Is the fear backed by some facts you should pay attention to, thereby making it a qualified fear?

For instance, if there have been numerous layoffs at your job recently and your department is next, you may have good reason to pass on the trip. However, if you have a stable job at a stable company, you best be getting on that plane. Sure, anything can happen and you could still lose your job but you are depriving yourself of joy based on an unqualified fear. 

The same process goes in the example of being afraid to leave your job. If you have a faint idea of a business you may have some interest in, but you don’t really know how you’re going to put the ideas together to make money on them, you may want to wait to quit your job. Unless you have a really big savings account, your fear of not having enough money is qualified and you should listen to it. However, if you have a business plan set, clients just waiting for you to open the doors, and it’s a passion you’ve had for a long time, quit your job tomorrow and go for it.

Be Fearless

Letting that type of unqualified fear hold you back will highly limit your life’s joy and fulfillment. This is a big one for a lot of us. We’re afraid we aren’t good enough or smart enough or … I’m telling you, you are just as good and just as smart as any other successful businesswoman. The only difference between you and some of those women who bring in seven figure incomes, is your fear.

Not all fear is bad, but the fear that is can cause you to live an unrewarding, unfulfilling, and unhealthy life. Let’s start eliminating the unqualified fear from our lives. The activity this week will be a step to help you get started.

Activity - No (Unqualified) Fear

At the end of the day take a few minutes to think about the fear in your life that day. See if you can identify at least two qualified fears that helped you. Then, see if you can identify any unqualified fear that may be holding you back or causing you stress.

You may want to do this each day for a few weeks and write down your observations. See if there’s a pattern to the type of unqualified fears you have. Are there changes you can make that will reduce or eliminate the fears that are hurting you or holding you back?

Leave a comment below to share your fears with us. Sometimes sharing them helps them diminish. Have a great week.

Let me know if you tried the "No Unqualified Fear" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

Welcome to Confused To Confident Where Boogers Aren't Bad

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Hello all you wonderful women. I have to warn you, you may find this post really gross, I’m going to talk about boogers. I need to ask; have you ever picked your nose and ate it? Even if your parents broke you of the habit when you were too young to remember, chances are you did it at one time. As it turns out, we do it naturally as children because it can actually be good for us. Scientific studies have determined that eating boogers can boost your immune system.

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Who Comes Up With This Stuff

Before we go any further, I want to know who comes up with these studies, and how they were able to get adults to participate?

It's Scientific

So, scientists have found health benefits to eating boogers, that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you to start picking your nose for lunch, that’s for you to decide. What I am going to point out is, that we need to stop shaming ourselves, and others, for doing things that might be different from the norm. These things may be vital to our lives and we don’t even know it.

Shouldn'ts And Don'ts

Our intuition is squelched by all the “You shouldn’t do this.” and “Don’t do that.” that we get throughout our lives. Intuitively, as children, we know that it can be helpful to us to eat our boogers, but our parents shame us for doing it. This natural, healthy, activity is quickly forced from our lives. Now I don’t know all the things that people shame themselves for, but I do know many of us live with a lot of shame. It’s time to stop shaming ourselves, and start loving ourselves just the way we are, even if we eat our boogers.

Now, before we get to the activity, I do want to say one thing. We definitely must restrain ourselves from doing things that could hurt ourselves or others. Eating poison is not beneficial to anyone and will probably kill you or make you very ill. If something's not harmful though, go for it. No one has ever died from eating boogers so why are we all so against it? 

Keep It Private

You may want to start out slow and do these thing in private but don’t shame yourself for doing them. There are simply things that we do at home that we don’t do in public. That’s ok, it doesn’t mean they are shameful things. Not too many of us would change our clothes out on our sidewalk but changing clothes isn’t shameful. Keeping things private is ok, shaming yourself, or others, for them, is not ok.

For your activity this week, don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to try eating boogers. What I would like you to do though, is to think about some of the things you may do that you shame yourself for.

Activity - No Shame

Step 1

Write down one thing you shame yourself for.

Step 2

Be creative and think of ways that whatever you wrote in step 1 could help you. Be silly, have fun with it. After all who would have thought boogers could be healthy.

Step 3

Every time you go to shame yourself for the activity you listed in step 1, think about all the ways it could be helpful to you, from step 2. This should stop the shaming. 

Step 4

Once you do this for one thing, do it for anything else that you shame yourself for. You can also start doing it for things you shame others for.

Hopefully this will make you laugh and not take things so seriously. It should definitely help you shame yourself and others less.

I’m going to guess that no one will comment below admitting they have always ate their boogers, but leave a comment on things you may shame others for. It will help us all be less shaming. 

Let me know if you tried the "No Shame" activity by commenting below.

Thanks!

Thank you to those who responded to my request for feedback. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough interest to keep going with the blog posts right now. If you are signed up for automatic notifications, you will be notified if I start posting again in the future. In the mean time, you can always go back and redo past blog activities. As life changes, the results can be different. Best of wishes to you all.