Believe in Yourself

Today I want to encourage you to give yourself a tremendous gift this Christmas season.  Believe in yourself.  That may seem pretty hard to do.  I know it is for me sometimes.  Now when it comes to what other people think, I guess I look pretty "successful" but there are times when I have trouble believing in myself.

There are going to be times in your life when this is a very difficult thing to do.  Especially during the holiday season, it can be easy to get depressed and down if you let yourself.  My friend, Kari already posted something in her blog about this and I will try to deal with it later myself.

The reality is that you have to believe in yourself if you want to be truly successful and happy in life.  It is very easy for me to believe in other people and their abilities.  Do you think you can write a book?  I believe you can.  Do you think you can go to school and get a degree?  I believe you can.  Do you think you can overcome being overweight or some other addiction?  I believe you can.  Do I believe I can do any of those things?  Yes on the last two and I am working on the first one.  Now especially when it comes to writing, I didn't really believe that I was a writer until recently.  I must say I enjoy the experience.

Did you know that you can have self confidence in one area and lack it in another?  I know I do.  My daughter gave me a great glimpse this weekend of what self confidence looks like.  We were sitting at breakfast eating donuts when a mom walked through the door carrying a baby.  Many times when we see a little child, I tell the kids that they were once that small and we all laugh.  The mother had her back to us and the baby was big enough that he was holding his head up and it was above mom's shoulder.  Before I could say anything to my daughter, she said, "I was that big once."  She beat me to the punch and I smiled.  Then she leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, "But I was cuter."  She obviously has no problem believing that she is a cute kid.  She certainly gets plenty of confirmation from everyone about this fact and that's good.

For me, I used to be fat but now I am not.  I must admit that I struggle in this area a little.  I don't have a bad self image but if a woman shows interest in me (for all my friends, yes it does happen occasionally), I have a hard time believing it.  That's not to say that it is an every day occurrence by any stretch of the imagination but it's nice when it happens.

I struggle to understand why it is so easy for me to have confidence in some areas and lack confidence in others.  I think it's because I am human (as much as I hate to admit it sometimes).  However, you have to believe in you before anyone else will.  Before anyone ever told me they appreciated the Minion, thought, I had to believe that I could write and do it.  Before anyone told me that I could lose weight, I had to believe that I could and change my lifestyle.  Before anyone ever believed I could go through law school, I had to prove to myself that I could.  Do you see the common thread?  Also consider this, if I had never took action on my belief, I would never have gotten anywhere in any of these areas.

See, faith in yourself or in God without works is dead faith.  You cannot truly believe in yourself without taking action in a specific area.  If I really do think I am a good guy, I should ask a girl out.  If I don't believe in myself enough to ask, how can I expect her to say she will?  And if I never ask, we know for certain that she never will.  Also, let me leave you with one more thought on the subject.  Let's take dating because the illustration seems clear to me right now.  If you want to go out with a girl and you never ask her out, you will never go out with her.  However if you ask her, she might turn you down but she might actually go.  Don't be afraid to fail forward.

So what am I trying to tell you?  You must believe in yourself and you must do so before anyone else will.  We will truly know if you believe in yourself by your actions.  Until your believe motivates you to act, it isn't really faith, it's still just hope.  So what are your dreams today?  Believe in yourself and give yourself a chance for success by taking a chance.

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Christmas Part 1

OK.  We are now officially in my favorite time of the year in Texas.  It's Christmas time.  It's not X-Mas, etc.  It's Christmas.  What do I like so much about Christmas?  Is it the tree, the lights, all the parties and food?  Is it Santa Claus or decorating the house?  Nope.  My favorite part of this year is carrying on the first Christmas tradition.

See, because God loved the world so much, he sent his son, Jesus to earth so we could reconnect with him.  Jesus came because he wanted to give this gift to God, his Father.  What's the common thread?  God gave Jesus so that the world would be blessed.  Jesus gave himself so that God would be blessed.  That's what this season is all about.  It's about giving, not getting.  I am not sure where but I heard somewhere that it is more blessed to give than receive.  At least in my life, that's really true.

Now we have a lot of traditions and I am thankful for them.  I used to enjoy decorating the Christmas tree.  That stopped when I was a young child though.  Apparently we were making a popcorn string to go around the Christmas tree when some part of the light fixture fell from the ceiling and hit me in the head.  Now my parents were renting that place and I don't know if we had to pay for the fixture after it broke from hitting my hard head or not.  OK - I still enjoy decorating the tree and the story above is true or so my parents tell me.

I love to go looking at the Christmas lights.  One of my favorite memories was going with my cousins in the back of my Uncle's suburban when we were kids.  We went to a place called Interlocken (sp?) in Arlington.  What fun we had that trip.  I can also remember the parties and the family fun.  My Aunt Pat used to have a platter that was shaped like a Christmas tree.  She would fill it with this fancy candy and I loved to get into that platter.  That was something I looked forward to every year.  But the older I get, the more I focus on the only real tradition that matters - giving.

As a matter of fact, I like to think about who I can bless and how.  There have been many times when I did something nice for someone and I could hear God inside me (my Dad) saying how proud he was of me.  Now don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting stuff and getting stuff for Christmas.  After all, someone will get blessed by what we do and it's OK to let someone bless you - even though I get really uncomfortable when people bless me.  I must admit, I would really prefer to be the blessor than the blessee.  For me, I am much more concerned with whether people will like what I got them than if I will like what they got me.

So I want to encourage you as you go through this season.  It's good to make your Christmas list and while you look for things for parents, family, friends and that special someone, look around for someone outside your ordinary box to bless. Remember that's the first true tradition of Christmas.

That's another Opinion of the Minion