What is Confidence?

On February 15, 2010, in Confidence Building, by Bonnie Jean Schaefer

You ever wonder what confidence is?

Well, I was wondering that exact same thing today, so I went and looked up the definition of confidence in the dictionary. This is what I found:

  1. Full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing
  2. Belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities
  3. Trust or faith in a person or thing
  4. A feeling of assurance, especially self-assurance
  5. The state or quality of being certain

In other words, confidence is a feeling you get when you learn to trust and believe in yourself.

But how do you learn how to trust and believe in yourself?

Is that something you can buy, get or take from other people?

NO!

Confidence is something you have to build on your own, and the only way to build confidence in yourself is to TAKE ACTION!

If you want to gain confidence in your ability to play a sport, you have to actually practice that sport.

If you want to gain confidence in your ability to sing, you have to actually practice singing.

If you want to gain confidence in your ability to make money, you have to actually do the work it takes to make money.

Of course taking action and DOING these things that you want to do when you don’t have any confidence in your ability to do them well is tough.

The weird and wacky truth, however, is that if you’re willing to first be really bad at something and keep practicing even when you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll soon gain UNSHAKABLE self-confidence.

By just taking action toward your dreams, you’ll learn how to trust and believe in yourself.

Personally, I want to build confidence in my ability to write novels, so I’m going to go practice my writing.

What about you? What action can you take RIGHT NOW to help you build your self-confidence?

Great. Now go DO it!

To your dreams,
Bonnie Jean

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Know the Secret to Being a Champion Dream Doer?

On January 25, 2010, in Live Your Dreams, by Bonnie Jean Schaefer

Your Dream Doer Mission:  Find a Way to DO What You Dream Today

Today was a little weird for me because I didn’t work on my book. 

Since I finished the summary draft on Saturday, I’m making myself take a break from writing before I begin the real rough draft on February 1.  Then I’ll have exactly ten weeks to write a complete 250-page draft.

But writing my book isn’t the only dream I’m chasing right now.  I also want to be your coach and build a business that helps you live your dreams.

That’s why I spent today writing about the secret to being a Champion Dream Doer.

That secret is hidden in one little word: CONFIDENCE!

When you’re confident, you’re free to be yourself and just be true to who you are.

When you’re confident, you’re able to find where you belong because you attract people to you who share your same interests and goals.

When you’re confident, you feel in control of your own life.

When you’re confident, you have the power to choose your own future.

When you’re confident, you know how to find a way to live your dreams NOW!

The good news is that I’ve discovered a super simple confidence building formula that I’m almost ready to reveal to you via video.

I’m still working on the script, but I’m getting close to finishing.  To make sure I finish, I have only one target this week: 

  • Write, record and share a video with you that reveals the super simple confidence building formula

I should be able to finish writing it tomorrow, record it on Wednesday and share it with you on Thursday. 

In the meantime, please leave a comment and share what YOU’RE doing about finding a way to live YOUR dreams.

To your dreams,
Bonnie Jean

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How I Lost My Self-Confidence

On October 27, 2009, in About Self-Confidence, Motivating Stories, by Bonnie Jean Schaefer

Welcome to another edition of Unshakable, Unbreakable, Unstoppable Stories with Bonnie Jean.

Ever realize how much easier it is to be negative than it is to be positive?

Or how much easier it is to talk about things you’re bad at than recognize things you’re good at?

Here’s the really strange thing. When I was in middle school and high school, I taught myself to believe that being negative and talking about how bad I was was a good thing.

Weird, right? Well, that’s because I didn’t like cocky kids. It bothered me when they bragged about how smart they were in school. Because if they bragged about their grades and I didn’t score as high on the test or paper or homework, I would feel stupid.

Since I played a lot of sports, I also didn’t like it when my teammates or someone I was playing against bragged about how good they were. Because if they bragged about things like how hard they could throw or how far they could hit a ball, I would feel invisible and useless. I would feel like I wasn’t any good and didn’t belong on the team.

I didn’t want to make other kids feel stupid or invisible or useless, so instead of bragging about myself, I would do just the opposite. I would think about and talk about all the mistakes I made on my school work or in the sports I played.

And the more I focused on all the bad results I was getting in school or sports, the more confidence I lost in myself. I began to believe I couldn’t get great grades or be a great athlete.

Since I didn’t believe in myself, I didn’t believe in my dreams, either. I believed I couldn’t have what I wanted to have or be who I wanted to be.

I taught myself to believe I couldn’t do a lot of things, and I was right.

I wasn’t right because my dreams were impossible; I was right because I never tried to live my dreams…until I learned I could always find a way to do what I dream when I stick to my strengths.

I learned I could be positive and confident about the things I was good at without being cocky.

I learned that the more confident I am in myself and my dreams, I’m happier, I’m more fun to be around and I’m better able to help you find your confidence and live your dreams.

The great news is that you don’t have to spend your middle school and high school days focusing on negative things and losing confidence in yourself. Because no matter how old you are, you can be an unshakable, unbreakable, unstoppable Dream Doer today!

To Your Dreams,
Bonnie Jean

P.S. Please don’t wait as long as I did to find your unshakable confidence! To help you live your dreams now, I want to give you three FREE gifts, which includes the entire audio book of The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets. To claim your FREE gifts, visit TheDreamDoers.com now.

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Have ‘Grade Wars’ Destroyed Your Confidence as a Student?

On September 22, 2009, in About Self-Confidence, Motivating Stories, by Bonnie Jean Schaefer

Welcome to another edition of Unshakable, Unbreakable, Unstoppable Stories with Bonnie Jean.

Ever compare yourself to other people?

How’s that working out for building your self-confidence?

If you feel better about yourself when you compare yourself to someone else, you’re building false confidence. If you feel worse about yourself when you compare yourself to a person, you’re destroying your confidence.

I was always good at the second one: destroying my confidence. For instance, I was good at destroying confidence in my intelligence.

Now I’m an athlete and I love competition, but competing for the best grades in the class was not a good strategy for me. When I got a test or a paper or a homework assignment back, I wanted to know what everyone else got because I wanted to beat their grades. I wanted to be the smartest one in my class.

I certainly wasn’t the most popular, and since I couldn’t be the best ‘cool’ kid, I wanted to be the best smart kid. Only I wasn’t. A handful of kids always seemed to do just a little better than me.

My grades were never quite good enough to compete and win. If I got a 97, the smarter kids got a 98, 99 or 100. If I got a 100, the smarter kids got a 101, 102 or 105.

It frustrated me so much. I wanted to be the smartest, but I just wasn’t. I would beat myself up for making A’s because my A’s weren’t as high as my classmates.

I reached a breaking point in the tenth grade. In order to save my own sanity, I decided not to share my grades or ask my classmates what their grades were. I decided that the way to improve my grades was to compare myself with one person: me.

I would try to beat myself. I became my greatest rival. I wanted to do better than me. After all, what Jane or Jack made on their tests didn’t go on my transcripts.

Their grades didn’t reflect how much I knew about the subject; mine did. Their grades didn’t show how much effort I put into studying and learning and paying attention in class; mine did.

I became a much more confident student once I strove to improve myself. I learned to accept that others were smarter than me. And that was okay. If they were smarter, they were responsible for using their knowledge to get better grades than me.

That didn’t mean I was stupid. It just meant I needed to do the best with the intelligence I had. So from the tenth grade on, I kept my grades to myself, even through college. I made A’s and B’s throughout my school career because that was the best I could do.

YOUR job is to do YOUR best in school. Whether you make A’s or C’s, you need to know you got that grade because that is the best YOU could do, not because it’s better or worse than anyone else.

In school, do YOUR best; don’t try to gain false confidence by belittling others or destroy your confidence by comparing yourself to people smarter than you.

Learn to believe in who you are, and that starts by discovering your strengths.

That’s where unshakable confidence comes from.

To Your Dreams,
Bonnie Jean

P.S. Please don’t wait as long as I did to find your unshakable confidence! Life is really much more fun when you set goals and take action to make them happen. No matter how old you are, you can be an unshakable, unbreakable, unstoppable Dream Doer today! To help, I want to give you three FREE gifts, which includes the entire audio book of The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets. To claim your FREE gifts, visit TheDreamDoers.com now.

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Why You Can’t Live Your Dreams Without Confidence

On September 1, 2009, in Motivating Stories, True Stories, by Bonnie Jean Schaefer

Unshakable, Unbreakable, Unstoppable Stories

Bonnie Jean Schaefer here, author of The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets.

Altogether, it took me NINE years to write that book and get it published. So you think I’d be thrilled when I saw it reach #13 on the Amazon bestseller list, right?

Not so much. I mean, I was glad that after spending nine years writing, editing, rewriting and editing some more, people were buying my book that I worked so hard on for so many years.

Only that was the problem. People were buying the book. If they bought it, they would probably read it. And the thought of lots of people reading my book freaked me out.

What if they didn’t like it? What if they thought the story was horrible? What if they thought I was a terrible writer? What if they realized I was just pretending to be a writer when no one gave me permission to publish my book?

I wasn’t used to letting people read what I wrote. I was more comfortable writing because I like to write, not writing because I thought people would want to read my story.

The only way I could think of to stop my fears and doubts from coming true was to stop promoting my story. If I didn’t market it, then no one would know about it. If no one knew about it, they wouldn’t buy it. If they didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t read it. And I would be safe.

What I was missing was CONFIDENCE in myself and my writing ability. I didn’t believe I could be a #1 bestselling author, so I didn’t let it happen. I didn’t believe I was a gifted writer, so I stopped letting people read what I wrote.

I was very good at doubting myself, but I wasn’t very good at living with unshakable confidence. Until recently, that is. You see, I’m getting more and more confident in myself every day. (Plus I’m so confident you’ll love my story that I’m giving it away here.)

How have I been able to gain confidence in myself and my dreams? Well, that’s a long story, and I’ll get around to telling you all about it. First, though, I want to take you back to when I was a kid.

When I was growing up, I found it easier to doubt myself than believe in myself. I found it easier to be shy and timid than I did to be the bold, adventurous me I dreamed of being. And when you don’t have confidence in yourself, it’s hard to make friends.

For instance, when I started a new school in the fourth grade, I was so nervous and scared and unsure of myself that it took me until the fifth grade to make my very first friend in that school.

In next week’s post, I’ll share how I went from having no friends to making a friend for life.

To Your Dreams,
Bonnie Jean

P.S. Please don’t wait as long as I did to find your unshakable confidence! Life is really much more fun when you set goals and take action to make them happen. No matter how old you are, you can be an unshakable, unbreakable, unstoppable Dream Doer today! To help, I want to give you three FREE gifts, which includes the entire audio book of The Dream Doers and the Summer of Secrets. To claim your FREE gifts, visit TheDreamDoers.com now.

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