Feb 06

Share Your Top Three Successes

About Self-Confidence No Comments »

It’s Saturday, so that means it’s success sharing time.  In other words, how did you succeed this week? 

Here’s the cool part—you get to choose what counts as a success for you. 

If you’re still not sure what success looks like for you, ask yourself this question:  what did you do this week that helped you build your confidence or take a step closer to your dreams?

For instance, I started the official rough draft of my second novel, improved the way I communicate with you on this blog by coming up with specific topics for each day of the week and outlined a ‘confidence building crash course’ to help you use the confidence building formula to supercharge your self-confidence.

Okay…it’s your turn.  Please leave a comment and share your top three successes now.

To your dreams,
Bonnie Jean

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Oct 13

What’s Your ‘One Thing’?

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

Average. Normal. Ordinary. Invisible. Unnoticed. That’s the way I felt all through middle school and high school and college. I felt that way because I never truly excelled at anything I did.

I wanted to, though. I wanted to be extraordinary. I wanted to be recognized, to be noticed, to be great.

I remember being about 14 or 15 and standing in my bedroom feeling frustrated and depressed. I can see the exact spot in my room where I was standing the moment this thought entered my mind for the very first time: “I wish I could find that one thing I’m great at, that one thing I’m better at than anyone else.”

I wanted to be dainty and fashionable and popular, but I wasn’t any good at being ‘cool.’

I wasn’t a nerd either. I made good grades, but I wasn’t the best student. Other kids in my class were smarter and made better grades without studying as much as I did.

I wasn’t great at anything musical. I couldn’t sing well and I never learned how to play an instrument, so being great as a singer or musician was out of the question.

I secretly wanted to be a great actress, but I was too timid to try out for any plays in high school. Besides, I played sports year round and took the toughest classes available to me, so I didn’t have time to act anyway.

That seemed to leave sports as my chance at finding greatness. But on every team I played for, at least one teammate was better than me. I wanted to be a great softball player, but I just didn’t have the talent to go where my dreams wanted to take me.

That’s why I felt frustrated that day. I knew in my heart of hearts that although I was a good athlete, I wasn’t great and that no matter how hard I tried, I would always be just good, ordinary and average. I played with people better than me, and they didn’t try near as hard. I gave everything I had, but that was never enough.

So I wanted to find that one thing. That one thing where I could be the best. I prayed for God to show me what that was so that I could stand out and be recognized and noticed.

I wanted to know what it felt like to be in the spotlight. To have people come to me for advice. To have people come to me for help. To have people look up to me.

I didn’t discover that one thing until years later. That’s because the one thing I have the chance to be great at came so naturally to me that I didn’t even realize I was more talented than the majority of people in that area.

I just assumed everyone was as good at it as I was because it seemed so easy, so normal and so usual to be able to do.

I overlooked my talent, so I got a late start developing it. I haven’t reached a level of greatness yet, but I will. It’s just going to take a lot of practice, a lot of learning and a lot of confidence.

My one thing is writing. You have one thing, too. You have the chance to figure it out now, to start developing it now. So by the time you are my age, you will have already reached a level of greatness and will be on your way to superior excellence.

Think about it. What do you do better than anyone else around you?

It can be anything. The way you make friends. Sports. Music. Writing. Acting. Dancing. Design.

You have a gift, a natural talent, one thing you’re great at. Find out what your one thing is, then challenge yourself to become better and better at that.

That’s how you develop and build your unshakable confidence.

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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Oct 06

Is Your Confidence As Shaky as Mine Was?

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

As a kid in middle school and high school, I wasn’t popular. I wasn’t super-smart. I wasn’t a good singer. I didn’t know how to play any kind of musical instrument. I was too timid to try acting in any high school plays. So I really wanted to be great at sports. Especially softball, volleyball and basketball.

I’d been playing softball since I was old enough to hit the ball off a tee. Then when I got to high school, I played volleyball and basketball.

I loved the competition. I loved working hard and learning new skills or improving the skills I already had. I loved being part of a team and being fit.

What I really wanted was to be a super-star. I wanted to be the best spiker on the volleyball court. I wanted to be the top scorer on the basketball court. I wanted to the top home run hitter on the softball field and the best strikeout pitcher on the mound.

Only I didn’t have the talent I needed to be any of those things. In volleyball, I was a setter. I set the ball to my teammates so they could spike it and get all the glory.

In basketball, I had a great offensive night if I scored two points and only got playing time because I could play decent defense.

In softball, I hit one over-the-fence home run in all the years I played. I mostly got base hits and the occasional double. As for pitching, I never threw very hard and had to rely on throwing different pitches to keep the batters off balance. Which meant I never struck out a whole lot of batters.

See, I was an average athlete with an average amount of talent. I was good enough to be good but not good enough to be great.

If I had understood my role on each of the teams I played on and focused on becoming great at my role, I would have had much more success and helped my teams be more successful.

Instead, I destroyed my self-confidence by comparing myself to my teammates. I was never as good as Sue in volleyball, Sarah in basketball and Mary in softball. (Not their real names, but there was at least one girl on every team who was better than me.)

But I wanted to have the talent that they had. I wanted to be as good as they were. I wanted my coaches and the fans to notice me the way they noticed the teammates who were better than me.

Only I was so focused on what talent I didn’t have that I didn’t maximize the talent that I did have.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. Don’t miss out on how great you are by comparing yourself to people with different kinds and levels of talent.

Find out what you’re great at, then challenge yourself to become better and better at that one thing. That’s how you develop and build your unshakable confidence.

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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Sep 29

How to Gain Confidence From Your Mistakes

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

Ever had a secret dream? But when you had a chance to live that secret dream, you froze?

I had one of those moments in the sixth grade. It started when I had to memorize the Hippocratic Oath and recite it in front of my sixth grade class.

When I got the assignment, I was so excited about the chance to stand up in front of my class and speak. That was my secret dream: speaking and performing in front of people.

I had that Oath memorized backwards and forwards. I practiced and practiced and practiced so that I could recite it without even thinking and make something that uninteresting be entertaining so my audience would want to listen.

The day of the speech finally came. I was nervous, but I knew I was ready. I stood up and stared at the dozens of pairs of eyes staring back at me. Then quiet little me started speaking.

I delivered it perfectly, just like I had practiced. Everyone clapped when I finished, and I loved that feeling. Even my teacher was smiling.

A few days later, the entire sixth grade class in the school gathered for ‘Greek day.’ I’m not sure how many kids there were altogether, but between the three or four different classrooms, there had to be close to a hundred.

Anyway, as all the kids were gathering in the gym dressed in their togas, my teacher told me that because I did such a good job with the Oath, she wanted me to recite it in front of everyone. Right then. Right there. In just a few minutes.

Being an obedient student, I nodded, affirming that I would do it. But I wasn’t prepared to speak in front of such a large audience. I wasn’t mentally ready. Perhaps if she had given me some warning the day before, I could have practiced and been ready to face everyone my age.

Shortly after everyone took their seats, I went up to the podium after my teacher introduced me, looked out at the crowd and started speaking. I got through the first line. And the second. Then my mind went blank. Completely, totally, 100% blank.

I couldn’t remember the next word. Or the next. Or any other words of the oath. I stood there, frozen, not saying anything. Not blinking. Not breathing. Nothing. When I realized the speech was lost to me, I looked at my teacher, told her I forgot the words and sat down, completely embarrassed and humiliated.

The worst part was that I let my teacher down. She believed in me enough to give the quiet girl in her class the chance to live her dream, and I blew it. From then on through college, I hated standing in front of a live audience because I was afraid I would freeze again and not remember what I was going to say.

I kept beating myself up over that one moment and convinced myself I was a horrible speaker who hated getting up in front of crowds. Deep down, my dream still existed, but I kept it buried to save me from further embarrassment.

What I should have done was learn from my mistake so that I could be better the next time. That’s how I would have gained confidence.

Confidence in something you’re good at comes from repetition. I let one bad experience keep me from living my dream.

Don’t do what I did. Don’t give up on your dreams just because you don’t succeed right away.

You have to start somewhere, and most people start being really bad at something before they have a chance to be really good.

When you learn what you’re better at than anyone else, that is the foundation of your unshakable confidence.

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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Sep 15

How Can You Be Confident in Yourself When You Don’t Like the Way You Look?

Motivating Stories, True Stories No Comments »

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

I haven’t always had unshakable confidence. In fact, my self-confidence was very shaky when I was growing up. It was the shakiest when it came to how I looked in middle school.

When you don’t have confidence in the way you look, it’s hard to have any kind of confidence in yourself at all. And the way you look is important, especially when you’re in middle school. What you can see on the outside seems more valuable and important than who you are on the inside.

That’s what I believed was true when I was in the seventh grade. And that wrong, negative belief shook my self-confidence big time with just one little picture.

You see, my mom took me and my sisters and brother to get our individual pictures taken at a department store. I was really looking forward to it.

I went through this super awkward looking stage from fourth through sixth grade. But now my teeth were straight. My hair was long and unfrizzy. I was starting to believe I was almost pretty, and I believed my seventh grade picture was going to prove it.

On the day of the picture taking, I wore a green, long-sleeved shirt and pulled my hair back in a barrette. I put on a little make-up and smiled for the camera. I thought for sure it was going to be the best picture I had ever had taken of me.

A few days later, my mom picked up the pictures and brought them home. What I saw made me cry. Literally. Tears streamed down my face when I saw that image of me frozen in time.

I didn’t see a pretty girl. I saw a girl with buck teeth and an ugly smile staring back at me. I decided at that moment that I was so ugly that no boy would ever want to date me. Since no boy would ever want to date me, I would never have a boyfriend. If I never had a boyfriend, I would never get married. If I never got married, I would never have any kids.

That’s why I cried. I was sad that I was too ugly to ever get married and have kids.

My mom saw my tears and tried to tell me it was a good picture. That made me cry even more. If that’s what I really looked like, I was doomed to never ever have a boyfriend.

Then my dad tried to encourage me. But I was too busy crying and telling myself how ugly I was to listen to him and believe anything he had to say.

From then until now, I’ve never had much confidence in the way I looked. But now I know that I don’t have to be beautiful to be confident. Confidence comes from the inside out, not the outside in.

When I learned how to discover my strengths and use my strengths to live my dreams, I learned how to live with unshakable confidence. But you don’t have to wait as long as I did to be confident in who you are.

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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