When another woman who is smarter, more attractive and has significantly more money and status than you walks into the room, how do you react? Do you squirm in your seat or do you feel just as confident as you did before she walked into the room?
If your confidence or your security is in being the most educated, most influential or best mom ever, then your self-worth is going to constantly be threatened. Too often we allow the labels of this world to determine how we see ourselves and if what you do or what you have does not meet’s society’s standards of success then you’re deemed inadequate.
That’s a lie from the pit of hell!
Your self-concept is all determined by how you see yourself and how you perceive yourself is determined by how you think of you. If you think that you are not qualified simply because you don’t have the years of education or because you come from the wrong side of the tracks then you have already been defeated in your mind.
So I ask you this question – how you do see yourself?
Too many of us are waiting to achieve a certain level of success in order to feel validated. However, you must think as a champion before you actually become one. Do you believe in your heart that you can be the next CEO of your company? Do you see yourself as capable of fulfilling that role?
Do you see yourself as a woman who can achieve her dreams or are you waiting in the corner for someone to rescue you? It’s time evaluate how you perceive yourself because you are powerful, capable, purpose-driven and able to create a life you desire but you have to believe that about yourself first. Sometimes your success is delayed simply because you don’t have mindset to receive what you desire. Don’t be expected to be blessed with the lifestyle of a millionaire if you have the inferior mindset of a slave.
You can’t be a woman who is threatened by the success of others because there will always be someone who is smarter than you, younger than you, more educated or funnier than you. You have to discover what your identity and self-concept is rooted in. If you think that you were created to simply pay bills and die, then that’s the type of life that you will lead.
You have the right to expect more out of life and that realization comes with discovering who you are and what makes you – you. There’s something spectacular and something extraordinary about you, only you have the gifts and abilities to achieve the purpose that has been predestined over your life. Everything that you have experienced is shaping your outlook on life.
So much power resides inside of you, more power than you can imagine. That power is waiting to be awakened by you. It’s time to start being the powerful woman that you already are. You don’t need to get that promotion, buy that new house, pay off the debt, get married or have a million dollars before you can believe that you’re powerful. Like I said, if your power and your identity is rooted in what you do or have then it’s always going to be threatened and you will never feel permanently secure.
Your circumstances do not define who you are, only you do. My confidence comes from my faith and knowing that only I can do what I was created to do. I used to think that because I wasn’t from the best of neighborhoods and a woman of color that I wasn’t good enough to speak to stadiums of people or achieve the monumental success that I desire but as my self-concept change, my outside circumstances started to change.
I will leave you with this quote from my pastor that resonated with me to change my thinking – “Leaving the ghetto begins in your mind first.”
XOXO,
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy