This is going to work out...

I have lost touch with my ability to trust and believe in myself.

Trust is the real issue. I have spent so much time lately doubting my ability to make a living at the job I love that I no longer trust myself. Even worse. I don’t believe in myself.

That ends now.

I have been crawling toward trust since last November when I put out a call to the Universe for help getting myself and my work to a different level and the Power Hour with Jennie and Jeni popped up in my LinkedIn and I signed up. Maybe I didn’t fully trust myself before. I was relying on the Universe to deliver when I wasn’t sure how to do or deliver anything to anyone.

In December, I randomly came across a social media post with strategy for setting an intention for the new year. I wrote an intention on each of 13 strips of paper (13 is a sacred number for women because there are 13 lunar cycles in a year which mirrors our menstrual cycles).

Then, I set a match to one of those strips every day for 12 days - without looking at the intention on the strip. On the 13^th day, I opened the remaining strip: “I am consistent and persistent. I know I become what I practice so I choose what I practice wisely.”

That word persistent is huge. When I trip over consistency, persistence catches me and I get back on track quicker. Being persistent leads to the consistency I need in my day and my work. I’ve noticed that I get back on task quicker and stick to my promises to myself more than I have before.

But I struggle to believe this will work - that the persistence equals progress. I have a favorite quote from the first Christians, the desert mothers and fathers: “Trust in God, but tie your camel to a tree.”

The trust is obvious, but tying the camel to the tree? That’s the persistence, returning to the work over and over, doing the little things that add up to progress.

For me, the trick is in believing that if I keep my camel tied to the proverbial tree that the work will work out.

There’s that word - believe. Believing is hard.

Since it is hard to believe, years ago I came up with this mantra for both my clients and me, “This is going to work out better than I can imagine.”

It works on two levels. It works because it posits belief. And, it works because it takes our limited imaginations out of the equation. It acknowledges that there’s something bigger than us out there and we can trust it.

I would include it with my other six mantras every morning when I woke up. Heck, it’s the wallpaper on my phone! But, sometime over the last year, I stopped saying it. No trust. No belief.

The job now - the quest - is to trust and believe in myself, everything I know (and don’t know), the communities I’ve created, my family, and the Universe.

I do have a BELIEVE sign, just like the one in Ted Lasso, over one of the doors in my great room. My son gave it to me several years ago because it represents the core of Ted Lasso and one of my core values.

So I’m doing what I insist that my clients do. I’m going back to the facts - my facts. I’m calling on my top coaching skills honed by watching hundreds of women’s basketball games (and, yes, some football games - really a lot of football games) to analyze the coaches, following the very best female coaches out there, watching all three seasons of Ted Lasso over 100 times, and the thousands of hours I’ve coached people struggling with the same issues around trust and belief all to help me keep going through the quagmire of doubt that surrounds me.

Perhaps I’m beginning to reclaim trust and belief because of the persistence I commit to daily. I’m not faking it til I make it. Instead, it’s belief following intentional action.

Instead of performing trust and belief for my world, I’m ready to embrace both again.