Progress not Perfection

Are you still feeling shy? Are you discouraged?

Discouragement can happen to the best of us. How do you become discouraged? Usually you try and try but things do not turn out the way you expected. Once this happens you can become discouraged.

But suppose you change your expectations. Suppose you try and try and you do not get the outcome you want. Can you appreciate and respect the outcome you got. Sure it was not the one you wanted but how about looking at the outcome you got. How about recognizing that you did make some progress? How about looking at what you did achieve?

You were not an abject failure. First you made the attempt. You challenged yourself by trying. Are you going to ignore that? Of course not.

Second you may have even made a tiny bit of progress. Or you made a lot of progress. It was not the progress you expected but it was progress.

Third maybe you did something you never thought you could do. Should you downplay that? Never.

Are you now starting to notice that you can overcome your shyness. Are you now starting to notice that you are making progress. Are you now ready to give up feeling discouraged?

Keep going. Choose progress over perfection. You can overcome your shyness.

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach

Courage

If you are shy you are probably concerned about speaking up and out. Probably you do not. This story shows the importance of speaking up. You need courage to do the right thing and say what is true. See if this story inspires you to get out of your shell.

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ABE LINCOLN made the great speech of his famous senatorial campaign at Springfield, Illinois. The convention before which he spoke consisted of a thousand delegates together with the crowd that had gathered with them.

His speech was carefully prepared. Every sentence was guarded and emphatic. It has since become famous as "The Divided House" speech. Before entering the hall where it was to be delivered, he stepped into the office of his law- partner, Mr. Herndon, and, locking the door, so that their interview might be private, took his manuscript from his pocket, and read one of the opening sentences: "I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free."

Mr. Herndon remarked that the sentiment was true, but suggested that it might not be good policy to utter it at that time.

Mr. Lincoln replied with great firmness: "No matter about the policy. It is true, and the nation is entitled to it. The proposition has been true for six thousand years, and I will deliver it as it is written."

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach