There’s a lot of things that I don’t believe in and have never believed. But, the one thing that I’ve spent most of my life not believing in was myself. I’ve lacked confidence and I’ve had esteem issues. I’ve been put down. I’ve been doubted. Their doubts became my doubts. Their concerns became my reality.

In a recent entry, I spoke about “Dashboard Management” and the ability to work towards one’s goals. I think that I’m on a good path right now. I’m still not completely sure of the destination, but I think that the direction I’m going in is forward. And any forward momentum is good momentum.

I’ve recently added some mostly daily practices to help me achieve calmness and attempt to take a more mindful approach to things in life. I’ve had a few moments where I’ve felt something could stress me out a bit and I’ve stopped to assess the situation and I’ve managed to calm myself down and not get anxious over it. I don’t know if I would have been capable of doing that even as recently as a few months ago.

During the course of this past month, I’ve accomplished something that I’ve flat out told people was not possible for me. I’ve said that there was no way that I could be ranked within the top 100 users of the DDP Yoga Now app. I just thought it was too much for me to handle to get there. At the beginning of the month, I saw that there were over 45,000 people using that app. Not only am I ranked AT 100 (at the time that I’m typing this), but I was 84 at one point during the month. And to be honest, as much work and effort as it took, it didn’t take as much as I thought. But, I did have to do the work. And as we’ve established, the work is SO important.

I don’t know when you’re reading this, but as of this moment, there’s about 13 hours until I run my next 5k race. It will be my 47th overall race. I don’t know well I’ll do in it compared to my others. The last two that I did were my slowest ones. I haven’t completed a 5k in under 30 minutes in almost six years. I do not expect to do so tomorrow. Is this not believing in myself? I don’t think so. I think it’s a matter of being realistic about my expectations. But, I am feeling good about the race, overall. So far.

I’m making changes. I’m doing things differently. I’m trying new things. I’m doing all of these things because not everything that I’ve done before has worked out so well. Not everything has been bad, but there’s been too many things that didn’t succeed as I would have wanted them to. Change is needed. I need to adjust my methods, my thinking, and my beliefs.

I don’t need to believe in myths, legends, stories, iconography, or fairy tales, I need to believe in me. It’s time for ME to believe that I’m capable. It’s taken me a long time to even start to understand any of this.

Why did I bring up the 5k specifically? Not just because it’s tomorrow, but because I’ve often said that no matter how well I do in one of those, even if my finish isn’t nearly as quick as I hoped it would be, ever single time that I cross a finish line, I’ve accomplished something. That means (in the case of 5ks) that I’ve succeeded 46 times. I have zero failures. I just have results that weren’t as fast as others. I put forth the effort and I get a result.

How do 5ks and everything else tie together? Belief. That’s how. I NEED to believe in me. In last month’s entry, I mentioned a quote from Yoga guru Page Joseph Falkinburg Jr. Another quote that he likes to refer to is one from Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.” For way too long, I’ve lived in a World of Can’t. It’s way past time for me to move into the World of Can, or at least a World of Can’t, yet.

It doesn’t matter where I’ve been and I will not be a slave to my previous mindset once again. Thinking one thing is one thing. Believing in it, is another. I’ve believed in nothing for too long. It’s time to believe in ME. And I think I’m getting there.