Hi everyone, Caroline here! A confidence mindset is the foundation of success, optimizing motivation and productivity, creativity and communication, critical thinking and decision making, and everything else you need to create and progress along your pathway to success. A decade ago, after a successful and confident career as a marketing agency CEO with over 2000 employees, I faced a crisis of confidence while writing my first book, Jane & Me: My Austen Heritage. At the end of the first year of writing every Sunday, I had gotten nowhere and realized I was paralyzed by crippling fear. I decided to do something about it and created a strategy and habits to manage my confidence mindset. The first step is early detection of a confidence dip, allowing me to take swift action to restore it and minimize the disruption to my capability, productivity, and progress. Every day, I ask myself three pivotal questions: * Am I Present and focused in the moment, or is my mind distracted with other thoughts and tasks? * Am I Positive with an optimistic internal dialogue, or am I in a pessimistic or self-doubting frame of mind? * Am I Productive and getting the right things done, or am I procrastinating or getting distracted with other tasks? If the answer to ‘Am I Present,’ ‘Am I Positive,’ and ‘Am I Productive’ is yes, I am in the right frame of mind to progress along my success pathway. If the answer to any of those question is no, or not really, my confidence mindset is compromised and this will be reflected in my performance and progress. In the early days, it took a little practice to be honest with myself. I had shielded myself from how bad things were in that first year of writing Jane & Me. My trick is to be somewhere quiet with no distractions, take a few deep breaths, and tune into the internal dialogue and noise in my mind, the joy and motivation in my heart, and the stress in my stomach. It soon became second nature, and I ask myself these questions three times a day, starting at the beginning of the day when I am walking my dog along a local river. Being in nature helps me tune into my thoughts and feelings. Ask yourself these three simple questions every day and tune into your confidence mindset. You can track your confidence in your notebook, or download our worksheet HERE. When your confidence mindset changes, up or down, reflect on the cause of the change so you can resolve negative influences and dial up positive influences. I will be talking more about that in the coming weeks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theaustenpathway.substack.com
