As a young person just beginning your career, you might be overwhelmed or crippled with self-doubt and/or uncertainty as you’re deciding on the life you want.  You might not feel confident in your place in the world just yet, perhaps you aren’t sure how much money you can earn (or ask for), or maybe you feel pressure to hold back from being your true, awesome self.

You’re not alone, and you won’t be alone as you join the ranks of incredible, powerful, inspiring people everywhere that are living lives of confidence, joy, and abundance.  To become one of these amazing people, you simply need courage.

While the world is filled with tons of incredible self-help books, coaches, and countless pieces of advice, we want to make it simple for you and give you one, simple, powerful starting point that will help you shape your life… literally today.

I Can Do It, and I Will

When you were a child, how many times did you hear a well-meaning adult say something like:

• “Don’t do that, you’ll fall!”
  (or)
• “You can’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself!”

For virtually all of us, the answer is incalculable.  Our loved ones tried to shield us from pain, failure, risk, and loss.  While it’s human nature to protect the ones we love, and it’s very sweet that our loved ones tried to protect us, at the same time (without realizing it) they held us back from growing.  Pain, failure, risk, and loss are powerful tools that human beings require to grow.  Don’t believe me?  Picture a baby learning to walk, and how many times they need to fall before they get it right.

To become more successful in anything from getting across the monkey bars to starting your own company and traveling the world, you need to decide that pain, failure, risk, and loss, are worth experiencing so you can begin changing your internal scripting.

Catch yourself, and redirect.  When your parents, your friends, or your inner monologue tries to stop you from doing something like asking for that raise, taking a risk on a new career, moving across the country, or going for that job you really want, calmly hold your ground and do it anyway.

• Turn: “Don’t do that, you’ll fall!” into “I can do it, and I will.”
  (and)
• Turn: “You can’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself!” into “I can do it, and I will.”

Fake it Till You Make It

Changing your mental framework won’t happen overnight.  It will happen one tiny moment of courage at a time, until it becomes habit.  In your very first moment of opportunity after reading this article, I challenge you to listen to the inner monologue trying to talk you out of doing whatever risky, scary, unusual thing you’re trying to do (that you probably should do!).  Observe what you tell yourself, and the underlying reasons you give for not doing it.  Then, in a moment of borrowing from your future self, pretend you’re more courageous than you actually are today, and DO IT.

Talk yourself into it, put together the necessary steps to move forward powerfully, and shut that scared voice down.  You got this.  When you overcome your fears and the scripting of your past, you will be rewarded by a richer life filled with unlimited potential to have and be anything you wish to be.

Now, go do the thing that scares you.  You got this!