You cannot feel blue when you have solid self-confidence. But when you have made a mistake, your self-confidence is shaken. When you are asked to do something, and doubt your ability to produce, your self-confidence is shaken. When you don't seem to be able to do what you want to do, you let go some of your self-confidence. When you fear results or conditions, you lack confidence in yourself. Seed successes point the way to strengthened self-confidence. A Success Reservoir, as you will discover, is the means you can use to replenish self-confidence quickly, and overcome the blues.
The first step in re-establishing self-confidence is to recognize that you've had troubles before and somehow or other you have managed to survive them. The problems do seem to become tougher as you get older, but the survival quality put into you by the good Lord also seems to more than match the problems. Even in circumstances where you might have said to yourself "the worst is yet to come," you know that you have found in yourself the ability to meet those conditions and live on.
The big trouble with the previous paragraph is its tangible aspect. You probably agree with its ideas; but when you have the blues, when you lack self-confidence, those ideas just do not come to mind.
As a realist in career planning, I must meet here a challenge frequently raised by clients still not convinced we are living in an entirely modern world. As one said, deliberately fingering a "good luck" coin extracted from his pocket, "It's all right for you to say that success is not a matter of getting the breaks, Mr. Haldane, but I happen to know better. I got the breaks one time-a broken leg-and three men in the office were promoted over my head while I was out on sick leave. I got the break, and they got the promotions. What do you say to that?"
He had me. Being the right man on the right spot at the right time does have its values, but let's not get the values confused. Compared to all the generations of mankind, in terms of opportunity, just being in the world during the 1960s means that, as no others have been, we are in the right spot at the right time. Being the right men to take advantage of it is something else again. I didn't see that his good luck piece, rubbed shiny though it was, could be of much help there. He insisted that it was.
"Every time I get called into the boss's office, I polish it on my pants leg, and I've had three raises in three years," he assured me. I happened to know that in his company you either got a raise every year or you had reached the end of the line. Nevertheless, I could not discount the fact that the charm bolstered his morale, and that was good.
But if some concrete evidence was needed to bolster morale-something to be touched, rubbed, or looked at- why not something based on practicality? Why a rabbit's foot-which certainly had brought no luck to the rabbit- when a list of one's greatest achievements on a small card could provide positive and non-superstitious assurance that the obstacles one had overcome once could be overcome again? It could boost morale in an incontrovertible way. What had been done once could be done again, and no one could appreciate that more than the person who had done it. It should serve him as a constant reminder that he had triumphed over difficulties in the past, could do so now, and would do so again.
I suggested as much to my client, but he was not in an acceptant mood. I changed the subject. We talked about various things concerned with his work, none of them arousing much enthusiasm. In order to start that spark, I asked him what the most beautiful, tranquil, soul-satisfying scene he had ever viewed was.
He paused for a moment, flunking, and when he began talking. "One evening up on the east shore of Lake Nipigon, in Ontario-" he began. There followed a description of the lake against a backdrop of primeval forest and red" sunset that was almost poetry. By the time he had finished, you could hear the bass leaping in the lake and smell the birch-wood campfire. And he was a changed man, looking as restored in vigor as if he had visited his favorite scene in person.
"All right," he agreed then. "It is better to believe in my achievements than in a good luck coin. And it is better to create my own opportunities than let a broken leg cheat me out of them. I'll go to work on it tomorrow."
Then he grinned. "Okay, so I'm working on it right now." I was still marveling at the transformation that had taken place in my client during the course of his description of the lake. "While you're at it," I suggested, "when you write down your achievements on your pocket card, write down your description of Lake Nipigon on the back. Then if you get really worried or flustered, read the description first to calm yourself, and then read your list of achievements for the confidence you need to go ahead."
The description of a beautiful scene through which you can relive a memorable, spirit-refreshing experience can work wonders in producing the calm you need in facing moments of decision. The achievements provide the confidence. And when you are calm and assured, you are at your best.
Such a card, your portable Success Reservoir, is quite as tangible as any rabbit's foot. It will help to sharpen your mind and talents, and stimulate your most constructive emotions. It deals with things you know about, things completely within your experience, things without any kind of mystery. When you lose enthusiasm or self-confidence, a touch or a glance will help to restore it. "Think on these things", it says in the Bible, "things which are beautiful and of good report." This card will help you to remember always that you have the capacity to rise above your difficulties and be successful again.
