A Look Back at Confidence

 

2023 was the Year of Confidence! I mean - that was my word for the year and as always; the word has appropriately applied to my life this year in so many ways. That's how it always seems to go though, which is why I know these words are divinely breathed into my life. Sure; I just take a quiz on the Dayspring website, but you can't tell me God isn't in that - He's in all things.

I've never been what you'd call a particularly "confident" person. I tend to be more shy than most (although my friends would laugh to hear that). I'm not great in social situations & I'm honestly much more of a homebody. Due to a pretty damaging work environment early on in my career, I tend to question my ability to do things & do them well - and I'll just leave it at that. 

I think I spent a lot of time in 2023 learning confidence: confidence in being a wife; that's definitely a whole new experience for most people who are newly married & marriage always comes with a learning curve. I tried to work on & learn confidence in my job; I ended up taking on a boatload of new tasks in 2023 & I did my best to maintain my confidence in learning how to do all the new things.

Sometimes confidence involved looking at situations that were really hard: like having the confidence to know that the Lord has a plan in place for my husband & I when we learned we'd lost our baby. That confidence lesson is a hard one to learn & I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It's a lesson I pray I don't have to learn again... or add to the original lesson, if you understand my meaning. 

Another hard lesson in confidence came right at the end of the year: I finally found the confidence to leave the job I'd been at for almost nine years. It was a hard fought decision that came after some health scares, long conversations with my therapist (yes- I have a therapist & you probably should too) & many, many (so very many) tears. 

The job I was in had incredible benefits - literally - they were incredible. Unfortunately the trade off was an extremely high stress environment & a work load that was demanding at best & impossible at worst; most days it fell into the category of way too much for one person to handle on their own. The office where I worked was under-staffed & also didn't really take the time necessary to train employees on standard operating procedures (there really weren't standard operating procedures). 

The stress of the job & the interoffice politics became so overwhelming that I ended up going to the emergency room not once - but three times - due to severe chest pains that led me to think I was having a heart attack. After multiple blood draws, numerous x-rays, a cat scan, an ultrasound, a GI cocktail & hours of waiting in a hospital bed - I was given a clean bill of health for my heart; however my mind was a different story. I was suffering from severe anxiety. 

After much prayer & the crunching of some numbers - my husband & I decided it was time I stepped away from my job & move on to other things. I shared my decision at work & when I knew the clock was counting down to my last days, it was like my whole body breathed a sigh of relief. The Lord knows I'm still a work in progress where the anxiety is concerned - but gaining the confidence to speak up for myself & make this decision was years in the making. Truly. 

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So - that's my look at confidence in the year of 2023. Perhaps that word wasn't used in my life in quite the way I thought it would be in 2023, but I certainly gained confidence in many different ways in 2023. I'll touch base soon to tell you all about my word for 2024 & how it's already impacting my life.