I've heard a lot of shoulds over the years. I should get fitter. I should make the call. I should change jobs. I should spend more time with the people I love. I should finally start the thing I keep talking about.
We can should all over ourselves.
As a child, I loved Yoda's wonderfully uncompromising philosophy: "Do or do not." Somehow, it stayed with me, and over time it became something I believe quite deeply. Show me who you are. Don't tell me.
Words matter, and so do intentions. Eventually, though, what we do becomes the evidence.
I've had moments when I genuinely didn't think I was good enough. I felt the fear and did it anyway. Was it perfect? No. Was some of it clunky? Absolutely. Still, something changed simply because I'd acted. The thing I had built up in my head was far less daunting once I was actually inside it. Action created momentum. More importantly, it left evidence: I had done the thing I wasn't sure I could do.
We often wait for confidence as though it gives us permission to begin. Perhaps we have the order backwards. What if confidence isn't something we need before we act, but something we build by acting?
Here's the part I think we miss. We're remarkably bad at keeping our own receipts. We achieve something and immediately ask, "What's next?" We rarely stop to notice that yesterday's intimidating thing has quietly become today's completed thing. Evidence only helps us if we notice it.
Sometimes we act and it doesn't work. That counts too. An unsuccessful attempt isn't evidence that you can't. It's evidence that you tried, discovered something, and now know something you didn't know before. The question shifts from "Did I fail?" to "What did this teach me?"
There's another kind of evidence we collect without meaning to: other people's opinions. Something said years ago can become part of the story we tell ourselves, long after the person who said it has forgotten the conversation. You're not good at that. That's not really you. Be realistic.
Perhaps it's time to hand those opinions back to the people who gave them to us, and look at our own evidence instead. What have you survived? What have you learned? What have you tried? When were you brave, even though nobody noticed? When did you get back up, or find another way? What does the evidence of your own life say about you?
If you don't believe in yourself yet, belief doesn't have to be today's task. Think of someone you admire. What do they show you through the way they live? Borrow the example, not the identity.
Then take one action. Notice the hesitation if it's there. Feel the fear, and act anyway. If it works, you've learned something. If it doesn't, it may sting, and the lesson may take longer to see. Still, you know something you didn't know before.
Either way, you have more evidence than you had yesterday.
Decide what you want. Work out your next move. Then do something. You may find a way forward, or you may find a way that doesn't work. Both give you something you didn't have before.
Your life isn't built from what you intended to do. It's built from what you do next.
One Life, Live.
Reflection
What have your actions already proved about you that you haven't stopped long enough to notice?
What is one thing you've been telling yourself you should do?
What happens if you stop saying it and take the first step?
Nova x
