Confidence and Motivation

Magdalena Yesil's case study was very inspirational.  Learning about the journey of her studies and career helped me reflect on how I let things hold me back.  She didn’t let gender, ethnicity or not knowing something hold her back. I’ve noticed that there are things that I might hide behind because I don’t think I’m good at it or I think I don’t know enough.  It also helped me reflect on the times that I did move forward even when I wasn’t sure how things would turn out.  I gain confidence from those reflections to move forward and try new things. For example, when I made the leap to start school again, I noticed that it gave me more confidence in other parts of my life.  It used to be that when my children would come and ask help on difficult homework assignments that I would send them on to my husband.  However, this past year I have had the confidence to help them myself, even when I wasn’t familiar with the material myself – subjects like physics, engineering and even writing papers.  I was able to show them how to research so that they could not only find the answers, but they were better able to look for the answers themselves in the future.  It’s important to reflect on what we need to improve on, but it’s also equally important to reflect on hard things that we have accomplished in order to build our confidence moving forward.

I also enjoyed Elder Robbins address at BYU-Idaho entitled, “Making a Living and a Life”.  He spoke on integrity in the workplace and what our motivation should be for our work.  We should try to create a Zion society in our field of work.  He said, “The great millennial motivators will be the first two great commandments, a love of God and a love of fellowmen.”  This should be my motivation for my business and if I follow these two commandments, I will be successful.