Self-confident people step out into the world, are willing to take risks and are eager to experience life fully.

Usually, what is holding us back is
– doubt, if we may do everything right,
– worry, that we look right in the eyes of others (what will they think of me??) and
– the fear of getting into a bad situation that can not be fixed later on.

I can define all of that so clearly, because these guys are some personal buddies of mine ;o) I have known them – doubt, worry and fear – for a long time.
And they still like to sneak around sometimes.

To still do my thing and to not get distracted, I have some strategies I want to share with you on how to handle those very human conditions with strength and clarity.>>

There is this strange difference between learning something and being educated in something.

Learning comes from doing, from applying, from actually moving the body – or at least the brain.
Getting education is something different. It means being exposed to theories.

In education usually doing something is not involved. The highest participation is memorizing and then repeating correctly.
What a sad process! Every mobile phone can do this. No humans required.>>

No one is good at everything. We all have areas where we are small and sucky.
Even if we are an expert, even if we reached an overall mastery level.
Still, there are things, we aren’t as good at.

What do we do about that?
There are several strategies, people cope with their weak points.

 

1.) They pretend they have no weak points.
This is very common. People try to hide the fact that they do have weaknesses.
They create a fake image of perfection and try to show to the world, they are masters in EVERYTHING.>>

Here is the truth: We all LOVE to postpone. We all have done it a million times. And still, it’s not a wise choice to save our duties for later.

We know, we have to do it. We know, there is no way to get around it.
We know we have a lot of resistance.
We know it would be much cozier to sit on the couch, munch popcorn, waste some more time. And do it later – AGAIN.>>

There is this paradox: we strive for perfection but we only get there through failing.
In other words, we will never get even close to where we want to be because we tend to shy away from the necessary stairsteps in the right direction.

When we teach others that mistakes are bad, we obstruct their progress.
The person who avoids to be wrong will never learn anything.

Someone sent me an article about proper leadership. This article was designed for CEOs in expensive suits I guess. But at the end, leadership is what we all need if we want to lead someone, whether a child, a student, a marriage, a friendship, a company or a good life.>>

Sometimes I wonder what funny creatures we humans are. We have all these contradicting tendencies that live side by side in us. Sometimes one of them comes out and wins. At other times everything in us is pulling in different directions so we are not moving at all.

As musicians, we are always trying to be better than we were the day before. Music is an ideal. We know, we will never ever be able to reach this impeccable perfection, this big absolute. But we put our heart and soul into being the best possible version of ourselves.

This makes us great critics. We are actively investigating and looking for all the mistakes and flaws we make. We try to proactively improve everything connected to our art in every way. We are musical improvement detectives at work!>>

I guess we all like the idea, that others think highly of us. What does that mean? In our fantasy we are praised and loved by everyone. In our wild dreams we walk around like peacocks fancying with the idea of being a person that everybody admires.

Let’s get real for a second. This truly is just a fantasy and nothing more.
Nobody is liked by everyone.
If people choose to like us, that’s great. But some (or many) won’t.
And you know what? That’s fine too!

We do not have to be looked up to. That is neither necessary nor healthy.>>

In todays world there seem to be two lifestyle fads, everybody recommends.
The first one is meditation, the second one is goal setting.

The first one for me personally is a nightmare.
I am one of those folks who is unable to sit still. I am always moving like that pesky kid at school who was super annoying.

Sitting still in frog posture – or what was that? Bug sitting? Wait… cross legged lotus pose!!! And waiting that illumination starts hitting me unfortunately is out of reach for me. Please forgive me for staying ignorant as always. But for some reason, I am ok with that.

The second one seemed awkward too.
Goal setting in real terms means sitting at a table and writing stuff down that I wish to come true.>>

The upcoming holiday season always seems to work like a magnifying glass in social affairs. We can see in bold letters what the essence of a relationship looks like.
In many cases, this means that we experience a beautiful closeness and a warmhearted connection. In others, we may feel more tension and stress with others than usual.

This is not only true for our family relationships but for all our social interactions. We never know what sticks in people’s mind and what in the long run they associate with us.

I remember a music teacher I had when I was a child. She ate bananas during the lessons with me. Here is the problem: I bananas. I once had to throw up after eating too much of them in kindergarten.>>