The #1 Question To Ask Yourself in 2022

Empower yourself now and into the future.

Key points

• 2021 made us question our beliefs, values, and how we view ourselves, others, and the world we live in.
• When we’re preoccupied, we have to intentionally and consciously concert effort into aligning our behavior with our core values.
• Our confidence isn’t linear but rather an ongoing process that we must cultivate and nurture.

Source: Isabela Kronemberger

This has been a challenging year for many of us. The plethora of events likely brought up many intense stirred-up emotions.

This year was a revolving door of economic, political, socio-cultural events that captivated and demanded our attention. It made us question our beliefs, values, and how we view ourselves, others, and the world in which we live.

How could we forget the pandemic and introduction of the Delta and Omicron variants, the mob storming the capital, acclimating students back to school after remote learning, climate change impacting TX, LA, and KY, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the murder conviction in the George Floyd case, the enactment of the Texas abortion law, the spike in gun violence and violent crimes, among many other events and challenges that we endured.

Listing and noting these events evokes an overwhelming sense of helplessness, hopelessness, and feeling out of control. Still, we can mostly agree that it’s been especially trying this year. Daily, we’re surrounded by adversity, which challenges our ability to manage our emotions and act thoughtfully and mindfully. We intend to live consciously, mindfully, and cultivate a life that we’re personally content and proud of despite all that’s going on around us.

Being as distracted and triggered as we have further necessitates that we intentionally and consciously align our behavior with core values. We have choices, which puts us inside or outside the direction we want to be, living alongside all the chaos.

A question you may want to ask yourself in 2022 perpetually is, “ Will this action help to strengthen my confidence?” This question will help focus on empowering you to be your best self.

By Asking This Question, You Will:

1. Recognize that you need to take direct action to enhance your confidence. It’s not going to shift on its own. We can’t just proclaim all we want to be without putting in an intentional effort to prove to ourselves all that we are. It’s the kind of confidence that withstands anyone’s unfavorable remarks or your self-criticism because you have the evidence to back it up.
2. Maintain awareness that your confidence relates to taking action based on your core values. Taking action based on your core values is the most direct way to increase and enhance your confidence. You could evaluate what you’re about to do as essential and meaningful for you and why you’re prompted to behave in a particular way.
3. Pause between the thinking and doing so that you’re acting from conscious awareness. We are typically on autopilot and behave from an unconscious state. When you stop asking yourself that question, it facilitates a moment to pause, connect to your conscious awareness, and think of the most helpful way to react and improve your sense of self.
4. Understand that you can always realign yourself. Your initial thoughts and feelings are often prompted by your history, experiences, and the narratives you tell yourself. Learn to act from your core values rather than your thoughts and feelings. If you’re initially emotive and reactive, that’s understandable based on all that you’ve endured, are exposed to, and the messages embedded in your neuropathways that dictate the way you see and judge yourself and others. You gain insight that you have choices and can act in a meaningful way.
5. Be more open to noticing and accepting your human imperfections and work toward change. Because there’s a continual necessity to check in with ourselves, we’re afforded the ability to gain insight into our human vulnerability and frailty. We notice how easily we’re led because of our irrational and unwanted thoughts and feelings and our desire to feel good and become more comfortable. We realize how often our confidence is tested. We’re in situations where we have to make split-second decisions about whether or not we’ll positively contribute to our confidence.
6. Appreciate that your confidence isn’t linear but an ongoing process that must be cultivated and nurtured. We never learn what we need to say or do to contribute to our confidence. It typically isn’t taught at home or in school because our society values progress through wealth, intellect, and fame, among other things. We don’t make it a point to teach about emotions, self-growth, social-emotional skills, and interpersonal relationships. Our confidence continually has to be fostered and nurtured so that working on it becomes intuitive to how we function and live our lives.

While we start a new year, we get to decide to move forward with integrity and vitality. We get to choose how we want to proceed, despite all that surrounds us. We don’t have control over much of what goes on around us, but we incrementally add to the distress when we’re not fully conscious of our actions and rely on our habitual behavior to lead us.

Empower yourself to be grounded and mindful no matter what. Purposefully and meaningfully strengthen your confidence going into your future and beyond.

Here is a Tapping into Gratitude Guided Meditation led by me. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more interviews and guided meditations.

Originally published at https://www.psychologytoday.com.