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For many years, I drove a 365i BMW.  When I bought the car, the dealership would only honor my warranty if an authorized BMW dealership did the maintenance and repairs.  Their reason was many other mechanics can fix and maintenance a BMW but only the manufacturer has the authentic knowledge, training, and parts that were created for the BMW.

This is very true of us, as well.  There are many truths that our parents, siblings, spouses, friends, life circumstances, and experiences can tell to us about ourselves but only our Manufacturer, who is GOD, can reveal our true identity.  It’s these deep truths that build and develop our confidence and the many complex answers to the question “Who Am I?”

What I’ve discovered is we can answer the question, “What I Do” with authority and confidence but struggle greatly with the question “Who Am I”? 

Many of us struggle with our true identity because we become who our parents want us to be or who our parents didn’t want us to be. We become a job title, a career focus, or a hustler who knows how to grind. We become our profession or our children’s parent.

True confidence is not experienced in what we DO but living in full ownership of who we ARE

To grow in our confidence, we must do five key things:

  1. Seek God for our IDENTITY
  2. Seek God for our ONE GIFT
  3. Seek God for our PURPOSE
  4. Seek God for our PASSION
  5. Seek God for who He’s called us to SERVE

There are several keys to growing in our confidence and today I want to focus on the first one, “Seeking God for our identity”.

Our identity is revealed to us through pursuing inner peace by spending daily, quality time in a quiet place of prayer, meditation, and/or self reflection.  This may be 10 minutes a day or one hour a day.  The amount of time is not what’s most important, but the commitment to being consist in taking the time.

All of us have insecurities that hold our confidence hostage.  In my deep dive into living my true identity, I’ve discovered my need for validation held my confidence hostage.

My drive was so strong that I worked hard enough to achieve my goals but this need for validation, would attack my confidence by:

  1. Stealing my peace and joy during the process
  2. Creating a ceiling on the level of success my drive could push me to achieve

I encourage you to be consistent and committed to your daily quiet time.  And then take full ownership and authority of the identity God gave you.  Do not allow your drive to minimize your confidence, steal your peace, and rob your joy.  I want all of us to be just as clear in answering the question “Who are you?” as we are when we’re asked “What do you do?”.

Missed part 1? Check it out here

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About the Author  

Sheri Riley

Sheri Riley

Empowerment Speaker, Life Strategist, Author

I am a wife, mother, daughter, and entrepreneur and we all know this is not easy, but I’ve discovered how to make it simple. As an Empowerment Speaker and Life Strategist, I work with busy individuals, like us, on how to and make choices that lead to more peace, less stress, and better clarity. My book, Exponential LivingStop Spending 100% of Your Time on 10% of Who You Are (Penguin Random House) provides practical tools and serves as the guide to help high achievers to integrate our personal desires into our life without detriment to our professional achievement. It is available now for pre-order on ExponentialLiving.com and on sale February 7, 2017.