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When you have conviction in something, you turn into a freaking machine.
I saw it with my two-year-old daughter (my guru) today at the playground. There was this sketchy-looking chain drawbridge contraption. It was really shaky. When she first put her little foot on it, she slipped and freaked out a little. Immediately, she reached for my hand. So, I proceeded to hold her hand and walk her across. About 50,000 times (okay, maybe I’m slightly exaggerating). Even though she was holding my hand, I could tell she was apprehensive.
And then something clicked…I saw it in her eyes.
This one time, when she got up there, she didn’t look at me to give me the high sign that she wanted my hand. Nope. Instead, she looked straight at the other side of the bridge with steely-eyed focus.
She was actually grinning.
Before I knew it, she was running across. Screaming with joy.
She was free of the chains of her apprehension.
This is conviction.
Even though she was holding my hand, she’d accomplished walking across the bridge—as shaky as it was, and as scared as she was. Then, conviction kicked in, and she decided to go for it.
Here’s the thing…
Conviction doesn’t come out of thin air.
I used to think conviction came from inspiration. I thought that if I read enough self-empowerment books, I could gain the conviction to do awesome things in this lifetime.
I thought it went like this…
1. Inspiration
2. Conviction
3. Do great stuff
It didn’t happen that way. Conviction never showed up.
Sure, I was inspired, but I wasn’t feeling the fire of conviction.
Like Rory showed me at the playground today, conviction doesn’t come from sitting in the sand wishing you were flying across that bridge. It comes from putting one foot in front of the other, and doing the damn thing over, and over, and over again, in spite of your apprehensions.
Soon, you’ll know you can do it because you’ve done it. Sure, you’ve fallen a few times and skinned those knees. But now, you‘re flying.
Here’s how it actually goes…
1. Inspiration
2. Acting (through faith)
3. Falling on face
4. Accomplishment
5. Conviction
Inspiration takes us to the edge. Faith gets us to take that first step. We usually slip and fall a time or fourteen. But each time gets easier because we’ve done it. Soon, something clicks and we have conviction to take things to whole new levels of amazingness.
You go first.
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This post was originally published on medium.com, and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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Photo credit: Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash