The Power of Believing in YOU!

Okay, I know...it's cliche...but just hear me out!

I've been thinking lately about how easily we tell other people to believe in themselves.

Someone tells us they're thinking about starting a business and we say, "Go for it!" A friend wants to go back to school and we encourage them. Someone has an idea for a book, a painting, a new career, or some ridiculous dream they've been carrying around for years, and we're often able to see possibilities for them that they can't quite see for themselves.

Then it's our turn.

Suddenly, we need evidence.

We need guarantees. We want to know it'll work before we begin. We want someone else to tell us we're talented enough, smart enough, experienced enough, young enough, financially secure enough, or whatever other version of "enough" we've decided is required before we're allowed to take ourselves seriously.

I've certainly done it.

There have been plenty of times when I've looked outside myself for confirmation that I was headed in the right direction. As a photographer, it's easy to look at bookings and reactions to your work as evidence of whether you're good enough. As an artist, you wonder whether someone would actually hang one of your paintings on their wall. When you write something, you wonder whether anybody will read it. When you build something new, there's always that little voice asking whether anybody is actually going to care.

The problem is that if you wait for enough evidence to believe in yourself, you may never give yourself the opportunity to create the evidence in the first place.

That's the part I'm beginning to understand.

Believing in yourself doesn't mean believing that everything you touch will turn to gold. It doesn't mean every idea is brilliant, every painting is a masterpiece, every business will succeed, or every decision will turn out to be the right one. Sometimes you'll believe in an idea and it'll flop spectacularly. Sometimes you'll take the chance and wish you hadn't. Sometimes you'll create something you absolutely love today and look at it six months from now wondering what the hell you were thinking. 😂

That's life.

Self-belief isn't certainty.

It's trust.

It's being able to say, "I don't know how this is going to turn out, but I trust myself enough to find out."

There's tremendous power in that.

I've been experiencing it firsthand while preparing for #DearMirror. This exhibition isn't something I dreamed up a few months ago because I suddenly decided I wanted to have an art show. The idea of exhibiting my work has followed me through much of my adult life. I've talked about it. Thought about it. Started toward it. Put it aside. Life happened. Other priorities took over. There was always another reason why "one day" made more sense than today.

Now there's an actual date on the calendar.

November 29, 2026.

And here's the funny thing: having a date hasn't magically removed the doubt. I still look at some of my work and wonder what people will think. I still question certain decisions. I still have moments when I compare what I'm creating to artists with far more formal training and experience than I have.

Believing in yourself doesn't make those thoughts disappear.

It simply stops giving them the final vote.

That's a distinction I wish I'd understood much earlier in life. Sometimes believing in yourself looks remarkably ordinary. It can be making the phone call before you know what the answer will be. Buying the canvas before you know exactly what you're going to paint. Booking the gallery before everything is finished. Building the website before there's an audience waiting for it. Writing the blog when you have no idea whether five people or five hundred will read it.

Those aren't declarations that you're going to succeed. They're declarations that you're willing to try. And perhaps that's where we've misunderstood self-belief. We've turned it into this enormous motivational concept where you're supposed to stand in front of a mirror every morning and convince yourself that you're unstoppable.

I don't need to believe I'm unstoppable.

I just need to believe its worth starting.

Because once you start, something interesting happens. You learn. You adjust. You fail at things. You get better at others. You discover abilities you didn't know you had and limitations you weren't aware of. You begin collecting the very evidence you once thought you needed before you were willing to begin.

One small act of belief creates another.

Then another.

Eventually, you look behind you and realize you've traveled considerably farther than the version of you who was waiting for permission ever could have imagined.

I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I laid out 30 paintings near completion for my show. I thought I was behind but as I pulled everything out and placed them all in one place...I realized..."Pat, you're much further ahead than you realize!"

I'm learning that believing in myself isn't about knowing where all of this leads. I have absolutely no idea what people will think when they walk into #DearMirror on November 29. I don't know where this website will be five years from now. I don't know which ideas will succeed, which will evolve into something completely different, or which will quietly disappear because they simply weren't meant to work.

And I'm becoming increasingly comfortable with not knowing.

Because I don't need certainty anymore.

I need enough curiosity to begin, enough humility to learn, enough resilience to continue, and enough belief in myself to take the next step when there's absolutely no guarantee of where it will lead.

Maybe that's the real power of believing in YOU.

It isn't believing that you cannot fail.

It's believing that you're worth the attempt.

And if you'd like to experience #DearMirror in person, I'd love to see you there. RSVP for November 29, and feel free to share the exhibition with someone you think would appreciate the art and the journey behind it.