When You Don’t Believe ‘You Can Do This’: Guest Post from Tricia Lott Williford

When I was in middle school, my aunt invited me to stay with her for a week. This was a very exciting invitation as she was my most favorite relative, so naturally, with my parents’ permission, I accepted.

When you don’t believe You Can Do This

The problem was, I eventually realized that I would have to fly by myself for the first time, and as the trip got closer, anxiety about being alone on an airplane overtook my body. I spent an entire week experiencing heart palpitations, insomnia, and loss of appetite before my mother finally took me to the hospital, because she was concerned that something was physically wrong with me.

I was provided a free advance reader copy of You Can Do This by Tricia Lott Williford in exchange for my honest review.
 

I remember the E.R. nurses taking my blood and hooking me up to an EKG machine. Eventually, the doctor on call walked into the room and quickly wrote off all of my symptoms as my body’s “fight or flight” response. He never mentioned that I might actually have an anxiety disorder that would require counseling or medication.

I spent the rest of my adolescence knowing that my intense and illogical fear had inconvenienced and even angered others, and I tried my best to avoid situations that might set that embarrassing response off again. Instead of walking in confidence and faith, I walked in shame and guilt.

You Can Do This: Seizing the Confidence God Offers by Tricia Lott Williford

Next month, at age 33, I will finally fly by myself for the first time. After my family returns home from our week-long Colorado adventure, I will stay in Denver for Tricia Lott Williford’s You Can Do This: Seizing the Confidence God Offers launch team festivities.

It seems a bit ironic that my first solo flight is happening because I’m helping to launch a book about confidence.

I’m not particularly afraid of flying or airplanes or even turbulence. I just don’t like to do new things alone. I told a close friend that I was nervous about navigating by myself in a strange city, and she said, “You’re a big girl, you’ll be fine.”

She’s right, you know. I’ve done a bit of living in the last two decades. I’ve experienced a whole lot of stress, grief and loss and made it through alive. (I’ve even been to Denver and its airport a few times. I broke a camera there once.) Surely, I can make it two days in Denver on my own.

I am learning that pride is the root of all of my perfectionism and FEAR. When I lean into God’s giant promises and out of my internal chaos, I find rest in his perfect peace. When I let God be God and myself be small, my humility breeds gratitude and faith.

Courage is not the absence of fear. In fact, the more afraid I am of something, the more courage God will ultimately cultivate in me as I conquer that fear.

God says, “Do not be afraid,” because, while fear is a natural part of our imperfect humanity, fear is not from God, and it’s not okay to let fear shut us down and destroy our dreams. Once we conquer a great fear the very first time, once we know that we can survive, we find a strength inside of us that we never knew existed.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho

Guest post from Tricia Lott Williford

My new author friend Tricia Lott Williford lost her husband very suddenly when her sons were the current age of my own daughters, just 5 and 3 years old. You Can Do This is her brave, honest and beautiful story of finding courage and confidence after (and perhaps, because of) experiencing immense grief and trauma.

I recommend her life-giving words about her difficult but so incredibly worthwhile journey to every woman I know.

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Let’s start with an invitation: I’d like to invite you to stop being unhappy with yourself. To stop wishing you looked like someone else, or that people liked you as much as they like someone else, or that you could get the attention of people who hurt you. I’d like to invite you to stop second-guessing all of your decisions and commitments, to stop wondering if your life were different had you only chosen the mystery prize behind door number two.

I’m writing to you working moms who think you’re not doing enough to be present at home, and to you stay-at-home-moms—to those of you who are unapologetically content at home, who worry about getting things right in your long days with the little people who hold your heart; and to the ones among us who miss working outside the home, who feel like you lost your confidence somewhere among crumbs and dirty diapers. I’m thinking of you single women who feel incomplete or not enough because you’re not married. I’m writing to you single moms who balance more than you were ever meant to carry alone, and to you women who live with a failure, a betrayal, or a loss that has stolen every bit of who you thought you were.

I am inviting all of you, all of us, to a new conversation. I’d love to invite you to stop hating your body, your face, your figure, your hair, your freckles (or lack of them), your personality, your quirks. You’re worth more than these self-imposed opinions. It doesn’t matter when you began torturing yourself with criticism, but it needs to stop today. And here’s what I’d love to convince you of right here, right now:

You can do this.

When you’ve finished reading this book, I hope you’ll think, This book made me think and laugh, and now I feel like I can do this next thing in front of me. I hope you’ll feel hope, courage, strength, encouragement, presence, freedom, and confidence to move forward into your life with the awareness that you were born for this. I hope, girl to girl and eye to eye, we can remember that we are called to claim complete confidence.

Finding your confidence is a miracle. I know this because I found mine. And when I looked hard at the woman I’ve become, when I finally recognized the courageous warrior hidden in this frame, I was surprised by joy and astonished by awe. I want the same awareness for you.

Join me, girlfriend. Let’s do this.

See you in the pages,

Tricia

How to order You Can Do This

You can read more about Tricia and You Can Do This at tricialottwilliford.com. Order the book now at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.