As you grow into your authority, you’ll gradually develop confidence. I (Steve Pavlina) am not referring to the temporary “Fake it till you make it” boldness that requires you to pump yourself up, such as you might do before asking someone on a date or getting up to speak in front of an audience. I’m referring to a stronger, more deeply held belief in your capabilities, a belief molded by experience and solidly rooted in truth. This kind of confidence cannot be faked.
Real confidence isn’t flashy, cocky, aggressive, or arrogant. It isn’t a feeling of dominance or superiority over others. Nor is it false modesty, self-effacement, or submissiveness. In the words of Kahlil Gibran, “To be modest in speaking truth is hypocrisy.” Real confidence is the deep, soulful recognition of a certain truth, the truth that you’re a powerful being. When you gaze upon your power through the lens of truth, you become naturally confident.
To become competent in any new endeavor, you may need to invest a significant amount of time, often many years. It’s imperative that you give yourself sufficient time to build your effectiveness. Your mind needs to gain enough experience to make accurate predictions. If you quit too early, you’ll never complete the shift from novice to expert, and the expert level is where most of the rewards are found.
When you hear someone say that success is easy, run the other way as fast as you can because you’re about to hear a sales pitch for another get-rich-quick scam. The honest truth is that it’s very difficult—nearly impossible—to succeed at something you’ve never done before. But that’s perfectly okay. Understand that failure and success are not opposites. Failure is an unavoidable part of success. When you fail, it means you’re taking action, so you’re making mistakes and educating yourself. Success happens naturally once you finally learn how to take the correct actions.
Since authority is grounded in truth, this principle is immensely practical. Effectiveness is the true measure of authority. Sound decisions must be backed by intelligent action to generate real results. In order to increase your authority, you must consider two questions: Am I making the correct decisions? Am I taking the correct actions?
As you implement your command decisions, you must return again to the principle of truth. Observe the results you’re getting. Are they consistent with your predictions? Learn from your successes as well as your mistakes. Your mind will gradually improve its predictive accuracy when you face similar situations in the future. Experience is the best teacher of effectiveness.
There’s only one true authority in your life, and it’s you. You make the decisions. You take the actions. If you’re looking to some external authority figure, leader, or guru to tell you how to live your life, you’re looking in the wrong place. That leader is you. Whether you fell ready or not, you’re in command.
Despite what you may have been conditioned to believe, there’s no higher authority in this life than you—not your parents, your boss, or your favorite supreme being. If you think anyone else has authority over you, it’s only because you yield your authority by choice. Sometimes the consequences of not doing so are so severe that you may feel as if you have no choice, but in truth you always do. Even when threatened with suffering or death, you remain the commander of your own life. Some of your choices may be extremely limited, but they’re always yours to make.
Authority is the principle derived from truth and power. Truth without power accomplishes nothing. Power without truth generates wasted action. The principle of authority teaches you to purposefully blend knowledge and action to produce intelligent results.
When you live without authority, your default behavior is to squander your time. You may acquire some knowledge, but you won’t apply it well. You may take some action, but your movements will be chaotic and unfocused. You have the potential to live a powerful, self-directed life of your choosing, but until you step into your true authority, this potential remains a fantasy.
A natural extension of oneness is the development of global consciousness. You acknowledge that just as each individual cell is responsible for maintaining the health of the whole body, you’re similarly responsible for the health of the entire planet. You can’t continue making decisions solely at the personal, family, or communal level. Now you must consider how your thoughts and actions impact the planet as a whole.
The mind-set of unity is an awesome responsibility, and many people feel overwhelmed by it initially. This is perfectly normal. To assume responsibility for the entire planet can feel like putting a huge weight on your shoulders. How can one person be responsible for so much? But to deny such responsibility is to succumb to an illusion. You can’t avoid the responsibility for what happens on Earth because you’re a part of it.
A sense of oneness encourages you to optimize and expand your contribution as an individual. It isn’t enough to just get by in life. If you perform well below your capacity, you’re denying responsibility for your role in the larger body. You’re withholding value both from yourself and others.
When I (Steve Pavlina) decided to retire from the field of computer-game development, I’d been devoting much of my spare time to helping independent game developers, especially those who were trying to finish and release their first game. I provide free how-to articles, hosted a popular online discussion forum, and shared lots of free advice. However, once I committed to a career change, I stopped providing that level of help to game developers and transitioned to my new career as gracefully as possible. While some people were upset by this move, I considered it a fair decision because I believed I could make a more positive contribution to the greater good through the field of personal development. I didn’t regret the choice at all.
The value of fairness also arises naturally from oneness. Fairness means that we learn to treat each other in ways that honor our individual well-being as well as the greater good. In practice, this means helping others align themselves with truth, love, and power.
Fairness isn’t the same equality. The cells in any given body can be considered equal only in the sense that they’re all equally part of the same whole. However, in form and function, those cells are decidedly not equal. The cells in your body specialize for the good of the whole, becoming blood cells, brain cells, skin cells, and so on. Similarly, as human beings it isn’t in our best interests to enforce equality except at the basic level of equal human rights. Our strengths lie in our difference, so it’s important for each of us to explore those differences and develop them into talents. This development can still be considered fair, even though it isn’t equal.
