3 Ways to Use Your Faith to Build Confidence and Ignite Your Potential

Have you ever felt anxious about your place in the world?

It’s not always easy to make decisions or speak up, but I discovered rather recently that to trust our voice, to keep focus and influence others, we need to trust not only our mind but also our spirit. By that, I mean having faith.

This week’s Trust Your Voice podcast guest is Co-Creator and principal writer of the Bible-centered blog Hold Loosely Live Freely, Kirstin Ricketts. Named one of Omaha’s “40 under 40”, Kirstin is also a Certified Financial Planner who has earned Top of the Table, Court of the Table, and Million Dollar Round Table recognitions!

Currently serving on the Advisory Board for IF:Gathering an International Discipleship Ministry and pursuing her Master's Degree in Leadership and Evangelism, Kirstin spends much of her time helping others welcome God into their heart, as she has helped me. 

Read on and discover three ways that renewing or discovering faith can actually help you build confidence and achieve your potential! 

Connecting the dots. 

In my book, I discuss how sometimes we may feel that things are not going as planned and that we are on a wild goose chase. However, a pillar of the Christian faith is that God manifests in people, places, and events that we might not recognize or expect!

Kirstin spoke from personal experience about recognizing God’s guidance in our lives through hindsight: 

“We don't know God as our deliverer until we've been delivered. We don't know God as being faithful and kind until we have seen his faithfulness and his kindness.”

There’s a similar quote I love from Steve Jobs, which says that you have to look back and see how all the dots in your life connect to where you are today. In connecting those dots, you realize how God has worked through you, and how if you had not taken that turn or made that decision you would not be where you are. What a confidence boost!

In her blog Hold Loosely Live Freely, Kirstin expounds on how she sees God’s guidance in daily life, and how she began to see this guidance through ASKING.  

Starting by asking. 

Everyone’s journey toward God is different. Even the most faithful person could have been reluctant, afraid, or lacking motivation at the start. Kirstin attested to that in our conversation, saying that at one point she felt “I want to want God…I just don’t”. How do we get past such feelings?

“I just remember reading a book by Priscilla Shirer called Fervent, and that is the book that taught me how to pray,” Kirstin continued. “Every morning I would get up and I would ask God for passion, and what I saw is that God starts to answer our prayers, and the relationship with God that I wanted, he started providing.”

If belief STARTS with asking, how do we continue to build our belief as well as our confidence in ourselves? We must take time to identify our gifts and how God can use them!

Identifying and using your gifts.

Knowing that our gifts come from God gives you incredible focus, boldness, courage, and direction. We may be eager to have God work through us, but it may not be in the way we think! Sometimes, what we need to accomplish is on a smaller scale, and our gift is uniquely suited to the task.

“I kind of thought that I would do what God says and I would be speaking on a stage,” Kirstin shared on the subject. “What I found is that…often my mission might not look like a stage. It might look like the parking lot after school. But I am getting to talk to people…people who are willing to tell each other the truth, finding their way.”

Discovering your gift will require some effort and humility, but it is so worth it! I speak about the Strengths Finder test in my book “Trust Your Voice: A Roadmap to Focus and Influence”. It’s one way to identify our God-given gifts which have done wonders for me personally and professionally - why not try it out? 

You Are Not Alone!

I wholeheartedly believe that faith in something bigger than ourselves allows us to step up and lead, and be confident about the decisions we make. However, regardless of where your faith rests or what our gifts may be, we all still have moments when we feel stuck and afraid.

Do you struggle to overcome those moments of uncertainty? You’re not alone! Subscribe now to my bi-weekly podcast, where I meet with other guests who share their inspiring stories about building courage, trusting their voice, and leading with confidence!

In what way has faith in something greater helped you to make decisions with confidence?