Wouldn’t it be great to be able to deliver a presentation with the same confidence you feel when you do your “real” work, the one you have tons of experience and expertise in?

Or to ask for a promotion with the same confidence you felt when you made your school’s track team or won the spelling bee (or whatever your thing was back in the day)?

Do you have that one area in your life where you really trust yourself?

For me, that’s my health. I believe that I am “healthy as a horse” – despite lots of things I could take as evidence to the contrary (I do have some sub-par genetic conditions and unpleasant chronic stuff, but don’t most people?).

I never realized how strong my belief in my excellent health was until one year ago when I not broke but shattered my left leg, requiring hours of surgery, lots of titanium, and months on the couch.

Right from the outset, I let everybody know that I was a speedhealer and planning to be back on my feet by the end of the year. The surgeon called this timeline “highly ambitious”, which I understood to mean “possible”.

The whole thing just struck me as a challenge to overcome.

Was I scared? Hell yes!

Terrified at times, really, that I would spend the rest of my days limping and in massive pain or that there would be more surgeries in my future and no fun workouts anymore. Fortunately, that didn't turn out to be the case.

I do realize that having access to great healthcare and an amazing surgeon was key in my recovery.

But I know mindset played a vital part as well – and the whole thing taught me some really good lessons:

It is a choice to see something as either a catastrophe or a challenge.

It is a choice to set an ambitious timeline and work toward meeting it.

It’s a choice not be crushed by setbacks and continue to visualize the desired outcome.

That's what I remind myself of when I am facing a challenge in my work.

It is a skill you can acquire.

And when you master this type of consistent thought and mindset work in one area, it becomes a lot easier to do it also in other areas of life.

That’s what I mean when I say: Confidence is transferrable.

I managed to acquire this skill, and you can too.