I used to believe I could do anything.

Over the past few years I began to realize that belief was born more of my youth and ignorance than it was of any innate capability or superhuman ability. I began to doubt myself, curb my own enthusism, stop tooting my own horn.

Well, as my dearly departed godmother Arie used to say “If you don’t tooteth your own horn, your horn will remain untooteth.”

So today I decided that realization was just plain wrong.

Clearly, whily my youthful self was woefully mistaken about things such as choosing first husbands and the wisdom of pairing three inch heels with stretch pants, she was wise beyond her years in the believing in myself department. This current me could stand to learn a lot from the sheer unmitigated temerity and chutzpah that younger me had when it came to believing what she deserved. Why is that?

Why should a teenaged girl with no credentials be more determined to believe she deserves the world on a platter than a thirty something with a resume peppered with successful interships and clerkships, a pile of degrees, and licenses lining her walls? If anything the roles should be reversed. I should be more willing to demand the world now than I have ever been, or at the least, more willing to believe I deserve it, should my hard work and diligence result in a nicely sized slice.

Yet, here I am. Can I?…. Should I?…. Have I paid enough dues?….Worked hard enough?….Do I have enough experience?…..Is everyone else out there better than me?/smarter than me?/more prepared than me?/better connected than me?…

Oh how that list drones on.

Today I decided to throw the list out. Tear it up, throw it out, tell my older, “wiser” self to shut the fuck up, and start believing in myself again.

Let me tell you something my teenaged self knew intrinsically; no one else out there in the world is going to come along and reinforce you. Your boss isn’t going to come along and tell you how amazing you are, and how much they need you at the company, and hand you a promotion. If you want to get ahead, you are going to have to believe you deserve it, and then make the people with the power to promote you believe you deserve it.

And if you are like me, and you have your own business, no one is going to walk into your door and tell you what an amazing business you have. You are going to have to sell them on it. Opening your doors to the world is like opening your heart and soul. You have to push them open, and them gather the world into them, so you had damn well better believe with ever fiber of your being that you are absolutely amazing. I have never met a client who went out of their way to tell me what an amazing lawyer I was, unless they started out as an old family friend.

So today marks the start of a new era of temerity and chutzpah.

Yes, I can do anything. I have my own business, I have a license to sue, and damn it, I am just that damn good.