In this motivational talk, Tami Holladay addresses women—especially pastors' wives, ministry leaders, and mothers—who struggle with confidence due to constant comparison with others. She explains how comparison obscures true identity and hampers fulfillment of one’s calling. Holladay outlines a coaching framework for regaining confidence: (1) rediscovering personal identity by reviewing life history, recurring qualities, and gifts; (2) clarifying foundational values to guide decisions and reduce the urge to compare; and (3) taking small, intentional risks to learn from failure and build confidence through action. Throughout, she emphasizes that confidence is rooted in recognizing the traits God has given each person, not in boastful pride, and that embracing one’s unique calling leads to a more authentic, purposeful life.
Chapters
As I've gotten older in my life, I've realized that I kind of lost some confidence in myself. Is comparison causing you to lack confidence in who you are? I have a few ideas about how to regain that confidence so that you can more confidently walk in your calling and your purpose. It's not uncommon for us to begin looking at what other people are doing. If we are called as a pastor's wife or a leader in ministry, We will start to look and see, well, that's what a pastor's wife looks like, or, oh, that ministry leader looks like this, so that must be how I'm supposed to act or be, or those must be the skills that I'm supposed to have because they have them. And this can happen in any area of our lives. It happens as a mom. I think that's one of the biggest areas that it happens in. I know for me, I was always looking at what other moms were doing and kind of giving myself the little tick marks as, oh yep, didn't do so good today, so I've gotta pull up my game tomorrow and try to figure out how to be the fun mom, or whatever it is, right? So we're— the comparison makes it hard for us to figure out and be truly who we are. So I want to encourage you with a few ideas trying to break free of the comparison, and to do that is to rediscover who who we are. I don't know about you, but as I got older, I started to just kind of forget— part of it being a mom, because my role was to do everything for my children, always busy with their things— so I kind of forgot, who am I? And so I love to be able to sit with women and say, all right, you feel like your call is to be a pastor's wife, or your call is to be a mom, or a writer, or whatever it is that you feel called do at this time in your life, because that's a whole nother talk. I feel like a call can change throughout life. We can be called at different times to do different things. Like I said, that's a whole nother talk. But in the coaching that I do, we look at, all right, so this is what you feel called to. Let's look at what qualities you have to fulfill that, qualities that you enjoy, things that you have had for your whole life. So we look at your history of your careers, your jobs, friendships, organizations you've been involved in, and we see what are your similar qualities and characteristics that have just flowed throughout. And so we look at that to help reinforce and encourage you and bring confidence to you in who you are. When I say confidence, I'm not talking about being some rude, boastful person or prideful person. I'm talking about saying, okay, this is who God made me to be. He made me to be a good listener. He made me to be compassionate. Whatever your qualities and your skills and your gifting are, he made them and he gave them to you. And so having confidence in those is good because you're being confident in who God made you to be and how he designed you. So that's one way to help us combat the comparison— remembering who we are, qualities that we have, characteristics that we have, gifting that we've been given, so that we can then do what we've been called to do with confidence. Another thing to do is to think through what are your values. We sometimes forget, what are my foundational values? Or maybe we've never even looked at that. But it's important to know what are my foundational values that I will base decisions upon that will help me go forward in what it is I'm called to do. That keeps us from comparing because I can look at someone else and say, well, look what they're doing. But if I come back to my foundational values, the base of my who I am, my beliefs, then if that doesn't line up, then I don't need to compare myself And worry that I'm not doing something right. It doesn't line up with my values, I'm not doing it. I also think one way to combat comparison and walk more confidently in what you are called to do in life, it means that you might need to take small risks. You might need to have someone encourage you with that, but to take that step forward into the scary and take a risk. Staying back Keeps us in that comparison, looking at everybody else, feeling like we can never do it, feeling stuck. If we step forward and risk and we fail, instead of allowing that to hold us back, find in that risk what was the good thing, what did we learn, how did we grow. Confidence isn't built by just thinking about something, it's by taking the step forward, taking the risk, and seeing and learning who we are, and moving and stepping into that.
