IMAGE: LAURA RICHARDSON
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of confidence, and it seems to be the number-one topic the majority of my coaching clients want to talk about. If I leaf back through the scores of journals I’ve kept over the years, confidence – or a lack of it – makes an appearance on almost every other page. So, this month, I want to share an idea about how to grow and nurture your confidence through writing, inspired by the calathea plant in my bedroom. Its huge jade-green leaves are broad and bodacious, giving it the air of a plant very comfortable in its own skin. Every six weeks, like clockwork, one of the plant’s largest leaves turns yellow at the tip, slowly consuming itself and dying over the course of a week. At the same time, a new leaf gently uncurls, almost in symmetry. The reason one leaf dies and another buds is that the plant’s root system is not yet strong enough to sustain both.