This last week of our series we will discuss inner qualities.

Inner qualities are important because they are what you really are…on the inside.

You can pretend to be many things on the outside, but your inner qualities are what you truly believe yourself to be.  And the funny thing is that eventually, your inner qualities will always come out.  Your inner qualities are always reflected in your outer appearance.

Have you ever met someone who seemed to be confident, but something didn’t seem quite right.  They seemed “too confident,” too loud, too active, called too much attention to themselves.  They may just be trying to project a self-confidence that they just don’t have.  When you have confidence, you are very comfortable in a situation and don’t seem to be “too much” of anything.  But because they didn’t really feel it on the inside, they didn’t really project it on the outside.

But that doesn’t mean that someone can’t become confident.

In the Harry Potter series, when the students first arrive at the Hogwarts School, they are placed in different houses based on their inner qualities.  They do this by using a Sorting Hat.  This talking hat is placed on the new student’s head.  It analyzes the student’s inner qualities and assigns the student to a house based on qualities such as loyalty, courage, or ambition.

This system assumes that each person has inner qualities that are fixed.  But that is just not the case.   Over time, people change.

If you want to appear more confident, courageous, or compassionate, work on changing your inner thoughts and beliefs and the outer will take care of itself.