How often have we been sold ‘confidence’? How long have you worked up the confidence to finally do something but never feel confident enough to do it? If you had to search confidence right now – I can guarantee you that there will be pages and pages of links on how to create confidence and that without it, you won’t succeed. Well, I am here to break the norm and show you that confidence is not the goal.
Perhaps like yourself, I have personally always struggled with confidence. Until today, I have this annoying voice in my head telling me I am not confident enough to host that seminar, coach that client or even run a business – never mind two.
It was not until I read Fear is Not the Boss of You By Jennifer Allwood that my mind was blown and my view of confidence shifted. Jennifer speaks about an entire chapter about confidence not being the goal and it got me thinking. I had to ask myself, how many times have I told a client, “We need to build your confidence up…” or “how is your confidence in selling?”. I did not even realize I was self-sabotaging my coaching as well as my clients.
In Jennifer’s book she asks this question that stopped all my tracks of thinking, “What does confidence have to do with it anyway?” I hope you are stopped right now to ask the same thing.
Confidence is a startup business killer. There are too many business owners that have not gone to where they want to go because they believe they need the confidence to do so. There are so many people who haven’t even begun their business because they think they need the confidence to do so.
Confidence comes from experience, having done it before. How can you have confidence before you started? We have been contradicted the very definition of confidence. Think about anything that you are confident in doing right now. For example, invoicing a regular client. You can do it without even thinking about it anymore, however, if you must think about the first time you had to invoice that client, you lacked the confidence to do so because fear came in. It is from doing it again and again you can now say you are ‘confident’.
So, let’s dive in that first time you invoiced that client, if I am saying it was not confidence, what was it then? Well, it was courage. It took courage to open your business, send that invoice, grow your sales. Confidence came once you had done it.
Confidence is not the goal. Courage is. Confidence is the result of the action you took through courage. You don’t lack confidence as a person or business owner and ‘confidence’ should not stand in your way to take that leap.
To take that step forward into courage, we need to break down the goal we trying to achieve. Don’t look at the staircase of steps you need to take to get there, but rather, look only at the step in front of you and courageously take that one step.
Do not think about all that needs to be done but look at what needs to be done in the present. We often think about step 3, 4 and 5 while still taking step 1 and fear creeps in before we even start. Have faith in the present step, give the present step all you have and that will give you the confidence that you have done step 1 and the courage to go onto step 2.
Confidence is not the goal, the confidence you have today is from past experiences. If you are currently facing a new journey and trying to build the confidence to do so, you are going to be standing still. Break your journey down and courageously begin. If you are not sure how to break down your journey, reach out to those who can assist you take that courageous step and receive the confidence from doing so.
