Episode 20 – Building Our Confidence (The G.R.I.T. Podcast)

Episode Transcript

Hello everybody. I’m Steven Nathenson, CEO, and founder of Strive for More. And today I want to talk about confidence. What is confidence? Simply put it’s just our belief in ourselves or self-efficacy that we’re capable, that we can do things. I can actually accomplish something such as, I can add say two plus two. I know that is equal to four. I’m confident I can do that. That belief in myself. That’s what confidence is. And why we’re talking about that today, because it is the number one area that my coaching always gets into regardless of what those overall arching goals may be, underneath of it is building confidence around the things I need to achieve that, let’s say it’s advancing my career, how do I do that? Am I confident enough to, say, speak up at a meeting and to put myself out there to build my internal brand awareness so that people know who I am, know what I’m capable of and see me as a good fit for, say, that next level. It’s underneath a lot of things in life for us, confidence. Number one area I get it to.

The other thing that I’ll say about it is you’re not alone in it if you struggle with confidence. If you question your capabilities in certain areas, it’s a natural thing that happens to most, if not all of us. And in fact, if someone says that they haven’t struggled with it at some point in their life, they’re probably not being honest with you and with themselves. It is something that we have all struggled with. So it’s not most of us, it is all of us in one way or another. But we often have a perception around it that says that somebody is confident. I see Mary speaking up. She says what she has on her mind. She seems to demand the attention of the room. I may think that she has all the confidence in the world when internally she may be questioning herself, “Should I speak up?

Should I not speak up?” We don’t know because it is a mentality that people keep to themselves and we just create perceptions around what we’re seeing. And I’ll relate that back to us individually, instead of what we see within others, when we look about ourselves and we look internally what we’re saying and open that up a little bit. Typically come down as, “I can’t believe that no one’s noticing. I can’t believe that they think I’m confident because I don’t feel that way.” That’s a very common thing that I hear from people that their confidence or lack thereof, rather isn’t showing through people don’t see that. And it just forms that perception we were talking about a moment ago that others may have of us while we’re having it, say, of them or other people around us. So just because we don’t think other people are struggling with confidence, doesn’t mean that they’re not. It is a very common issue and it is definitively the number one thing that I get into, “How we build that confidence?”

So actually let’s answer that. And the simple answer to that quite frankly is through experience. There are other ways, but the number one way that I want to talk about, and that is true to build experiences is through, excuse me, to build confidence is through our experiences. Doing something gives us the confidence that we are capable of doing it. Actions lead to that thought that I can do it that then lead to the feelings that I am capable, I am confident. I feel I’m confident I can do this because I’ve done it hundreds of times before. Experiences are the number one thing that build our confidence. And I think that was worth repeating because we often look at something, say, new, “Am I capable? Am I worthy? Can I do this?” And we question that, but the number one way to really do build that experience is to do it.

I do want to back up for a second because we’re all about mentality first here at Strive for More, especially with our process of this podcast, because it’s often the mentalities that hold us back first from engaging in the right action. So while it’s very true, that actions build confidence and those actions will leave to the thought that I am confident, that will lead to the feelings that I am confident. We’ve got to first overcome this mentality that may keep us back from even trying that action. I’ll give you an experience from my life. I got a lot of fitness certifications because I really enjoy learning, but also I love doing triathlons, I love marathons, trying to get better, and faster and stronger in those areas and that knowledge really helped me. But I was thinking, “That’s great, but can I actually apply this to somebody else? I’ve gone through all of this form, this education, but can I really, say, be a personal trainer, make a living at that?”

I had those thoughts. I had those questions. And for me, the answer was not going to be definitive until I actually went out and did it. I got the experience of training somebody, working at a gym, putting somebody through a regimen of exercise and helping them progress through it to reach their goals. I had to overcome the mentality first to be able to say, “You know what, I’m going to apply to be a trainer at a gym.” Because if I said, “Ah, I really don’t think this is going to happen. I don’t think I am capable of it,” I never would have taken that action first. So even though it’s very true that actions build thoughts, that build feelings to ultimately create this confidence for us and experiences a number way to do that, it does start mentally first of, “Am I actually going to take that action?”

Confidence is a big part of recognize and GRIT because of what we just said, because when I feel confident I am more likely to take action. And actually when I’m confident I can see the choices because I may actually know there’s multiple ways for me to add, say, two plus two, I could do it in my head, I could use my fingers, I can do it in Microsoft Excel, I could do it on a calculator, many different options for me to actually do that mathematical problem. I’m confident I have ways to make that happen. So when I am confident, I recognize there are choices available to me. But when I’m not confident, we are the opposite effect. We tend to get stuck in the negative, the non serving, “I can’t do this.” We don’t see that there’s other ways of doing what we want and reaching our goals because we talk ourselves out of it.

So that’s why confidence is such a big piece of recognize when we talk about GRIT, Give, Recognize, Implement, Time. So I want to leave you with a question today simply just to create awareness because often the first steps in our journeys is really creating this awareness of, “Where am I today? Where do I want to be? And how do I bridge that gap?” So simply I just kind of want to ask for you, what do you feel confident about and what do you not feel confident about? Because once we bring an awareness to this then we can start digging in to what mentalities may be associated with that so we can start overcoming the hurdles that prevent me from, say, taking that action that’s going to give me the experiences that build confidence. So until the next time, be the movement in your life.

 

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