Remember, Confidence Is a State
As you watch the Olympics and interviews with the athletes, notice how important it is for people to create states of confidence. You might think of this as part of a mind game, and it is, but it’s a premise that is important in any kind of coaching you do for yourself or others: confidence is a state.
People run into difficulties when they find themselves saying, “When I achieve what I want, then I’ll be confident” instead of understanding that it’s the state of confidence that will allow them to achieve what they want. Variations of this are expressed in the following ways: “When my website is up, then I’ll be more confident” and “When my book is published, then I can step up in a confident way.” These statements don’t show the confidence or confident approach that will allow such events to happen.
I should note one important proviso to all of this. When I recommend that you adopt a state of confidence, I’m presupposing that you have the competence to carry out your confidence. For example, if you are a beginning driver, you might have the confidence to drive in a Grand Prix race but not yet the competence. Once you achieve the competence, it will allow you to do well.
To better understand this, consider these four examples of how people can show up in the world:
- With low confidence and low competence: In this case you won’t do much because you don’t know much. You won’t achieve much, but you also won’t do any harm.
- With high confidence and low competence: This can be problematic if you need a certain skill level to do something. In order to move forward, you have to have a significant level of confidence, or you won’t push yourself to achieve more.
- With low confidence and high competence: With this, people probably say, “You can do that,” but your low confidence prevents you from trying.
- With high confidence and high competence: This is when you can achieve amazing things, and this is what you want to shoot for.
If you can get really good, trustworthy feedback, it can disconfirm your beliefs about yourself for better or worse—you’re better than you think or not as good as you think. You can use that feedback to adjust your actions as needed.
You can help your clients by being a source of accurate feedback. If people depend upon your feedback, they’ll take it as accurate even if they disagree.
As you work with your clients to determine where they currently operate in the examples above, remember to evaluate yourself as well. Are you performing with high competence and high confidence? If not, what steps can you take to achieve that?
