As I mentioned in my previous blog post, all or none kills success before it can begin. Now, ask yourself “how do I increase my self confidence?”
In order to test our tools and validate their efficacy, we’ll use a strategy called “Modeling”, which is simply doing the same thing someone else did to get the same or similar result. To do this we’ll check in with some of the greatest minds from history and see if we can model their beliefs, thoughts, and actions in order to get the same or similar results.
In regards to the “All or None” strategy, Pastor and two time New York Times Best Selling Author Steve Furtick elaborates of this folly when he declares:
“The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”
More often than not, we look at highly successful people and think they just arrived overnight, yet we fail to consider the thousands if not millions of small steps and failures undertaken on this journey.
As a musician in my 30’s struggling to find the necessary resources for success, I was inspired to build an online education and resources hub for music artists. But my “all or none” thinking said: “I need to raise $3 million dollars and build 50 courses with 50 teachers to start.” Holding on to this “All or None” strategy made me spin my wheels for five years, plow thousands of dollars into a black hole and crush my self-confidence.
Of course, I’m not alone, as this “All or None” strategy kills success and any resulting confidence for many people who attempt to start a business or hobby.
For instance, instead of thinking, “How can I get one customer and scale up if it works,” many people who start a business think, “How can I get 50,000 customers and $100,000 in revenue as quickly as possible?”
Booker T. Washington was one of the foremost black educators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite being born into slavery and poverty he managed to become the dominant leader in the African-American community where he served as a trusted advisor to several presidents.
Booker declared:
“Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the every day things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.”
Computer scientist and investor Paul Graham, Founded Y Combinator, a startup incubator, which has funded over 1000 startups, including Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit. Adding credence to Booker’s belief Paul declared:
“Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things… Want to make the universal website? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads to stalk one another.”
Obviously, he’s talking about Facebook, the multibillion-dollar corporation that was once just a vehicle for self-described computer nerds stalking college co-eds. To his credit, when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook he didn’t think he needed a billion dollar advertising platform. Instead, he developed it one step at a time or one chunk at a time, which brings us to our first solution to the “All or None” trap.
Chunking Makes You High
As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest challenges of the “All or None” strategy is that it prevents people from taking action because they are simply overwhelmed by the complexity of the tasks in front of them. For instance, if you were to eat a 100-pound Bison or a 100-pound carrot (if you’re a vegetarian) how would you do it?
You wouldn’t eat the whole thing in one sitting, would you? “Chunking” simply advises that you take one chunk at a time and focus on that chunk. Then, when you finish that chunk, take on another chunk.
Interestingly, while this works wonders for building confidence it also works wonders for your digestive system. In fact, this chunking concept works across the board in just about all aspects of life.
But relieving you of overwhelm isn’t the only benefit of chunking. It turns out that by simply taking action towards a goal and achieving something gives you a hit of dopamine, a neurotransmitter released by your brain.
In a study published in the neuroscience journal “Neuron” by researchers at the Jaume I University in Spain, scientists have proved that dopamine creates motivation. According to study author Mercè Correa, “Dopamine is released in order to achieve something good or to avoid something evil… it actually encourages us to act.”
In contrast, procrastination, self-doubt, lack of enthusiasm and depression have been linked to low dopamine levels, as Correa says, “Depressed people do not feel like doing anything and that’s because of low dopamine levels.”
Essentially, this is one of the “get high” elements of the confidence formula and by taking on one small chunk at a time and completing one small task, you’ll have more motivation to take more action. With each action, you’ll get a hit of dopamine, which will then reinforce your desire to continue taking action and stack more victories. And most importantly, this all results in… more Confidence! So remember this one the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed:
Complete ‘One Chunk’ at a time!
Spaghetti On The Wall
Another strategy that has cast a spell of laziness on society is the “Spaghetti on the Wall” strategy. In other words, you don’t really have a strategy; instead, you try a bunch of things at once and hope that one sticks.
For example, my client Dave really wanted to break free of his low self-confidence but had an overwhelming amount of fear when it came to branching out on his own financially, which kept him stuck in the same crappy job for over 10 years.
To solve his problem he frequently visited the local bars to fill up on liquid courage, learned Jiu-Jitsu to beat his fear into submission and as a last resort, he took brain supplements that claimed to “activate” confidence. While he tried a lot of things, he was never really willing to do the one thing that mattered most – get coaching and accountability.
Why Don’t People Get Coaching?
In Dave’s case, he was highly intelligent which had been reinforced by others his whole life. He truly believed he was more intelligent than others and didn’t need to learn, grow and work hard like everybody else.
This belief led to loads of failure, which he believed was only for losers. Getting a coach or listening to someone else who had answers he did not, meant he was automatically wrong and brought him unbearable pain. So what did he do? He threw spaghetti on the wall.
Problem is, without being completely self-honest and seeking wisdom from others who know more than you do, that buried treasure will forever escape your grasp.
Thankfully, a good coach, mentor or teacher will point out exactly where you’re falling short, give you a prescription for overcoming that challenge and hold you accountable until you win.
And while you may have had some coaching in the past, this support mechanism is a lifelong necessity where even the greatest coaches in the world like Tony Robbins, Phil Jackson and Danielle LaPorte still get coached. As the Billionaire Warren Buffet once declared:
“The most important investment you can make
is in yourself.”
We’ll talk more about coaching and investing in yourself later, just know for now this “spaghetti on the wall” virus can sidetrack you forever; don’t do it! Resist the temptation to try a dozen strategies at once. You’ll most likely end up lost in a labyrinth of never ending detours and lose sight of your treasure.
To jump start your road to self-confidence, check out the top-selling book Get High On Confidence by Chad Scott here.
