We’ve pointed out that we can wire your brain for confidence in my previous blog post. Now is the right time to continue and explore more ways to build up confidence.
While “Physical Confidence” is the quickest and easiest way to feel confident, it’s effects are temporary and will only get you so far. In order to create longer-term results, we’ll need to step it up and build even more power in the realm of “Passion Confidence.” This is the “Skills and Abilities” part of the confidence formula and represents the passions you’re either already pursuing or would like to pursue.
Jay, a former client of mine, was a self-proclaimed introvert and struggled with self-confidence his whole life. When a beautiful woman would appear, his self-sabotaging ghosts of the past would pull his man card and leave him listless. If you’re not already familiar with “man card” it’s a relatively new term associated with a man’s ability to be brave, confident or courageous.
But put old buddy Jay in a room of indie music aficionados and he would light up like a firefly; transforming into a remarkably intelligent and affable dude. This is explainable since growing up, Jay didn’t have any athletic skills nor did he care to develop them, so he sought refuge in the guitar and developed a strong passion for indie music.
The story of Jay is not unusual, but it provides us with a signpost that points to one of the first and most obvious demonstrations of confidence – your passions. Passion confidence shows up in the physical realm through various talents and abilities such as:
- Athletic
- Artistic
- Business
- Writing
- Scientific
- Managerial
- Entrepreneurial
- Programming, etc.
If you’re at all short on talents and abilities just remember, Lack of talent or ability, just like lack of confidence is not a problem, it’s a result of not taking action. So while you may not have been born into favorable circumstances as a supermodel or heir to a multimillion-dollar fortune, this is good news, because becoming passionate about something is achievable by anyone.
For example, we see confidence show up in a man’s ability to step on the basketball court and swish his first three-point shot attempt, not because he’s lucky, not because he was born a great basketball player, but because he’s taken specific actions over time to develop a specific skill set and deploy those skills successfully.
Likewise, a woman walks up to her boss and calmly says: “I really enjoy working here and value your leadership. Over the course of my tenure, I’ve increased productivity by 25% and eliminated the need for more administrative staff. I would like to talk about increasing my pay in line with the value I provide, do you have a few minutes?”
As a result of this confident request, her boss willingly obliges and gives her an annual pay raise of 20%; not because he feels sorry for her, not because she was born a business genius, but because she’s taken specific actions over time to develop a specific skill set and deployed those skills successfully and… he knows her confidence is irreplaceable.
In both cases, these subjects have taken specific action and seen a corresponding increase in ability and accompanying confidence. But confidence wasn’t necessary to start; confidence was simply a result of the action taken over time. And more importantly, with each successful action, the result was more confidence, making their tasks easier and less stressful.
So if confidence is a natural byproduct of successfully deploying a skillset, why doesn’t everybody do it?
More often than not, most people tend to see the massive roadblock of time and energy in developing a new skill set. They want to start at the top and when they think there’s a huge mountain to climb in order to achieve a desired result, they feel overwhelmed and give up before they make any real progress.
All or None
Similar to the “Lottery Strategy,” where people tend to think, “If I just win the lottery all my problems will be solved,” the “All or None” strategy says: “I either go straight to the top or I’m a failure.” Sadly, this strategy has guaranteed failure since the time humans first walked on Earth.
Remarkably, like a virus that won’t go away, it continues to invade the minds of even the most industrious and well intentioned of people, killing success before it can begin.
All or None kills success before it can begin!
To read more about passion confidence, check out the top-selling book Get High On Confidence by Chad Scott here.
