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Lesson Info

Building Up Your Confidence

So then I want to talk about the confidence and yes thes air all tied together of course give yourself and we're turning the page here give yourself a score for how confident you are that you can do this go erica's in but not but usually at this stage when I'm working with a large group of people there are all kinds of scores on that score comes from immediately the minute I asked you this question I would guess that some of you went to all of your failures the men and I asked if you were confident about this goal you started the catalog some goals you hadn't made so I want you to stop right now take a deep breath and name for yourself some goals you have made simon you you said that you've done this with dci gone what's another goal you've made something you decided you wanted to learn or do and you did it um let's see I why I wanted to transfer in the past to call a different college and I I did everything I needed to do all you know and I successfully transferred excellent example o...

n was there a stage in the beginning of that where you doubted you would do that? I think that doubt was mohr um should I transfer or not the decisions thea actual the ability to do it? I don't know somehow I had such a deep I think that because I was so motivated to a certain point to do it that you felt confident yeah, I would say that for me those you are pretty intertwine that motivation and confidence they are intertwined, they really really are because they're tied deeper toe what you really want, but sometimes we can tease them apart sometimes we're kind of really motivated to do something, but we're not confident and maybe it's because we need something else and we need a skill or we need a resource for something to go with it or we're tired for another reason I really want to do this, but I'm kind of whooped and, you know, there's occasions when I've said to clients um that I really don't want you to do this right now you're not in the space to do it, you're too overwhelmed you're not ready on the ready curve, you're not there, so if your confidence isn't there one of the questions to ask yourself is, um I really ready maybe my timing's off maybe I'm not feeling confident because I'm not really ready right now and I've got to attend to something else maybe I'm not feeling confident because I just went through a failure in something else I cannot let that go and come up with some of my successes and remind myself where I am strong and and even teasing down to what what was it that made you strong to do the things you've done? We don't play around with that much doing. We spend so much time where we're not strong, so so when you don't feel the confidence their ways to ramp it up, remember, this stress and skills curve was a bell cur with performance, um, and challenges on this access and your performances on this access and this access can also be called your ability to cope, but what his ability to cope, but your confidence that you can people do amazing things, and they have to ramp up their confidence to do him. Now, I want to I want to be really specific about something. Does being confident say, you're ten on the confidence scale? Does that mean you have no fear? That was a trick question? It doesn't. You can be confident at the same time. You have fear. Nobody said it was gonna be without fear. Nobody said that there wasn't going to be doubting thomas coming to the party, too, but there's a piece of you that feels like you could do it in the face of that, you've got it, and doubting thomas is just gonna have to come along for the ride, I'm glad you said that that makes a difference for me, because I I you know, when I first wrote it down, I actually I did feel if they feel more confident about being able to do this then I probably have for any other goal um but it was that little inner critic that said that had that fear that couldn't didn't allow me he has a talk, right? Yeah so I appreciate hearing that she's not listening to me I held her all the time I tell her she can't do this yeah, so maybe that's what we were talking about before maybe that's some of the good grit that the confidence in the face of fear if we didn't have we have fear for a purpose our brain is trying to keep us safe and if we're going to change anything our brain is inside there going is this going to be safe? I'm not really sure this is going to be safe that's its job it's total jobs so it's going to ring a little bit of a fear alarm that you're going to change and accept it and just know it and then look for your real confidence look for that part that's totally motivated because you know you have what it takes, you've done it in some other setting and you know you're motivated and you notice you're motivated now because is tied to your values and purpose and when you do that it takes less effort it feels easier you can almost get to the state of flow with the very thought of it, anything coming in from saying confidence is very situational for them, so maybe you just give us a little bit more detail on exactly what that means. Is that something you're familiar with? It isthe situational and that's, we're going to talk, you know, I'm these things are artificially teased out one by one and it's sort of like saying we're just going to talk about the ear and we're not going to talk about the foot. They're all connected the knee bone's connected to the we're all connected, but yes, confidence is situational and you want to create your best situation is the answer to that? I talked in the very beginning of the first session about that this performance and stress curve that's the bell curve and at the peak of that curve where you're in peak performance can be different for different things in different situations and that's very true. If you had asked me ten years ago where that peak was for me and public speaking, it would have been off the other side of the axis. I actually bribed somebody to go up on stage in my daughter's school because I didn't want to give out a reward because I wasn't getting on stage, I have shifted that now I enjoy it. I enjoy being up because I brought it to my purpose, and I conquered that fear, but it's very situational, so that's really important to know that we're situation when you want to create the situations where you can do it, and we're going to spend more on that in the next session that setting up guard rails to keep you in the situation where you are safe to do it and you can experiment and play. So thank you for asking that comment a cz well, our spirit is saying my confidence right now is like an eight I think that they recognize their feeling that's because they're part of this class on all you've been extracting them cindy's really helped them, they're worried is going to drop in the class. Do you want me to hold your hand way? That's? Why people get coaches because they want that accountability, but I want to tell you that you can coach yourself. I'm I have no magic powers, darn it, and I understand what you mean, you're immersed, we all go to seminars and things, and we get so excited, and we think, you know, this is a really great idea, so we're actually gonna talk a little later in this next section about building in that accountability, but this is about coaching yourself, I'm coaching, but this is this is about learning to coach yourself and find that motivation in that confidence when there isn't another voice holding you in a whole community in a chat room holding you to do it so that's a great great question people saying claire of our racing she's like about a six right now but that's because her gold isn't specific enough yet but she knows when she's got that inner confidence will rise even further nice nice so so when you go get specific I would love to hear it I'd love to hear it and actually what I would really love to hear is the original and the translation to a smart girl that would be really fun to hear because I think we need a lot of practice with that now read scorpio who's being actually with us here in the studio she's in san diego right now and she's she's a great crafter she says she set a goal to learn to make a beaded snake because she'd seen one online and she really liked it after she completed it she wants second place in the san diego fair confidence yes it's a great great f affirmation of what she's achieved so that's beautiful because it's not it's not what she did it's that she took on something she persisted I I would guess that there were moments where she thought this was going to turn out to be horrible and that she thought I should have listened better. I didn't do that, I you know, I'm sure their moments where she had doubts along the way, but she had something pulling her forward and she won. So those skills, those abilities toe pull yourself forward when you doubt yourself is what this whole thing is about that's, where you find it in things you've done before, and you can apply it going forward and you can trust yourself. You can start to trust yourself that you could do something even when you're afraid that's what confidence really is fine checklists help with this? Is this something you have to kate? Alex from london is asking about this specifically where you just make checklist check it off is that I love a check when it helps I love it. I really don't think we're very different than a four year old with a star chart. I really love him, I like workbooks. Obviously I like checking through to make sure it's a smart goal, you know, make because there's accountability to that, and one of the things about a checklist in general is then you're not leaving the whole thing up to remembering everything in your head if you have to spend all your energy remembering all the parts of it in your head. Well you've already taken away some of the energy from getting to the goal so I think a checklist is a great thing I love um we tried and I actually for this I you're talking about the little four or the the day our restless yeah I am going to order stickers when we get done with this and I'm gonna make a chart and put stickers because that I like to do that so I will actually do that I will tell you that most um word type programs or uh forget pages type programs have templates already out there you can make your own your own little chart and I have lots of clients by stars yeah, you know it's kind of fun to get a star justice fun no and if you were trying to work on a goal and you're in a very serious environment you don't want people to know that you're giving yourself a stark art start your creative come up with some other way that is your accountability system and what we will address that a little bit more I think it's also really important step in looking at your goal do you have everything you need to get to that goal do you have the skill you need if you want to eat healthy do you have the ability to find the food that to make the choices or do you need a resource don't go it alone don't do it without the skills without the tools without the resource is you need if you need a buddy to help you stay accountable because you're not in class is cindy anymore? Go get it, buddy, find some resource is going to help hold you too many people jump into something without doing the initial steps that that doing the research of what they really need to do this and what it would look like you want to write the great american novel? Well, just writing is a good start. A very good start. But if you wanted to be the great american novel, what other skills and resource is you? I want to find along the way, you know, think of that as part of your goals. Just finding a resource can be a goal setting aside time that you're going to look for resource is and just like setting aside time to job hunt even within job hunting do you have the resource is you need have you found the sights you need? Or do you need to go spend some time in the library? Which is for me the bow bookstore reading through excuse me, reading through and getting some ideas with that empower you first to go get some ideas of how to do this smartly there lots of ways to go find make sure you got what you need and you'll know when you have it, you really will know because you feel more empowered to do it, but you may go along your you're starting to do something and you're getting it, you may go along and then you say, you know what? I've hit a snag here of hit a bump it's always a good idea that bump to say am I am I stuck here if I hit the bump because I don't have something I need or if I hit it because I let my inner critic back in the room a little too far, but make sure you make sure you're not cheating yourself because you don't have something, you need any thoughts on that? Do you have everything you need to do what you're going to do? I think I do yeah, uh and that's in part why I feel it's like it's just I'm confident with it I'm very motivated with it I feel like it's very easy for me to follow good personally, I do yeah, what are the kinds of things you might need if you're doing different goals? Love to hear from the chat, would they have everything they need or is there something to go out and get besides buying confidence and motivation? It's if only they were a pill family, all of this was a pill I think for other goals I've needed um help but like I don't need to tell someone else and to check in with someone else about how it's going um you know what part of that need is and this came up a little bit in the session before if you ask your husband to help you with a particular act activity are you being dependent on dh there's there's a fine line there but sometimes what we're really asking for is to be seen with our commitment where we're asking someone to witness that we are trying to grow and we need somebody to witness it and hold it we don't need them to say did you do it? We just need them to witness for us really that's what rituals are in our culture there witnessing growth growth so sometimes we that's what the real need is and when you dial down to what do I need you can come up with that and that could be really interesting uh any thoughts on that simon uh well in terms of tools satellite so I've taken writing classes before and just, you know, one that's yeah having that community you know, other people writing encourages one to write and then you know you have assignments so it forces one writes I find that that's that's something I might do take a class again and then I find deadlines are terribly useful and I had uh I was supplying, um for an m f a program and there was a deadline and I wrote every day for in hours upon hours so I certainly know if there's a deadline I can write quite a lot I find the accountability of a class to be very helpful um and I like doing something with other people that's who I am an introvert who likes doing things without the people um there's also to that though this shared accountability, which is lovely a shared goal which makes you feel held when it's funny when people decide to change something there's a part of us that start is to feel very lonely, like where the only person who has to work on this when we get into our negative space when we're in our positive space, none of that's true, you know, we're excited to go do this and we can't wait to do it, but if we're trying to do something from the negative spaces should or were even a somewhat positive thinking, you know, saying, you know, I want to eat healthier and everybody else is having whatever they don't well one it feels kind of lonely, so finding your tribe to support you at that point can be really helpful finding a tribe whose engaged and has other perks to it you like the people in class you like the people you're meeting with that could be fun and sharing the goal what's coming in from cyber world well one of the things that several people have said that I'll pick on I'm asses they need time they're saying that is kind of the tool it's missing and I think that's true for a lot of people that could isn't never seem to find the time to do things other things always seem to get in the way how do you recommend making priority so you can hit your goals well that's a lot of what we've been doing for all of these sessions is re prioritizing and that I would say take on the meeting system take on the doing the monthly meeting and keeping your yearly priorities in mind and if you want to find the time to do it really be very very careful about not picking to bigger goal if you put on if you decide you want to exercise and you put on your favorite music and dance for ten minutes you have just burned a pile of calories and made your heart happy that's that is this first step to starting to carve out time to fully exercise but I'll tell you I worked with incredibly incredibly busy people and when they decide that it's a priority it happens it just happens you have to give up something else something has to come off your plate because time is finite something has to come off to get there but when you decide that this is the one that's really calling you time doesn't become a cz much of an issue or you find also ways to multi purpose I mentioned um earlier that for a lot of people getting the movement in along with connection with people can turn into doing a family activity exercising is a family or um taking the after dinner walker going bowling or doing something creative about it this is a creative community, so get creative about finding that time I hope that helps that's not really a very good point I mean, his creativity is driven by finding creative solutions yes, shocking. I know think alison london is asking is there a role of delegation in terms of using your tools and resources? I mean, other things that you know you can't unnecessary achieve so you need to find that supporters you were just talking about that's a great one. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The key is to be making this easy for you. So if there's a part of it that seems like an obstacle that you could delegate that's going to make it easier for you to get to go go for it remember to get delegate well, do it clearly involve the other person's desire to be part of this but yes, delegate it if there's you know I seems a lot in the business world there these huge projects you want to dio and in the creative world is whether it's this big project you want to do and you you're not going for it because you actually haven't teased out what part of it you're really resisting and the part that you're resisting maybe you could give that part away for me being in business for myself I've already said being I wanted to quit being a business for myself because I didn't want to do quick book you know so I delegated that and I could go from my goal that's a really good point and it could be little things to not not great big things so even you know even if you want to start to eat healthy you can delegate some of them the shopping if you have that opportunity or some part of it that some part of the decision process which is a n'importe point you want to reduce the number of decisions you have to make about this every day because you don't want to fatigue your will power you don't want a fatigue your frontal lobe so part of setting yourself up for success is to do whatever you can do to reduce the number of times you khun debate this and have to make the decision so if you've signed up for the class if you delegate the part that you hate whatever you do that's going to reduce your drain is really key to making it to go any thoughts on that anything you need to get out of your way she's so psyched I was going to get in the way of your writing well one thing that just came up in the course of this is I um there's like you talked about confidence earlier and I think there's there's the confidence of doing the activity but then there's like the kind of the confidence of okay you know, this skills itself so s away so what happened? So like I over the winter I applied kind of last minute graduate schools em if a program and at that time I was very confident like my ranger said oh yeah you'll definitely get into model places and so I had all this confidence and and then I you know, I didn't get in and so that was like a huge it was like after that that I just it was a huge blow in um and so I think that that was like just kind of um that's something that I hadn't probably realized recently that I that then when the reason that I haven't written for a while is it's kind of like this you know, ego blow for that and so kind of that you know that script of okay you know, like I'm not good enough for whatever is something that I realized somebody just told you you were right you know uh well I love that you just teased out the confidence that I can do this activity versus the confidence that I'm the person who can accomplish that goal for a purpose you see the difference there one is I'm confident I can do this activity I could do my little smart goal right the other is am I that person who succeeds with my purpose and I think it's really important to tease those two things apart and know that it's ok to have fear about that but focus on just doing this one and that's the doing it in the face of fear just do this one and that's its success and that's where you stay this one will come because you know that if you keep doing this one you're on that path and that's the habit formation if you just start developing this habit you are starting to tack towards the goal and when you feel that fear what can you do with it? Um I can you know address it like obviously the only way you're gonna get better is if you practice on and so you know people applied it many people plato fay programs they don't get in the first time and so but you're not gonna get in if you if you don't continue to improve then that's not gonna change so I you know just have a dress rationally and dressing and on the less rational study side of it allow it to be allow yourself to grieve that you know daniel I did not get in I really thought I was going to get in and that hurt it's just plain hurt I don't like it I didn't want it to be a and but I'm okay and I can still perform I can still do whatever I want and certainly history is provided us with lots of examples of people who never went to school who did amazing things so it's not you know on the rational side again we know that this is not linear in any way shape or form but allow yourself to just have the emotion and say that that's okay and it's a space on dh it's a space I don't have to stay in I can stay in the space of who I am as a writer and I want to play with that does that sit? Yeah I think it's very it's very easy to kind of thai one's kind of value are you know ability and what you know if you're got in tow program or a job or etcetera opposed to yeah no just it's a much firmer metric isn't it? But the data really is you just didn't get into a school that's the only data that data is not that you're not a good writer you just didn't get into a school and so the rest of its story you're adding this should start to feel familiar it's the rest of story and what do you need right now is to and I'm good at telling stories so here's a thought write the story start writing your story my own personal story yeah, right that right that here in that rejection out just write it, put it on paper and then look at it and sit with it because actually really good writers right from that stuff they write the real stuff and look how I can't tell you I've been doing this for years and I hear from major brilliant, creative accomplished people we all share that exact same story the details were changed there always changed but we this is the human story we have this ability to let any failure of sort of hemorrhage into every part of us and yet we're we're really strong and wonderful people who do amazing things so so grow that part and maybe you'll write this story that helps somebody else deal with it which would be cool really getting behind simon here alex someone this saying go simon, we're really cheering you on the right and everything happens for a reason and maybe you'll write the best novel evals ever for not being a school thank you yeah some professor might have stomped out your best idea way want to cover in this now wait if you take a few questions I just want to say actually the chat rooms have been sharing we talked earlier red scorpio said they made the beating snake andrea and said they did a ink drawing it took her four months it was a gold they've just uploaded them onto twitter have you goto since he alive for that hash tag you we have to see that that work and they really asked thank you yeah that's great that's who have fun looking that later on question I had actually from rhianna and saying if we set our goals goals to fail, what is the way to stop the brain from winning? How do we rewrite the real desire what we want for ourselves? Can you say that again if we set our goals and to fail, you know we have that mindset so I've got my goal but I'm know I'm going to fail, okay? I think that's what she means, what is the way to stop the brain from winning to stop the negativity overcoming it so you bring your brain is an evil I want to make that clear your brain is not evil it's just you've got to get it on board it's your frontal loves more than happy for you to win, so you want to support the part of your brain that wants to win um, it it's, there's, lots of stuff going on up here, but there's, definitely your spirit and the part of your mind that wants to win. And so you want to support that you want to support your frontal lobe, you want to take care of yourself first and foremost, she says once again, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, you really want to take care of yourself first, and then going through this process is about setting your brain up to win. To get the elephant to want to go in the same direction is the little man to to pull it, those things that feel instinctual and an emotional for you, too tohave the face that erica had when she was telling what she was going to do and the glow comes alive. That's where the wind is well the same thing. Lovely release the same question, but they're asking about you keeping that energy up because they get that doubt or they get that voice and then, but then they talk it away, but that uses up a lot of their energy, so they're wondering have again and get that energy back. So I would ask if their goal was correct to begin with, so let's pick a different type of goal, maybe a smaller goal, one that gets used excited as erica god is excited to simon is getting as he starts to talk about the writing, I'm seeing it grow, um is it the right goal? Make it very, very, very small and just know the doubt comes spend less energy on the doubt, the same way we've talked. This whole group of sessions about stress management is energy management recognize when you're doing the doubt thing, give that a name, give your critic and name, and then start to spend less energy there say, you know what? I hear you doubt, and I don't feel like going down that pathway right now you actually have the ability to do that when you've taken care of yourself now, a few days ago, after um, spending hours, writing and creating keynotes and coming across the country while every other minute packing my house to move and still having no place to move and having no energy myself doubt took over, but I knew why I knew it was because I hadn't done the other care, so the care comes first, the remembering where you have succeeded and allowing that doubt to just be with you come along for the ride doubt, but I'm not going to spend so much energy on you, I'm gonna pick something so small that I don't have to play three doubt game is much player w is joining us from taiwan only she may well have gone to bed by now so apologies clever you maybe see this on the this's ah a cultural thing I'm sure because she's she's obviously living in asia and she says asian parents are like helicopters they may be and they follow everything so she's asking how to deal with that particular stress that she's under where parents are disagreeing with everything so that he can be your prince could also be your inner voice can't be that constance of the critique you need to do it my way kind of thing it's that's a toughly on dh you know it exists parents have having amazing power to do that because they're emotionally tied to you and you have instincts too please your parents but you also see it with micro managers and workplaces you see it with micro managers between our ears one of the goals then is to not allowed that parental voice to become your own inner critics voice to keep a space between the the doubt or the judgment or the constant analysis that parents khun dio and I'm sorry child but to keep a space between how they think and how you choose to think and that takes a lot of practice and a lot of work it really does good luck I think we all do that though and it's true there are cultures where we were parenting is more hands on than others, where the voices air carried a little stronger, and it takes the work to break free. But that's, actually, what part of growing up is is choosing your own voice? I was, I think, culturally. We all think that whatever our cultures in has the worst of it. In fact, it's it's, it is general it's. Human nature is not necessarily a cultural thing, a tool that my daughter would probably debate with you, whether it is cultural.