Unconfidence: The Essential Ingredient to Crazy Stupid Success
Confidence is over-rated.
At least, itâs over-rated in the homogenized, misused, self-help industry clap-trap kinds of ways.
In todayâs world itâs both easy and tempting to start putting a confident veneer over things, because it seems as though the world expects that. In relationships, friendships, career, blogging and business, thereâs an expectation that you have to know what youâre doing, otherwise you just donât stack up.
So communicating the âIâm know where Iâm atâ position becomes something we busy ourselves with. We become focused on the portrayal of expertise or success in addition to building that same expertise and success, and sometimes that portrayal prohibits the very thing youâre looking to achieve.
So I think itâs time to stop the BS and to halt the veneer of confidence. Itâs time for unconfidence.
Hereâs how it works.
You donât have to pretend
I work two jobs because my coaching business doesnât make enough money to support me. I donât pretend that it does, because to do so requires that I see this fact as a negative and I donât want to lie to my clients.
I donât pretend that I know exactly where my business is going, because Iâm largely making it up as I go along. I donât pretend to have all the answers, because that would make me an asshole.
Pretending to be something youâre not or to know something you donât is part of the old world. Online, people can now smell that kind of pretence and itâs only a matter of time before the offline world starts behaving similarly (if it hasnât happened already).
You have an incredible array of skills, experience, strengths and talents and an even more incredible capacity to learn, improve and grow. Focus on that, not on pretending.
Engagement with meaning is a pre-requisite
If what youâre doing in your life and business doesnât mean a whole lot to you, or amount to a hill oâ beans, youâre just treading water. If thereâs nothing on the line, thereâs no need for you to push at the boundaries of your capabilities. If thereâs nothing at stake, you donât need to step up to the plate or raise your head above the parapet.
You can coast.
The things that matter to you matter for a reason. Ignoring them disconnects meaning from your life and work, and the net result is that you donât really care what happens.
Itâs a place of limbo and increasing constraint, where you die a long, slow death wondering what might have been. Itâs a ghastly place to be (I learned this the hard way). Meaningful success can only ever be derived from engaging with the things that have meaning. That goes for life and business.
Unconfidence is about listening and engaging with the things that matter to you, and requires that you make a choice to grow to the point where you feel ready, willing, and even compelled to get involved.
Youâre already worthy
There are a lot of people out there hustling. Pushing, doing, moving. Trying to make something happen so they can prove to themselves that theyâre good enough or that theyâre worthy of their peers, friends, mentors, clients, and partners.
I canât imagine much worse than that.
You donât have to prove youâre worthy or deserving to anyoneâyourself most of all. You donât have to fit in with the cool kids or gain approval from others. You donât need to hide who you are to gain approval for who you think you ought to be.
Unconfidence is allowing yourself to show up as who you are, warts and all. Itâs knowingâand feelingâthat with all your imperfections youâre just right. And it requires that you stop judging yourself for who you are and start being yourself because of who you are.
As Brene Brown put it in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, âWholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. Itâs about cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.â
Shaking in your boots doesnât mean youâre not confident
Thereâs a common misunderstanding that confident people donât get scared. That they donât feel fear. That theyâre fearless.
More garbage.
That fear response is deeply coded into your brainâwhen youâre feeling fear your amygdala fires up, giving you strong signals that youâre about to die and that you need to fight, fly, or freeze. The fear is just there to remind you that things might not go to plan and you might lose out, which is sometimes enough to stop you, right?
But hereâs the thing: you can be shaking in your boots in the face of a decision, and still be confident that you can make a choice and deal with whatever happens on the other side.
Unconfidence is the quality that allows you to feel fear without judgment.
You canât control the whole world
Plans are great. Go ahead and make them. Just remember that if you try to have your plans cater for every eventuality, youâll be making plans for the rest of your days.
You can exert some control over what you do and how you do it in an effort to get a particular outcome, but if youâre focused on outcome after outcome after outcome youâll be driving yourself loopy trying to control every variable to increase the certainty of your results.
Truth is, the world is uncertain. You canât control everything. Thereâs always something that can throw you sideways and knock your plans off track. So what if you knew that you could make a decision and deal with whatever happens? What if you detached your decision making from a specific outcome or result?
Do that and the focus becomes less about the outcome and more about engaging with your decisions and behaviour. Thatâs unconfidenceâbeing able to choose your behaviour with implicit trust in that behaviour, not in the outcome. You always get to choose. Itâs liberating.
The choice to trust yourself is sometimes the only choice you need
Crazy stupid success isnât a one-time thing. Itâs not something you hit and then settle back into and ride âtil retirement. Itâs a process.
Itâs a process that requires you to strip away the BS, show up as yourself, be vulnerable and start playing because it matters to you in ways that scare you. Iâve called it unconfidence here in order to differentiate it from your normal assumptions and beliefs around what âconfidenceâ is. But it is confidence. Simple, graceful, natural self-confidence.
You have it. You using it?
Unconfidence: The Essential Ingredient to Crazy Stupid Success
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