How to Build Confidence
You are looking for confidence in all of the wrong places.
When I was in the emergency room at Memorial Sloane Kettering, 24 hours after I was diagnosed with AML Leukemia, a stream of doctors asked me the same series of questions about my symptoms.
My family and two close friends surrounded me. What I saw in their eyes mirrored my own feelings. Terrified by the diagnosis. An utter loss of control at the thought of undergoing excruciating treatment to save my life for the next year. Not surviving it was also playing on repeat in my head.
Then Dr. Jai Park walked in. He was calm and had an ease about him. He asked me the same series of questions and then gave me a life-saving thought. Dr. Park very matter-of-factly shared:
You don’t come to MSK to be treated.
You come to MSK to be cured.
My thoughts quickly took a turn. I was like, game on!
I needed to hear it and wanted to hear it, but I also wanted more.
At that moment, did I want my oncologist to be confident or competent?
What is confidence?
Confidence is a feeling.
Confidence is not a fact.
Confidence is not a result.
Confidence is not evidence of competency.
Webster’s Dictionary describes competency as the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.
Confidence is not evidence of someone's competency. You can be confident and not have the competency to back it up. Think about finishing a marathon. You can be confident you will finish the marathon, but you do not have the competency of being a marathon runner until you accomplish the 26.2-mile run. Confidence and competence are two very different things.
Dr. Park has many letters after his name, and his bio includes a long list of his achievements. All facts. All results of his hard work and deepening competency.
At that moment in MSK’s ER, I wanted Dr. Park to be competent to the degree he could be confident in my being cured.
Confidence driven by competency.
If you are like most people, you’ve experienced these thoughts:
I’ve lost my confidence.
I wish I were more confident.
If I were confident, things would be different.
If I were more confident, I’d be more successful.
Waiting for confidence to get you something or somewhere is a trap.
You think confidence is a solution.
But the foundation of your confidence sits within your competency.
Confidence is something you want.
But what people want from you is your competence.
We all struggle with confidence at some point.
Confidence power outages come in all shapes and sizes and at all the wrong times, especially when you doing something new, often before moments of personal growth.
When your confidence is lacking, or you wish you had more of it, lean on your competency.
Leverage what you’ve successfully done before and build from there.
When you become more experienced, you build more competency.
Don’t forget to give yourself permission to celebrate your competency as it is today. You’ve worked hard for it.
Celebrate it by:
Making a list of your strengths – super strengths and secret strengths.
Make a list of what you are most proud of.
Make of list of how you felt after that last thing you were proud of.
Collect (and read) a list of testimonials, reviews, and glowing emails that you’ve received. Then answer this question: How did I make that happen?
Now, create a Hype Folder to keep all of your answers in refer to it whenever you are hit with a confidence power outage.
When you understand that confidence is born from competence, you have all you need to build your confidence and show up more confidently.
If you are considering working with a Coach or want to know more about the components of a Coaching engagement, let’s get on a call with this link.
One client says....
"I was recently promoted to Sales Lead. It wasn't an easy road to move into this new position but luckily I had Christina by my side as my coach to help me get in the right mindset and push me to show up on my A game every day to demonstrate my leadership abilities.
I've grown so much since working with her and can't wait for all of the new challenges I'll get to tackle with her as my sounding board pushing me beyond my comfort zone in this next phase of the job."
