I was chatting with a young employee over a beer the other day and we started talking about confidence and its importance. Here is a summary of the conversation along with a diagram on the cyclical pattern of confidence.
What is confidence?
Confidence is a state of mind. It is a lens that we choose to view the world with. What’s cool about it is that it’s available at any time, to anyone.
The state of mind then carries over into how we carry ourselves and the actions we choose to take.
By acting as if you’re confident, you take on the role of a confident person. Your body changes, your mindset becomes different. You become that which you think. You begin to look and carry yourself in a certain way. And a funny thing happens. People treat you as such.
When others see confidence, they instinctually trust and follow it because we all know that these are the types of people that end up creating wins for the companies, their families, their communities, and their world. People instinctually know that the results will be beneficial and leave positive lasting affects on them.
For the most part, people admire those that make impact and they end up sharing their feedback with those that have taken action. That positive feedback helps fuel even higher levels of confidence, which in turn creates more action and results.
It’s one big loop – I call it The Confidence Loop.
How to Get Confidence? Start the Loop
And how do you start the loop? Take Action.
Take action on things you fear. Things you know you should be doing, but are afraid of what people might think.
Take action on something you care about deeply – something that makes a difference.
Be comfortable with knowing that a lot of the action will not produce the outcome you want immediately. But if you keep working at it and persisting towards a clear path, you WILL get better, you will produce better results, and you will be able to affect change in the world.
People (except haters) love others who take action because they’re a true manifestation of living the dream. Just by getting the results, it means the confident people chased their dream, and they’re making it. They are making it work – and it shows us that we, too could have our dream.
It’s a hope for a better tomorrow. Hope for a higher plane of happiness.