The only piece of Self Confidence we haven’t talked about yet is the part that doesn’t feel very good. The price we pay for the growth into the person that gets to experience Self Confidence. Remember, one of the aspects of Self Confidence is your willingness to feel any emotion and embrace any emotion.
We’ll label it discomfort - a catch all for name-your-favorite negative-emotion.
Feeling and embracing negative emotion on purpose means we open up to it. We make ourselves available to experience it and don’t stay small to avoid it. Understanding that even in the face of worry, failure, disappointment or sadness we still have the power to move forward.
When we’re going after a result we want in our lives, race result or anything else, these are the steps of growth:
1. Take Action
2. Fail
3. Learn
If you are going to fail, make sure you fail by taking action and learning rather than by doing nothing and trying to stay comfortable. Yes, both can be considered failure, but one at least gets you somewhere and increases your Self Confidence.
Self Confidence comes from knowing you may fail and taking the massive action anyway. It means you know you may not get to the finish line of your first Ironman or may not KQ, but you show up ready to get the most out of yourself everyday anyway. You choose discomfort (physical and mental) over comfort. And you use that discomfort in a helpful way.
Self Confidence is one of the most powerful emotions because no one can take it from you. You get to create it, it exists within you and you get to continue to build upon it. Next time you have the chance, move towards discomfort instead of away from it and see how your resiliency {and therefore Self Confidence} increase.
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO HAVE A PERFORMANCE MINDSET?
