Waiting to Feel Confident?

Do you often wait until you feel a certain way before you do something? Perhaps you are waiting to feel confident? You might have had a small nudge in your mind to write that blog or speak to that person, whatever it is, but keep putting it off because you are waiting…. waiting to feel confident.

What if you didn’t need to wait?

I have realised more and more is that our feelings know nothing about what we want to do. Our feelings only know one thing – they are the other side of the coin to our thoughts. We have thought of insecurity, and hey presto, we feel insecure. We think of happy memories, and we feel happy. We think that the current climate is scary, and we feel scared. Allowing our thoughts and feelings to determine our actions can hinder us both professionally and personally. Our thoughts and feelings come and go like waves, changing in each moment.

And who is the creator of our thoughts? We are. The reality of our world is all based on our thoughts that we deem true…I digress.

“Your thoughts are like the artist’s brush. They create a personal picture of the reality you live in” – Sydney Banks

Yesterday, as part of the Dreams to Reality Programme I was running, we explored the concept of confidence. The interesting thing is that when we are confident, we don’t even think about it. It’s times when we don’t feel confident that we notice the absence of it.

If we don’t have insecure, anxious and worried thoughts – we tend to be confident and get on with stuff. Interesting! However, I remember plenty of times when I didn’t feel confident and still survived!

Who advanced the Powerpoint?

In 2005, when I left the finance industry, an Association approached me to run training around the country. My first gig was in Edinburgh.

I felt really nervous, certainly not confident. I started the training, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the power-point was moving on automatically. I tried to keep up, talking quicker and quicker to keep up with the moving slides! Thankfully, someone realised what was happening and helped me change the setting.

Next, one of the delegates asked a challenging question. Gulp! I had no idea what the answer was. Confidence- help, where are you when I need you? It was no good waiting to feel confident. No time!

(It transpired that the gentleman was the Association’s previous Chair and there to check me out. I’m glad I didn’t know that at the start!)

I paused; in fact, I think I panicked so much that all thinking stopped. Wisdom arose, and I curiously asked him the reason behind the question. This gave me time to recover. I still didn’t know the answer, so I asked the audience. No-one had a solution, so I offered to explore later and get back to the group.

Despite my lack of confidence, the reviews were fantastic, and the Chair raved about me!

Conversely, there have been times when I felt very confident and then it wasn’t a great success, including a few tumbleweed moments!

I have only just reflected on this recently, all these years later, and realised that our level of success is irrelevant to our level of confidence.  Can you think of examples when you felt confident, and it didn’t go well, and times when you didn’t feel confident and all went swimmingly?

What does Confidence mean?

The etymology of confidence derives from Latin, which means to have full trust. I love that. When we fully trust that we will be ok, no matter what – there is freedom. Yes, we can cock-up, we can be vulnerable, we can fail at something – however, we can still survive; thrive even. As one of the fellow explorers in the session yesterday said, “Be true to me”. Absolutely.

Waiting to feel Confident?

So what have you been stopping yourself from doing, waiting to feel confident? What if you just did it, knowing that even if you feel anxious, insecure, nervous or worried – remember – you are only one thought away from being confident, connecting with your true self.

Hi, I am Lindsey Reed.  I love connecting with people and enabling them to remember who they really are, their true selves. Coaching is online, the wonders of technology. If you would like to connect with me, pop an email to lindsey@glows-coaching.co.uk. Let’s have a conversation. I look forward to hearing from you.

My book Got It: The Answer to a Confident, Productive & Stress-Free Life is available from Amazon and is now in over 25 countries. It describes how we create our experience of our own reality called life. Through this understanding, we can have a more confident and freeing life.