When I get confident, I’ll do the thing

Dan was desperate. He stared into his coffee feeling tears of frustration prickle behind his eyes. The warmth of the cup was little comfort.  The thought of another frustrating conversation with his boss where nothing ever changed filled him with despondency. His energy felt sapped. This wasn’t his idea of fun anymore.

He knew a change was needed but with the market this tough, he wasn’t sure where to start. With bills to pay, his partner experiencing her own challenges at work, this wasn’t the time for a reckless cutting of strings. Or for free-falling into the pool, fighting everyone else for the same opportunities.

Often it takes a situation to become unbearable for it to catalyse change. We tend to seek comfort and security topmost, and tolerate situations that, after the event, seem unbelievably bad.

At some point, it becomes too much to tolerate or life moves for us and forces a change. 

When I enter into these sorts of situations with prospective clients, their confidence feels battered. 

They are at a low ebb. 

They feel the need for change but the risks and challenges seem daunting.

There are two things that really help:

1. 1 Seeing that loss of confidence is a temporary state of mind, not a truth or reflection of external or evidential reality.
2. When our minds get full of insecure thoughts, we create an artificial measure of confidence and then beat ourselves up for perceiving it as being low.
3. The reality is that when we’re present, the idea of low or high confidence does not present itself. 
4. 2 Being clear about what you truly want as opposed to what you think you should want or have done before is the essential first step.
5. Without that, it’s easy to get caught in scattered behaviour, rather than focused action. It’s also easy to get into a race towards the bottom, aiming lower because that seems easier, less daunting, more accessible.
6. The problem with that stance is that energetically it could come from a place of fear and scarcity. That gets felt in the recruitment process.
7. Of course, if your true desire is to step downwards, no problem. Energetically, that will also be felt, for the good. 

So to reflect on this week:

If you’re telling yourself that your confidence is low, you might want to get curious about how busy your mind is and how present you truly are. 

If you’re running away from a difficult situation, take a moment  to think about what you really want to run towards instead. 

And if this resonates with you, I run 6 month coaching programmes specifically for leaders in tech businesses who want to confidently take their next career step (eg new job / direction, promotion, payrise), without sacrificing sleep, health or relationships along the way. Get in touch to find out more.