“The actions of confidence come first, the feelings of confidence come later.”
I recently finished reading The Confidence Gap. If you have not yet read it, I highly recommend you get on that! It was definitely one of the most eye-opening books that are out there regarding confidence.
The book focuses on the mind and how our minds work. I recently read a study that shared that we have over 50,000 thoughts a day and around 70% of those thoughts are believed to be negative. How, in a world where we have so many negative thoughts, can we become successful? It’s amazing to read these statistics and see people still killing it and crushing their goals, regardless of what their mind is telling them.
The book dives into how our minds are brilliant at giving us reasons why we can’t do what really matters to us. Here are four reasons why our minds do this:
1. Obstacles: our minds point out the obstacles and difficulties that lie ahead.
2. Self-judgment: our minds find all of the reasons why we are not up to the task.
3. Comparison: our minds compare us to others who have it easier, who are more talented, or
simply do it better.
4. Predictions: our minds predict failure, rejection, and other unfavorable outcomes.
Simply put; whatever we are working towards or want to do, our minds will always give us thousands of reasons to NOT do something, point out our weaknesses, compare you to others in a negative way, and tell you there’s no point in trying. While I read this book I constantly was agreeing with what the book was saying about my mind and what it tells me.
“Yes, my mind does do that! It always is telling me how I will fail, how terrible I will be, and that there will be other people who will do it so much better than me, so why try?”
Nod your head if you’re agreeing in the same way!
If you still are not sure what I’m saying, try this exercise that’s in the book.
1. Write or think of a goal for yourself that is out of your comfort zone.
2. Close your eyes and focus on all of the things your mind is telling you about this goal.
3. Notice all of the reasons it provides you to NOT do it.
See? Our mind kicks in right away to provide reasons to get back into our comfort zone!
Why are our minds so against us? The book shares that the reason why our minds naturally provide all of the reasons to avoid expanding out of our comfort zones is that of evolution. We have a tendency to see the negative first because we had to in order to survive millions of years ago. In the earlier years there was danger everywhere and if you reached out of your comfort zone you would probably die. Our brains naturally view the negatives as a way to PROTECT ourselves from danger to stay alive. Those imminent dangers are not as apparent as they were millions of years ago and our minds have a challenging time viewing real fear from perceived fear. Whether we are anxious because we have a huge performance coming up or whether there is a grizzly bear about to attack us, our physiological responses are the same. The fight or flight response still kicks in and our minds start to race to tell us to run away, hide, protect yourself from any fear, and stay in your comfort zone. Before if we didn’t listen to our minds we would probably be killed by a bear, today though if we choose to not listen to our minds we will grow, learn, and challenge ourselves to become better.
How do we choose to not listen?
The book tells you to ask yourself, “If I let this thought dictate my actions, will it help me lead the life that I want?”
I love this question! I’ve been asking myself this often whenever my mind tries to take control of my actions and it has helped me reframe how I perceive the thoughts that my mind generates.
This past month I have been teaching Strong by Zumba (a high-intensity class) at a yoga studio in my town at 5 am once a week (yes 5 am, and I am NOT a morning person naturally). As soon as I was offered this time slot my mind started to go to town.
“You’re not a morning person, you can’t teach that early. What are you thinking? You barely get up to work out at other 5 am classes, how could you possibly get up to teach one? You know you’re going to sleep in and miss your class. You’ll let so many people down if you sleep in and miss it. You’ll be so tired throughout the day at work if you do this. You’re going to mess up your workout routine. What will the people think of you if you mess up while teaching? They won’t think you know what you’re doing and won’t come back. This is going to be a disaster.”
Every time my mind attempted to get me to back down I addressed it with the question I asked earlier, “If I let this thought dictate my actions, will it help me lead the life that I want?” I know I wanted to teach this class at this yoga studio, so what if it’s early? I started to name off the benefits of teaching early.
“This will get you into an earlier morning routine so that you can become a morning person. You will be more productive in your mornings before work. You’ll have more time to get ready. This way you can spend a morning with your boyfriend before he heads off to work. This will make getting up early to workout at other classes at 5 am not seem so difficult. This will open up your evenings if you teach in the morning instead. This is a great opportunity, take it!”
This made me feel much more confident and ready to take on this challenge. I knew that if I listened to my negative mind I would not be able to live the way I want.
I try to remember that my thoughts are just thoughts. They are simply words put into my mind. They are not the truth and we do not need to believe them. We might not have control over what our mind is saying but we DO have control over how we respond. Make a choice today to not provide your thoughts with the power to control your actions and behaviors.
Choose to act confidently, regardless of how you actually feel and what your mind is telling you. Focus on what it is that you want and go for it. The actions of confidence come first, the feelings of confidence come later.
Keep that eye of the storm mentality!