Confidence comes from the Latin words con + fides meaning “with faith.” Things that we know how to do and have done successfully in the past are things we are “with faith” that we can do again. So, knowledge, practice, skill, and strength form confidence. Nothing new here…
However, all those things we already know how to do sit within our comfort zones. Staying put in our comfort zones is unwise, depressing, and ultimately futile, as life makes its demands on us all to grow. FEAR is the opposite of confidence, and fear is the enemy of growth. Therefore, the key question is how to lose the fear and gain the confidence in learning NEW things we do NOT know how to do in order to grow. That’s the trick.
Confidence within our comfort zones is conditional. Things go well until we are confronted with the need to stretch beyond our current level of competence. How do we get unconditional confidence?
Here’s what I have learned about that: the essential skills to build confidence and grow throughout life are 1.) humility and 2.) courage. Once we recognize that 1.) we are not perfect, and 2.) we have it in our power to become better, the breakthrough has been made.
HUMILITY: the very act of learning how to grow is a life skill one can gain confidence in through practice. Learning that it’s okay and expected to be awkward, uncomfortable, goofy, flailing and failing in those early attempts to learn something new liberates the novice from the illusion that one must always appear to be perfect or nearly so. Letting go of this illusion is a key to growth, because the fear of failure or looking stupid chains us to our current level of competence. A track record of growing one’s comfort zone is the key to confidence in new situations. And that’s REAL confidence.
COURAGE: I have learned that spiritual growth is a function of the confidence we gain in examining our own gaps in knowledge AND integrity. That takes courage. Having the courage to look into the dark, dank “boxes in the basement” of one’s own ignorance and hypocrisy, bring them up and out into the light, and find the courage and grace there to close the gaps in our understanding and integrity is an essential leadership skill. Most of us mask our ignorance and hide from our integrity gaps, leaving them to fester in the basement, ultimately weakening our foundations on their own. Accepting the promise that we are all accepted, and acceptable (see HUMILITY above), allows this kind of courage to be possible. We thereby gain mastery over our own imperfection, which is the only means I know of to build understanding, integrity, and confidence.
How are you growing right now?
Do you fear change? Why?
What’s in the basement that you don’t want to think about or remember?
Do you have a trusted friend, mate, or advisor with whom you can “empty the boxes?”
Tell us all about it.
BUILT TO LEAD 