#AskTracy: How can I be more confident?

Beats me!

Let us dispense with assumptions.

Addressing here an umbrella of questions and concerns that come up, literally, but also in more subtle senses, in the coaching space. (For both parties, mind you.) Sometimes it arrives in language just as the above “how” (i.e., “How to run an effective meeting? How to ask for a raise? How to conduct a one-on-one? How to be a better mentor/How to get more out of a mentoring relationship? How to quit and not burn too many, or any at all, bridges? How to get some or another thing accomplished? And - big fave - How to procrastinate less/make more effective use of time?” So on and forth and so be it and the like.)

All of these queries are queries within themselves, of course, AND too, they address the seeking of better and stronger ways to “feel” more confident. I say that “feel” intentionally. For there is, most especially when we are low, frustrated, or new at a given thing, a want to feel other than we do at present. For instance: the idea that this new less established or tender time will not be too long and, a correct approach or tactic will end it so one might feel better. Confident and capable and secure. And that I, the coach in the picture, can help expedite all of that.

I wish. I really wish.

But also, I wouldn’t want to.

I think confidence is not necessarily feeling ‘enough’ or particularly good at a thing as it is the disarming of the story that failure is a sentence of sorts. A kind of unraveling of all the good and happiness henceforth. This hiccup, stumble is where the seam starts to fray, the hem unravels, the water piles up in the floorboards of our lives and we are soaked and sinking. Screwing up stinks. There is no other way about it, but the more we do it, the more hiccups that happen, we can, with proper and patient inquiry come to note that the mess is a mess and the us is an us. These things bounce against each other but are not the same. The person is perennial, the activity, skill, deadline, interview is fleeting.

All sweet - but there are some BIG howevers to go with that. Like when it starts happening, the really great and super important physical experiences of fear - think sweaty palms, mind losing track of where it was or is supposed to be, shaking voice - whatever it is that is panic to you, take note. These are great things to be happening for they can be signifiers that call back into the present space to face whatever is going down or signals to pull you completely out of it.

[Now, maybe you do need to be pulled out. Maybe there is something unsafe afoot - physically, emotionally etc. Perhaps this is not a cool place for you to hang. Please know that checking out does NOT make you safer. It may actually make one MORE vulnerable to the things which are perplexing and problematic enough to cause a nervous system crisis. If that is the case, pulling yourself back into the present to actively exit is the way to go. For, challenging as that could be, it is more preferable then simmering in a self-destruction that zoning out can lead to.]

But on to less perplexing experiences and a few tips:

“It” starts happening and you are feeling insecure, as if you don’t know the answer or how to proceed or whatnot. Sure, you can breathe, blink your eyes clear as they say, but I will add a very important thing to that as well - smile. Take a second and smile, smile when you talk. You can, and this is a total trick, get your head straight on something that is particularly challenging by saying: “Thank you” or “Wow” or “oh I love that” or, if you are the one leading the conversation, “I’m curious as to your …” experience, opinion, assessment, et al.

Oh! And if there is EVER the inclination to “tell”, see if you can, in any way, message what you are about to say as an inquiry - provocative and curious approaches by default come across as more masterful than dictatorial ones.

Basic as that is, or oddly straightforward, I invite you to think on it for a bit. Let it sit in your mind. Think of what folx you assume are confident do - how do they move their bodies, what kinds of approaches do they have to seeking answers from others, how do they guide or lead conversations? How do they share the choices they have made and what (likely it is little!) do they share or how do they describe their own decision making or thought processes/approaches?

I present all this to come to the following point: 

Confidence can be being prepared, but not in the way that one might think, not so much with research or an agenda, though those things may help you for sure, but in an approach. An approach that includes a lot of acceptance that mistakes happen, that screw ups are one of the few aspects of humanity that we share - we all fail and lose it and that when we are, in those very moments, we can reach in and save ourselves. We don’t need to succumb to the slipping away of our footholds.

Confidence comes from practicing living through mistakes and too experiences of and trials at grabbing the fear steering wheel when the car seems to be careening off the edge of the highway.

Confidence is taking in that there is a LARGE spectrum between disastrous catastrophe and not-as-strong-as-hoped. Fuck-up are nuanced, fear isn’t. Be curious - take in what you feel and get curious as to if WHAT IS HAPPENING adds up to what you are feeling. And make some active choices. When we become afraid, time can seem to speed up and we can quickly lose touch with the moments, each one tumbling into each other. It is not all moving so swiftly simply because one’s body is heating up. Leaders take their time. Leaders are able to be both meditative and exacting. Leaders put saddles on time vs being shackled by the clock. The deadline may be THE deadline but do be conscious if you are making it up.

As one can read - from all my going on and on here -there is much to this. It is nuanced and specific, changeable and contextual alike, confidence. However, if there is to be similarity across a lot of instances it is that ‘what is happening’ in me and its reality that will steady the rhythm of the heart and anchor agency RIGHT WHERE IT NEEDS TO LIVE - within you!