Color me Confident
A familiar accusation
You may find yourself assuming everyone else has “it”.
Symptoms of this suspicion include:
Stumbling over words, or making unwarranted pauses, while speaking at a group work meeting.
Talking so fast you don’t even know what you just said.
Connecting with a superior after working your ass off all week, being asked what you worked on, and coming up blank.
Interviewing or being interviewed, all is going acceptably well until your tongue is paralyzed and/or feeling as if it is expanding in size. Feeling your mouth fat, frozen, and useless.
Internal repeats of phrases such as: “I should have said that” or “Please don’t pick me”.
Sweating, just sweating.
Phantom full bladder as you long on to Zoom.
Hearing phrases in the job rejection conversation such as: leadership; creative; customer- facing; collaborative; dynamic – as they DON’T apply to you (But GODDAMNIT you know they do!)
Trying on at least three different outfits each morning – and you work at home!
There are more – these are just some of my favs – both that clients report them to me and I DEEPLY relate to!
(As you think them over, I inspire you to pause on both relatability and also what they prompt in you about the behavior and physiological phenomenon of insecurity.
It is no news to my regular readers that I know well, and cheaply expound, the lurching and quakes of my own person – the pain, the visuals, the fluids, all of that. Thus, I know well (that is what talking about something a lot gives ya!) what my body is shouting about and what that might mean – in regard to physical health and emotional wherewithal.
One special thing that occurs when nervousness comes a- tapping at my earlobe is sleepiness. Not can’t-keep-my-eyes-open sleepy, but slow and sluggish. Anxiety about how I might make it through the simplest activities. Alternatively, my energy “buzzes”. That is the term I use to refer to the odd kind of warm speed, unproductive, careless velocity that negative anticipation can bring on.
Example:
I have a new client meeting in 5 minutes. They are a recommendation from a SDYD OG whom I deeply admire, enjoy supporting, demonstrates great progress, and speaks up about how much they appreciate and enjoy our work. Well, they did it, didn’t they? They brought a beloved friend or esteemed colleague to my desk and here I am, committed to thinking I am going to fuck it up. Not support the referral, alienate and confuse my current one, lose my business, get a zit, trip on camera … all of it.
While it may look like a positive no brainer, the worry of defeat nonetheless arises. I hate it, as normal as I know the emotions are.
We aspire to beyond humanistic feelings primarily because we find them unpleasant. In that we imagine the others we compare ourselves as paling t o never once shivering in their shoes. They do. Not over the same things - we all have our triggers- but whatever those are when they come, so does some level of freak out.
“Freak out” can be a lot of things – panic attacks with palpitations , missed time, blurred vision, races to the bathroom, nausea and shaking limbs, you-name-it. Or maybe it is a habitual try at breaking up the time before the triggering ask begins – checking lipstick (me!), face spritz (me again!), finding the “right” pen, last minute checking of an email? You get it …
Where the difference between you and those supposed more successful persons so apt for comparison to bring on a torrent of self-blame is this: The vacuum. Or rather, the vacuum that best individual intentions can create. Sure, it can be as seemingly easy to make some ridiculous scolding tinged advice such as ‘It is all in your head’ or ‘everyone feels that way’ or some other sentiment that is a great way to feel like shit as you try to “improve” – yeah good luck with that! Instead, try this on for size :
Speak it. Perhaps to the very person or instance, or even yourself if that strikes you as safer, whatever – say so with well applied candor.
Example:
“Hey there, I am so looking forward to working with you, and pretty nervous. Your work and needs are super important and interesting, let’s dive in!”
“This is an important moment for me. Thanks for making the space and time to speak to me.”
See what those, very generalized statements are? Earnest and positive. In speaking our emotional truths in a welcoming way, we, by default manifest another golden egg in personal and professional development: Authenticity. That is the real kryptonite to insecurity- a skilled embrace of actual experience. Skill lies in the ‘spin’ and not seeking of permission. Look back to the above statement for the positive framing of your feelings with the extra add on of NOT ‘feeling the room’ for external validation.
You need another moment? Is today or this hour troublesome to you for reasons outside of avoidance?* Do not ASK for more time – say that is what you are taking:
“I will be with you in five minutes. Thank you for waiting.” (Look at that gratitude! What a great way to train vs give inappropriate power to your audience.)
“This is not a good day for me. What availability is there for the rest of the week? How is it best to reschedule?” (Wow! Look at that, honesty with an extra credit curiosity add on!)
Getting hip to the strategy here? Ready for 2.0?
Try this – ritual building! OK, first things first – we do not only build rituals when shit is tight. Rituals are for all the time. NOT just ‘how you start the day’, but what is to signify the aspect of how one moves through the phases of our waking hours. I encourage clients to think and explore ritual work beyond routine ‘morning, evening, lunch hour, etc’ demarcations, and think about:
Beginnings
Closings
Pauses
Beginnings can be the morning or midafternoon after a pause. Closing may and do occur many times throughout a given day. Perhaps a completion of a task or project, or the active choice to forgo continuing for any purposeful reason.
The most fun and challenging is the taking of pauses and the trusting that doing so is necessary, and vital to anything and everything else. Pauses are not lazy nor exercises in dullness. They are time for recollection when the brain, body, system, and entire existential aspect of our beings is Hella busy ingesting, like the slippery snakes we are, the food and fodder of our previous efforts while making room for those that will come.
What do we have here? We have the beginnings (see that!) of a thought architecture of how the Unicorn of dynamic unflappable self-confidence might be deconstructed. You can welcome and normalize the panorama of emotions that breeze through our blinds every day – moment to moment and sometimes more frequently than that – by choosing to positively present them. And you can approach the same multitube or moment with a, at first, subtle and, eventually, more weatherproof ritual based on personally nuanced strategic structure.
Before I leave you, I will share: Writing this blog was really difficult. Down to my due date wire, I was certain it is unreadable, and, lastly and more massively, I was convinced I am the last person who should be penning it. That any accusation of confidence in my direction is laughable. Well it is, right? But it is also spot on, for confidence is knowing anxiety is not a “me” thing, but a nearly universal, very democratic aspect of life.
Footnote on identifying what “avoidance” might be. Look to your history. Do you have a track record of disconnecting from the type of task before you? If so, you can definitely do so again, or you could speak to the honesty and worry about trying to continue on.
