The Answer Isn't Always Confidence

Several of my clients come to me because they want to increase their confidence. They believe that confidence will make their experience easier, allow them to put themselves out there more and go after what they truly want.

They seem pretty disappointed when I tell them it’s not confidence they need, it is courage.

A couple of years ago, I worked with a senior executive that I’ll call Bill. On the outside he was a successful c-level executive with a large mandate and a track record of success. On the inside, he felt like a fraud and worried that people would find out that he wasn’t as self assured as others believed.

He came to me wanting to tame his inner critic and start to feel on the inside, what others perceived on the outside.

We started with a few clarifications:

1. The inner critic - the voice that second guesses and tells you that you’re a fraud - that voice is not you! It’s not. It’s a neural pattern of safety and security and while its intention may be sound, its application is faulty.
2. You don’t have to believe or place much attention on your inner critic. Trying to get rid of it, will only make it stronger because it brings attention and energy to the very thing you want to eliminate. A better course of action to weaken a neural pattern, is to not pay much attention to it. When you notice it, say something like - “look my inner critic has arrived - I know you’re wanting to keep me safe and secure. Thanks, but I got this.” You notice it with the same energy you notice that today is Tuesday. No judgement. Just awareness.
3. You access courage, not confidence. You don’t need confidence to do anything, you need courage. Confidence comes when you look in the rear view mirror, not when you’re looking ahead. This is the stage when we get to know that part of you that is courageous. We all have that part within us. We’ve all experienced micro- and macro- moments of courage. Getting to know this part of us and it’s history, allows us to better call on it when we need to. This allows us to strengthen our neural network for courage moving forward.
4. Develop our capacity for mindfulness. The inner critic or any inner dialogue of any kind happens when we are ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. In other words it happens all in our head. Building our capacity to stay in the present moment through breathing, bringing awareness to current sensations and getting into our bodies helps us stay grounded in what’s real right now.

During the 6 months that Bill and I worked together, he was able to better understand and accept the positive intent of his inner critic, connect more deeply and call more frequently on his inner Courageous One (as he called it) and practice ways to bring himself to the present moment and away from his thoughts.

His experience of work and life improved and his attention started to focus more on the impact he wanted to have on the world around him instead of the potential mishaps of his performance. His inner world became more aligned with what others perceived on the outside.

Warmly,

Lisa

Lisa is an Executive Coach, Founder & CEO of LDR Leadership Labs. For more from Lisa, join the LDR Leadership Community on LinkedIn at:?www.dhirubhai.net/company/ldrleadershiplabs?and sign up for the?LDR Insiders Newsletter here.