Confidence is Currency

I wanted to run an ultra marathon before I finished my first “regular” marathon. Running a regular marathon of 42.2km (26.2mi) seemed impossible. An ultra marathon is any race distance longer than 42.2km. This seemed beyond impossible. However, many other people did it.

Since I am people, that meant I could do it too.

So what was stopping me? Not physical ability nor mental capacity.

It was lack of a certain emotional energy: CONFIDENCE

When we start something new, or continue with something challenging, we need confidence.

Think of confidence like a currency. We “earn” confidence through physical preparation, and we “spend” confidence through our mental decisions. We accumulate confidence like money in a bank account, which can be spent on whatever requires true self-belief.

Ultra running requires confidence more than physical ability. It is accumulated through physical preparation; running and strength training.

I did not believe I could run 50km, so I was not going to be able to run 50km.

Henry Ford once said:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.”

Magical thinking cannot change our beliefs. It takes true, deep confidence in our ability. This is a real emotional shift which requires focused mental attention and physical action over time.

Consistent running over weeks and months showed progress. My long runs grew longer. My natural pace improved. I saw that I ran further and faster, and felt that I used less effort than before.

Each run earned a little bit more confidence that went into the bank. I invested this into longer training runs, which yielded a compound interest of more confidence.

Smaller amounts of confidence were earned through my running gear (which was also physical). I trusted my socks and shoes to not give me blisters. My running shirt and shorts did not chafe. I experimented with what to eat (and how much to eat) while running . I experimented with how to drink water and electrolytes to avoid cramping.

During the ultra marathon races, I spent this confidence on decisions:

- Should I run faster/slower?

- Should I eat/drink now?

- What should I eat/drink now?

- Should I take off a layer of clothing or put on an extra layer?

Every decision cost some confidence. Good decisions spent minimal confidence. Bad decisions costed a chunk of confidence. I felt it every time.

As long as I did not run out of confidence, I finished the race.

Sometimes I chatted with other runners as we passed on the course. They were physically able to finish the race, but they had exhausted their confidence. I could feel it in their energy, and hear it in their voices.

So they dropped out.

Every race I finished came with a huge bonus dividend of confidence. My physical preparation worked. It gave me confidence to train more. Even the mistakes I made during a race were converted into lessons at the finish line, and I became more confident for the next race.

The only ultra races I did not finish were due to running out of confidence before the finish line. Either I did not enter the race with enough confidence, or I made too many bad decisions.

Usually a combination of both.

Sometimes I had to go into confidence debt. I needed to finish the race to pay back the confidence I borrowed, with interest.

Sometimes I was able to do this. Sometimes I had to declare confidence bankruptcy and just walk away. This was devastating. I do not recommend it.

Thinking about confidence as a currency is not limited to ultra running.

Confidence is the key to living a fulfilling life.

The reason we don’t take an opportunity presented by the universe is lack of confidence.

To earn confidence, we must engage in some kind of preparation. Just studying or learning is not enough, we need to implement it consistently to build confidence. Mentally we can learn what to do, but it only becomes physical when we practice it.

It’s like the body needs to learn (or remember) what it is capable of doing.

With running, I scheduled training times into my day. I treated these as important meetings. What could be more important than building confidence? I made sure I had enough running clothes to get through the week’s trainings. And I made sure my running shoes were getting on my feet at the right time.

Transitions are difficult, so the simple act of putting on my running shoes was crucial. Putting on my shoes is the hardest part of running. If the shoes were on my feet, it was the trigger to run.

By being consistent I started to see some progress, and then the motivation came. As the motivation increased, I wanted to train more to see more progress. I was able to enter a virtuous loop of perpetual confidence building for running. Over time, I was easily running distances that seemed impossible to run before. Now I had the confidence to do it, and the amount of confidence in my bank account was only growing.

Perhaps the universe was teaching me how to build confidence for anything.

Confidence is the key to making the impossible start to seem possible. It shifts the perspective, which is the root cause of most problems.

Relentless forward progress is all that is required to finish an ultra marathon, and completing any project in life. We spend confidence just by deciding to start. Make sure it is spent wisely.

As we reap returns on our invested confidence, we can look for something to re-invest that confidence. It could be the same project, or something new. This mental decision causes us to spend confidence.

Yes, confidence can sit in our bank account while we decide where to invest it. But gradually inflation will erode its spending power. Think about people who did something incredible a long time ago and then sat back to bask in the glory, or dithered through indecision.

They had a lot of confidence in the bank, but then it drained away and they need to start again. To start again, we need to suck again. It is hard to suck again. I know because it happened to me.

The good news is that you can always earn more confidence.

Figure out how to physically prepare, then do it consistently. Allow the confidence to accumulate until you have a nice cushion to get you through the decisions required. Of course it’s better not to make mistakes, but there will always be some. You can treat them as further lessons to build more confidence. Then take that confidence and reinvest it into something else.

It would be a shame to die with unused confidence. It cannot be inherited or transferred.

So use it while you can.