The Confidence Gap and its Negative Impact on Achievement.
Leonard Muchiri, MBA
Corporate Trainer | Sales, Culture & Productivity Optimization Expert | Driving Change and Workplace Well-being
The Confidence Gap, a concept attributed to the author Russ Harris, happens when you think that for you to do something impactful at work or in life in general, you need to have a level of confidence that matches that task.
Between you and your ideal achievement is a gap caused by a lack of confidence.
How do you address the gap?You first acknowledge that the anxiety that lead to inaction, is the result of the confidence gap.
You should then investigate the thoughts that bring this lack of confidence to the surface.
What beliefs form the bedrock of your fear? What beliefs prevent you from taking the smallest action toward your goal?
After identifying the thoughts, you should cognitively defuse with them.
Cognitively defusing with a thought is psychology speak for detaching from a thought. You do this by acknowledging that you're not your thoughts and beliefs.
You can defuse and step aside from the thoughts that do not serve you.
You do this by observing your thoughts like a person would observe a waterfall.
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To a waterfall observer, the waterfall is out there. They are separate from it.
This analogy not only removes us from identifying with each and every thought that occurs to us, but also stresses the safety of defusing from them.
However ragingly violent a waterfall may be, you're safe if you're observing it from a distance. The closer you get to it, the lesser your safety.
He also advices that we should learn to define our goals and values constantly to bridge the confidence gap.
Our goals and values have the effect of nudging us into taking the right action in consistency with them.
And the right action however small, not only helps us believe that we can accomplish a big task, but also removes us from our comfort zone.
In a nutshell, this is how we bridge the confidence gap: