Overcome Doubt with Confidence. Start by Deciding

How many times have you rejected an opportunity or did not take on a task because you did not have confidence taking it on? Now how often have you confidently taken on a task and still had doubt? Probably not very often. When you are confident with your abilities and your skills you would rarely have any doubt about it and therefore you can make confident decisions. One of our coaches Brent Turley posed the following questions about killing doubt:

What do you use to kill pests? Pesticide

What do you use to kill insects? Insecticide

So… What do you use to kill doubt? DE…CIDE

The moment you make a decision, the initial doubt starts to fade. You instantly change your conversation with yourself from “There is no way I can do this” to “Ok…well that just happened…so HOW can I do this?” The change to “how” now opens up multiple opportunities for you to explore, which was not there when you had doubt and did not decide.

 Decision Making is a Skill

 Just like playing golf, speaking on stage, or coming up with strategies to Make More and Work Less, decision-making is a skill. When you can make fast and concise decisions, that is when you have the advantage over others. That may be the difference between getting a property at a great price versus an inflated price. It could be having the opportunity to speak on stage in front of thousands of people versus being another audience member. Being able to make fast decisions is what makes great leaders versus weak leaders. Sometimes you do not have the luxury to ‘sleep’ on it before you make a decision. In fact, the longer you take to make decisions, the more likely you will not take action. This is because, the moment we procrastinate, we start to come up with more support as to why we shouldn’t go through with something.

 One of our Coaches, Reggie Batts, shared a story about his skydiving experience. The moment he chose to ‘sleep’ on his decision, is when he search on YouTube “dangers of skydiving”, which of course caused him to further delay his decision. Elite entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and Steve Jobs make quick snap decisions. They have empires to run and thousands of people every day who look to them for guidance. They do not have the luxury to sleep on a decision.

 When we are presented with a scenario to make a choice, you will find that three aspects of our body come to play: our mind, our heart, and our gut.

 Left brainers, those who are more analytical and systematic, will likely favor their decision heavily on what their brains say. Whereas right brainers, those who are driven emotionally, will follow their heart. However, both the left brainers and right brainers will eventually fall to their gut for the final decision. What does their gut tell them about the scenario? How does it make them feel? Majority of the time, your gut will provide you with the right decision. For instance, when screening tenants our initial impression of the applicant is usually supported by the submitted application form and reference checks. We have an initial feel as to who to rent to and who not to rent to, and then have the reference checks back up or disprove our initial thought. Those who say ‘yes’ often, will have many opportunities to make decisions, allowing them to practice more often. With more and more opportunities for decision making, the faster and more concise you become when making decisions.

 How many times can you remember a situation where you made a decision about something after you took a few days to think about it. Was the decision what your gut told you at the very beginning? More often than not, your gut will give you the right direction. The key is to reduce that period of time where you convince your brain that your gut is right.

 Within Moments you Assess Risk

 One thing that happens when you develop the skill of making fast decisions, is the skill of assessing risk. Everything we do has risk and it is how we manage it that allows us to make concise and fast decisions. The more risk we take, the more successes we gain, leading to more confidence and skills. Taking calculated risks is energizing and courageous. When we are energized and courageous anything can happen. So how do we take calculated risks?

 When We Face Risk, We Must…

 There are a series of questions that we must ask when facing any potential risk:

1.  What is the best thing that can happen as a result of taking this action?
2.  What is the worst thing that can happen as a result of taking this action?
3.  What is the most likely thing to happen as a result of taking this action?
4. Will taking this action take me closer to my vision?
5. Can I handle the worst case?
6.  Am I willing to accept the worst case for a shot at the best case?

 By asking and answering these questions we are able to place ourselves into the future and assess whether we are able to take on the risk or not. It is now a calculated risk, in which you have weighed all the outcomes, benefits, potential pitfalls, and even back up strategies if things do not go according to plan. It is a very high-level assessment on the risk and a great start to your plan if you choose to go through with the risk.

 With practice, you will be able to run those questions in your head and within moments you can count down and 5…4…3…2…1…Decide!

 Decisions Kills Doubt and Builds Confidence

 The more decisions you make, the more actions you take. More action leads to more experience and more experiences build more confidence. With more confidence, you will have less doubt and with less doubt, you will make even faster and more concise decisions. It is an endless cycle that constantly builds itself to be even stronger every time it is in play.

 As with everything, you build confidence by doing it. You learn the skills, practice it, and apply it. To help you understand how we build confidence, we will explain the four levels that we all go through when developing confidence. The first level is unconscious incompetence, the second is conscious incompetence, the third level is conscious competence, and the last level is unconscious competence.

 1 – Unconscious Incompetence

2 – Conscious Incompetence

3 – Conscious Competence

4 – Unconscious Competence

 Let’s use writing a book as an example. There are some people who didn’t know that anyone who wants to, can write a book and therefore they don’t seek the knowledge – Level 1 – They don’t know what they don’t know.

 Later on, they realize that they have a very important message to share and that they have a book in them and like all the other authors out there, would like to share it with the world. They just don’t know, how to do it. – Level 2 – They know what they don’t know.

 They do their research and found a coach and a program. They follow the system and ask the right questions. They put their head down and write – Level 3 – They know.

 They published their book and now KNOW how to do it. They are now writing their 2nd and 3rd books while also teaching others how to write books! – Level 4 – They KNOW it naturally. 

 Once you are competent, you need to stop doubting yourself and simply trust that you are able to do it. You didn’t give up on reading just because you weren’t sure of yourself, did you? We hope you had just kept practicing until you were more comfortable. Anything you do in life is like that. Just as you trust that you can read, you should trust in your abilities to learn the skills that you need to achieve the visions you have set for yourself.

 As you build confidence in your knowledge and skill, your doubt gets eliminated faster each time as you make decisions quicker and a great leader is born, primed to Make More and Work Less.