Confidence in Parts
Simple in Concept, Difficult in Practice
Communicating with strangers can be unnerving for a lot of people. It can bring on anxieties and fears like few other things people will regularly encounter in their daily lives. Which is what introducing yourself is all about. There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to introductions, just like a blind first date.
One element of communication we can shape and influence is our confidence.
There are things you can do to prepare yourself for these interactions with other people. People who will like you, hate you, not care about you, and everything in between. Your self-confidence will determine how you respond these reactions. Before we delve more into confidence and ways to build and use it, let’s begin with these three statements. Let them free you from common communication-related fears and anxieties.
Don’t feel ashamed or guilty focusing on your desired outcome. Other people are focused on themselves. You have to be your most vigorous advocate for what you want to achieve.
Most introductions will not lead to achieving your desired outcomes. That’s ok, it’s part of meeting people. Getting through low potential introductions (this does not mean low-potential people - though that might be the case at times) is a good thing because you then get closer to high-potential introductions. Plus, there’s always a chance you make that accidental connection that creates an unexpected opportunity.
Do not feel obligated to have a follow-on meeting with everyone you meet. You should probably be saying no more often than yes to accepting low-quality follow-on meetings.
It does no good to worry about things you cannot control. Of feeling compelled to do one thing or another that doesn’t make sense. As you gain more confidence and experience, you will make better decisions leading to better results. These are conditions that exist when meeting people. You’ll make mistakes. Learning from them is also a big part of developing confidence.
A warning. None of this is guidance or a license to be rude, mean, or a jerk when making an introduction and networking. Be professional and courteous. How you exit interactions with people matters because communications don’t end at any one moment. They live on in the memories of those who participated in them with you.
Working with people on confidence skills is a big part of coaching and training. Teaching people the technical knowledge they use (with confidence) is the other half of the work. Without confidence, your outcomes and opportunities will be unnecessarily limited, regardless of your expertise in your field.
This is more so with communication. Without confidence in your communication, there’s a good chance you do not even get an opportunity to practice your trade for an employer or customer. Confidence is essential to being a good communicator.
Do you feel you have the communication skills, information and capability to engage successfully in an activities that matter to you? Yes or no? Regardless of your answer, the next steps are the same.
Step One: Preparation
Preparation (including practice)largely determines your success in most everything before you do anything. You might be asking then, “Why don’t people prepare and practice more often to do the best they can at some task?” Fair question. It comes down to stakes. For most daily routines people eek by with mediocre abilities or doing tasks that require very basic abilities to succeed.
There are activities with risks and benefits outside a person’s normal comfort zone. They usually involve money, health, and/or love in some combination. For those areas people want or need to do a do better then they think or know they are currently capable to achieve their desired outcomes. Or to avoid undesired ones.
Take a minute to write down two lists. One are outcomes you want to achieve (desired outcomes). Then there are outcomes to avoid (bad outcomes). These outcomes can include losing your job, getting a new job, landing a client, you or someone else dying, or disappointing someone important to you. And this list goes on.
Sounds grim? It is. People typically respond more to fear than a positive motivator.
With that said, are there people and organizations who strive to create and maintain competitive advantages over rivals due to a commitment to excellence? Without and before crap hits the fan? Yes. But you’re pretty rare if that’s the case with you. You’re awesome, but rare. Anyone can operate with this mindset. Building and exercising confidence is essential for this perspective.
Probably about one in five of my clients proactively seek excellence. Most people I work with (and likely reading this) want to become a better communicator due to one fear trigger or another. It’s just how we are are wired as humans.
So people make the decisions to prepare to do something new or better. This is what education really is about. Learning how to do something to a point where your odds of success go up and risks are reduced to acceptable levels.
When do you decide to more thoroughly prepare for a communication activity? Two quick tests are if a communication is likely to significantly impact money and/or people (there are others but these are the two most common factors). What does significant mean? That is up to you. “Significance” can be highly specific and unique depending on you and your organization.
What goes into preparation? In general preparation will involve these steps.
Creating and verifying your desired outcome.
Securing support from one or more senior leaders, customers or other appropriate people.
Validating your audience are people who can contribute to achieving your desired outcome.
Do you have the means, capabilities, and skills to create and deliver your communication or the ability to get needed resources?
Practice communication until a high level of comfort and confidence has been attained in its delivery.
Step Two: Execution
You have to do “the thing”. Getting ready for too long can easily become procrastination. Confidence is a difficult trait to nurture and practice. It is an indirect result of doing something well.
Today people fear failure so much that it prevents them from building confidence. These people want to be confident of success before they do something (new or otherwise). Confidence does not work this way.
You cannot buy confidence. No one can give it to you.
Doing the “thing” is ultimately what builds confidence. Doing it over and over and over again. A lot. Even though you will be tired, frustrated, bored, and resistant (even all at the same time) to making a full good faith effort each iteration. Most of the time you have to do an activity before you feel fully ready.
Get a sheet of paper and write down, “I will do (fill in the blank) to the best of my ability on or by (insert date here). I will not let fear to procrastinate or delay what needs to be done.” Make it your phone’s wallpaper, stick it on your bathroom mirror, your monitor, in your car…or all of these places. Read it aloud to yourself every time you see it until you’re thinking it without any of these prompts.
After you’ve executed your communication, it’s not done. A critical component of confidence is the ability to review and assess how well you executed a plan (i.e. communication activity). It’s so easy to just move on to the next thing. Hey, you’re done! Why do an after-action assessment? Your desired outcome most likely fell into one of three types of results. All of these can be used to learn from and some may have unpleasant forms accountability.
Your communication activity was a total success! What can you use from this experience to facilitate future success? These are fairly rare, but they can happen. And it’s fantastic when they do occur.
There were wins and losses in your communication. This is the most common result from a communication effort.
Did you get a big enough win to move to count this as a win? Or at least as good enough?
Will you need to redo part of the communication activity?
How do you capture these lessons and share them with others to avoid these missteps?
What consequences will need to be addressed from this performance?
You/your team failed miserably to land your message! Do a deep dive into what and when things went wrong. Learn from this failure and share those lessons.
Will you need/be allowed to redo the communication?
How will you/your team be held accountable for doing a bad job?
Doing an after action assessment is crucial to becoming better as a communicator. Going through this process alone will provide an advantage because most people do not review work they have done (not enough time, or money, or desire to do so). These reviews can damage confidence if approached with the wrong perspective. How you display professionalism and maintain composure will help repair any knocks to your confidence. Though it might take longer than you like.
Confidence comes from doing something right, stretching your skills, and doing more things right. When something goes wrong, confidence and desired outcome is what gets you up after getting knocked down. Even when we feel the “best” thing to do is stay down. Because we know deep down the “right” thing to do is figure out what went wrong, learn from that, and try again.
Sounds simple? Building and exercising confidence is not a difficult concept. Is it easy to do? No, not at first. Most people fail. It’s why they stay in safe comfort zones. Which is good for you because people who stay on the sidelines mean there’s less competition for you in the world.
Why do so many people stay on those sidelines? Not pushing boundaries in their lives? No wave making?
Confidence has a big brother/sister. Faith. Specifically faith in yourself. Faith in yourself powers self-confidence.
People without confidence lack faith in themselves. So they play everything safe. A really sad decision for them.
I don’t see how a person has confidence with faith. Sometimes it can be hard to have faith in yourself. Especially during times of real hardship. Real losses like death, health issues, losing a job, families falling apart, and not enough in the bank to pay for essentials like shelter and food.
When other people have faith in you, use that. Use faith from every source you can find. Religion, family, friends, coaches, mentors, movies, books, music…anywhere you can find it.
A quick side note. Be wary of people closest to you. There are those who will truly have faith in you. They are golden. Honest cheerleaders each of us needs in our lives.
Then there are people who are supposed to care for you who really root for you failure or just don’t care. You probably know who these people are in your life. But you don’t acknowledge their secret disdain for you. I have a special tag in my CRM for these people. It’s not flattering (for them), but it serves as that little voice in my head when I have to interact with them or they ask for something. Some of these people cannot be avoided, but why waste time or energy with them any more than absolutely necessary?
When you have faith and confidence, odds flip more in your favor. And it shows. Especially in communication. People yearn for these traits because they are the priceless treasure behind any communication.
“I believe in myself. You should believe in me. Let’s do this together.”
This is being your authentic self. In a way that contributes to success.