Anyone who is anyone has probably noticed that emotions are a rollercoaster. Your perspective about a situation can swing from certainty to apathy to wild insecurity in the span of hours, even minutes! Sometimes it’s enough to make you wonder if you’re unhinged. Spoiler: you’re not. Being human is just like that. You don’t have to listen to your feelings.
But it’s frustrating when there is work to be done and progress to be made, and you’re mired in insecurity, doubt, or fear. Even if you know the feelings will pass, it would be nice to be able to quickly shift your perspective to the next phase – the less sucky phase. If you have a client meeting in 30 minutes, you don’t want to wait for the feelings to pass on their own. You need them to pass quickly.
One Tuesday, while waxing eloquently about the progress I wasn’t making and the value I wasn’t contributing, my coach, Leslie Zucker, taught me a game–and I’m never looking back. She said, “Imagine you could take a confidence pill. It would transform your feelings into confident ones, about every situation. How would you feel about this situation if you took that pill?”
I closed my eyes and thought about it. How would my…
- insecurity about the rate at which I’m learning new skills,
- fear that I’m not helping my clients as much as I could,
- anxiety that I’m not saving enough money,
- self doubt about not finishing personal projects quickly
change?
I pictured popping a pill in my mouth and washing it down with water. I imagined that uncompromising confidence and self-assuredness was the consequence of swallowing that pill. How would I feel? What would be different? Most importantly, would this imagination game actually help??
The first thing I noticed was a profound sense of calm. My breathing deepened. As I thought about my clients, my income, my projects, I felt an unshakeable sense of trust. The process can’t go any faster than it’s going. It’s going at the right pace. You’re doing the right thing.
With that faith in the process, in the rate at which I’m progressing, I noticed a burgeoning sense of curiosity. I wonder what I’ll learn in that meeting, I thought, instead of, what if someone asks a question I don’t know the answer to!? I almost felt like a detached observer, one who was genuinely interested in what was coming next. What would the phone call bring? What would I learn next?
Usually when I think of “confidence,” I think of energy, answering questions correctly, smiling, and being sure of what to do next. Instead, I took the pill and felt a sense of leaning back (leaning out? *wink*). The urgency and the niggling worry were gone. Rather than being replaced by frantic (if confident) energy, I felt relaxed, with bone-deep knowledge, even certainty, that you’re doing this right.
Since that day, I’ve called upon the Confidence Pill when I find myself anxious, insecure, or fearful, especially when I have meetings with clients. When I feel edginess and urgency, the confidence pill reminds me to lean back and trust myself. Simple as the game is, it really helps me shift my perspective and feel settled in my own skin. On our last call, Leslie suggested imagining putting confidence powder in every glass of water. How would THAT transform things? I confess I keep forgetting to imagine drinking confidence water. But we will see what happens….
Have you ever taken a confidence pill? How has it changed your situation?
(photo source here.)
