3 Tips for Stepping Bravely into Your Next Opportunity

Do you ever feel like you are on the verge of something you’re not sure you are ready for?

Perhaps you’ve been given a chance to do something you’ve always wanted to do, or you recognize a need that you have the unique ability to meet – but it requires that you step out of your comfort zone in order to do it.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve explored the mindset you’ll need to become what you most admire, and discussed the importance of allowing your vision to guide you. As you do those things, you’ll inevitably be presented with opportunities to make your vision real by moving from thought to action. And sometimes those opportunities will unnerve you.

This week’s video will give you three vital insights to help you move through your resistance and rise to those occasions in ways that bring satisfaction, fulfillment and growth.

And if you want more on how to take the kind of action necessary to make your vision a reality, download my special report Why Real Leaders Don’t Set Goals (and what they do instead) and stay tuned for more tools, techniques and tips to come.

Implications for Real Leaders

The Real Leader Revolution is bringing to a head the need for businesses to better tap the power and potential that exists within the people who are the lifeblood of their organizations. This energy, when properly catalyzed and harnessed, will create the kind of value that earns loyal customers, increased market share and strong, sustainable profitability.

To find out more about how you can unleash this talent, energy and potential in your own organization (starting with yourself), sign up below to receive your copy of The Real Leader Revolution Manifesto as soon as it is released.

How to Stay Confident Around People Who Intimidate You

Most of us have people in our lives that for whatever reason lead us to temporarily lose access to our fully functioning brains.   You may find that in their presence, words suddenly escape you.  Or worse, they seem to pour out of you like diarrhea or projectile vomit, leaving you to feel even more uneasy.  Perhaps you unexpectedly develop a stutter.  Maybe you become unusually clumsy, or suddenly fixated on how large your nose (or some other part of your body) feels. These are the kind of things that happen when we are intimidated by someone.

People intimidate us for a number of reasons.

Intimidation can be triggered by someone with an explosive temper, or a person who tends to be critical of you.  It could come on when you are around someone you really want to be liked by.  And sometimes it happens when you are in the presence of people who seem to have all the things in life that you do not, from stunning physical attributes to lavish material possessions to prestigious job titles.  But there is one common denominator present when you find yourself intimidated by another person and believe it or not, it has very little to do with any of the previous factors I mentioned.

The root of all intimidation lies in what you are believing about yourself in any given moment.

It is easy to conclude that the problem exists somewhere out there.

You might think it’s the way someone looks at you, or responds (or doesn’t respond) to you.  And you might even believe – if so and so wasn’t in my life, I would be so much more confident and self assured.  But the problem isn’t other people – not even people who may intentionally be trying to tear you down a notch.  You may think their hurtful messages are to blame.

But the trouble isn’t hearing hurtful messages from others.

That wouldn’t explain why people are intimidated by those they envy or really want to be liked by – who may never actually say anything at all. The reason people intimidate us is that in their presence we are telling ourselves that we are simply not good enough, attractive enough, rich enough, powerful enough, articulate enough, smart enough, skinny enough, athletic enough – or ENOUGH altogether.

And worse, we are believing it.

When you believe you’re inadequate, you will cut yourself off from your brilliance.  Sometimes it’s just a little kink in the hose that still allows a small portion of your competence or grace or talent to come through.  And other times it’s just an all out blockage.  It’s not that all those wonderful things about you have gone away.  You just temporarily have trouble accessing them.  And then you may panic and find that things get even worse.

So how do you remove the blockage?

What can you do to avoid becoming intimidated and losing confidence?

Well, the interesting thing about intimidation is that the root of it is also the remedy.

When you find yourself going down Intimidation Street, you can stop and redirect yourself down a more positive path simply by becoming aware of and eventually changing your thoughts. I admit that this is much easier said than done. However, as with so many things in life, it gets better and better with practice.

Here are three ways to redirect your negative thoughts about yourself to something more positive:

 (1) Think of someone in your life in whose presence you feel really good about yourself.

Go ahead and try it right now. See if you can place yourself in that person’s presence and feel the way you do when you are together. You might find that you are sitting up straighter and holding your head higher just at the thought. Know that when you are with that person, you are the same you that you are when you are with people who intimidate you.

See if you can envision being in the presence of someone who intimidates you while you are feeling the way you feel when you are around someone you feel loved and admired by. Imagine how much easier it would be to interact with others while you are in this state. Practice this in your mind often.

The next time you are around someone who intimidates you, use the exact same process.

Treat every interaction as an opportunity to build this muscle for yourself. And before you know it, you will find that your behavior will become more consistently confident and self assured. You may also notice that the things that used to send you into a tailspin no longer really bother you.

(2) The next time you find yourself feeling intimidated, notice what you are believing.

Then ask yourself if it is really true. This may be difficult to do when you are standing in front of someone, so if it’s easier you can wait until the moment has passed. You may find when you reflect on the situation that you felt the way you did when you were a kid and realize that those feelings are no longer relevant.

You may be believing that there is something you need to do or be to win someone’s affection or approval when in reality you just need to relax and be yourself and let go of needing so much to be liked by others. You may be believing that the other person is thinking something negative about you that is purely conjecture you are poisoning your mind with.

When you notice and begin to challenge your assumptions, they lose their hold on you.

It’s kind of like being in a haunted house after the lights have been switched on. You can go back there when it’s dark again, but it’ll never scare you the way it might have before.

(3) See if you can shift your focus from what you think you need to what you can give.  

As I mentioned before, we get intimidated when we feel we are lacking in some way. And then we tend to act in ways that will allow us to get what we think we need to feel better. Often that comes in the form of someone’s approval or affection. Think of what kinds of things you think you need from others in order to feel more confident. Is it a smile? Is it a compliment? Is it someone paying attention to you? A little appreciation or support?

See if you can find a way to give to someone else that which you believe you need.

And do it in such a way that you are not expecting anything in return other than to be of service to another human being. In other words, don’t give to get. Give because it makes you feel good. When you do this, you will find yourself reconnected with the reserves that you are most in need of. Because when you give something – even if it is something you think you don’t have – you realize that by the very nature of giving it to others, you become an abundant supply.

“Those who bring sunshine to others cannot keep it from themselves.” – Anonymous

 If you would like to learn more about building confidence, being authentic, and moving beyond old patterns that keep you from fully enjoying your life, check out my book, The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming a Real Leader, available at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.

Image courtesy of Marcus74id at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

How to Develop More Confidence

Every day offers us a new challenge and an opportunity to see what we are made of.

Some days more than others.  Think of all the resources you have at your disposal to rise up to these challenges.  You have your intellect, style, wit, humor, strength, resilience, patience.  You have friends and colleagues, family members, and other special people in your life.  You have your possessions, your resources, your health, your savings, your home.

When you get down to the bottom of things, one of your most valuable resources – which allows you to enrich every other aspect of your life, is the way in which you view yourself and what you believe you are capable of.  This one thing plays a monumental role in determining your fate, because it drives your actions and responses to everything that happens to you.

This quality is confidence.

You know it when you see it, don’t you?  A confident person walks into a room and doesn’t have to say a thing.  They wear their faith in themselves and their abilities like comfortable clothing.  They do not need to be arrogant or assuming.  They are at ease in their own bodies.

What exactly is confidence?  And how do you get it?

Some would say confidence is being able to show others that you know what you are doing, that you have what it takes to succeed, that you are in control.  Others speak of confidence from the standpoint of having courage to do things that require a high degree of skill, knowledge, strength, coordination, or that may entail some degree of risk.  Still others would say confidence is the ability to inspire trust in others.  Merriam Webster defines confidence as “a feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances” and “faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper or effective way.”

Confidence is something that must come from the inside out.

What do I mean by that?  Every day we face challenges and opportunities that allow us to exercise confidence.  We can do things today that we were unable to do last year, or maybe even last week.  When we get to a point where we no longer question our abilities and simply execute the task at hand in a manner that is fitting to the situation, one could say we are acting with confidence.

Exercising confidence does not require that anyone else believe we know what we are doing, or even that they witness us doing anything at all.  It requires us to do what must be done at any given time, utilizing the resources at our disposal and calling on our own strengths, ingenuity, and discernment to do it.

 It is easy, however, to fall into the trap of trying to gain confidence from the outside in.

We often go about our tasks with an eye on the perceptions of others and allow their reactions to determine our confidence level.  A positive response increases our confidence, and a negative one decreases it.  When we repeatedly engage in behavior like this, we will subjugate our ability to perform and stunt our inherent talent by interrupting its natural flow.

Imagine yourself standing in a room trying to balance on one foot while holding the other in your hand and looking up at the ceiling.  Now add about fifteen to twenty people to the room who are trying to do the same thing.   If you worry about whether you look good and imagine that everyone is staring at you, you will lose your balance (and your confidence).  If, however, you center yourself and focus on the task at hand, you will find your core strength and a sense of calm, and you will achieve your goal.  It may take awhile, but you will get there.

“It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered.  But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

This phenomenon becomes more complex when we assign value to others’ perceptions.

The opinion of someone we highly regard may weigh more heavily than someone we don’t.  And strangely, getting validation from someone who doesn’t seem to think well of us can have more significance than hearing praise from people who are our biggest fans.  Why?  I think we tend to focus our attention on that which mirrors our own thinking.  Criticism stings the most when it amplifies our own self doubt.   And when we find ourselves craving acknowledgement from others, it is likely because we are withholding it from ourselves.

As we go about trying to win approval, we allow others to define our sense of self.

And as a result, we grow ever more unaware of the treasure that sits in our own back yards.  We leave our true fortunes to seek things that glitter and fade.  The harder we try to win the confidence and validation of others, the further we will get from achieving it and the more deeply buried our inherent riches become.

Rather than acknowledging evidence that is all around us which confirms that we are competent, creative, talented, worthy and capable of achieving great things, we waste our energy focusing on what we believe is lacking.  As a result, we pay attention to data that validates our feelings of inadequacy, which leads us to act in ways that sub optimize our potential.  This further erodes our confidence and we risk locking ourselves in vicious cycles of deteriorating performance and eroding self assurance.

Confidence is an inside job because we cannot expect others to believe in us if we do not believe in ourselves.

To be truly free, we must become independent of the opinion of others.

This does not mean we stop seeking feedback or valuing input and suggestions.  It simply requires that we learn to become unattached to others’ approval and instead draw upon our own inner reserves. When we stop seeking validation, we find our centers again and learn from our own experiences and inner wisdom.

Practice and simple adjustments allow us to find our zone, listen to our intuition and slowly perfect our game.  Becoming quietly confident, we lose the need to prove that we are right, defend our honor or value, and impress others.  We simply do what is ours to do in any given moment and judge our success on the merits of the work itself.

When we truly go within to discover and unearth our own value, a funny thing happens. 

Over time, we will come to be surrounded by people who mirror our own positive assessment of ourselves.  Criticism may still come, but it will no longer have the sting it once did.  Void of the emotional charge, we can take feedback for what it is – data that helps us to see something we may have missed, so that we can make a course correction if necessary.

No longer basing our value of ourselves on what others think of us, we can refocus the energy we spent seeking validation into helping others recognize their own value.  In modeling this behavior, our increased confidence in ourselves engenders confidence both in and from others, and we can truly lead.

When we have confidence in ourselves, we regain a sense of power and faith.

No matter what happens in the uncertain world around us, we know we have what it takes to rise above our challenges and turn them into opportunities.   We act in ways that show others they too have the ability to shape the world around them by starting with themselves.

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This article contains excerpts from my book  The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming a Real Leader now available in both ebook and paperback formats on Amazon.

Yoga image courtesy of arztsamui / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.