Auto Repair Shop Owner's Daily Dose 54: Confidence

Confidence by Rick White, President 180BIZ

Today we're going to talk about confidence.  I’m working with a new client and he has significant self-doubt issues, worthiness issues. His lack of confidence has him saying, “Why are people paying me? I'm not worth that much.” How many of us have felt that before?

Confidence comes from three places. When people talk about being confident, they're talking about being confident in what they're trying to do. When they're working on something new, they want to feel proficient at it. People want to feel good about doing it and they don't want to get started until they have that feeling.  But let me tell you.  That is the wrong confidence to pursue at this time.

1. The first level of confidence that you want is in your capabilities. You need confidence in your capabilities. What do I mean by that? I have never been through a pandemic before. I have never seen anything like this in all the years I've been on this planet. But I’ll tell you what I've been through. I've been through two divorces. I've been through alcoholism; I've been through bankruptcy. I've been through owing on the IRS money. I've been through economic recessions. I've been through 9/11. I have successfully made it through every one of those things. So, I believe that I am capable of getting through this. I don't know how yet. I don't know all the tools I'm going to need, but I absolutely confident in my capability to get through this pandemic. I’m not talking about getting sick or staying healthy. I'm talking about the emotional and economic impact this is having.  I've never been through something like this, but I believe I am capable. I believe that I will figure it out.  So that is the first confidence you need. Confidence in your capability. You just need to look back at your past and look at all the times you got knocked down, where you stood up, brushed herself off, and kept going.
2. The second level of confidence is in the people around you; they have confidence in you.  Borrow some of that confidence. We did it as kids. When you were a little kid growing up and wanted to learn how to ride a bike or throw a football.  You might have said that you can’t do it. But your Daddy and Mommy kept saying, “Yes you can. I believe in you. You can do it.“ What did it do? You borrowed some of their confidence and started doing the task. So sometimes we need to borrow confidence from the people around us. They see more in us than we do in ourselves. 
3. The third level of confidence is in your ability. Understand that are steps that you have to go through to get to that confidence.
   
   Step 1: Make a choice. You need to choose that you're going to do it. Here’s an example.  There are four birds on a telephone wire. One of them decides to fly off. How many birds are still there on the wire? Four. Just because a decision was made doesn't mean anything else happened.
   
   Step 2. Once you make the decision, you must commit.  Once you make your choice, you commit to doing it. You recognize that you're not going to do it well. Recognize it's going to be uncomfortable. Recognize you're going to fall down. Recognize that you will make mistakes. It's okay.
   
   Step 3: After commitment, you must have courage. You need courage to push forward. You need courage to know that everything you want is on the other side of this and must keep on pushing. It might suck right now, but you have to go through suck to get to great. It's just the law of the land. There are some rules that you can break. There are some shortcuts that you can make, but you cannot break laws. You cannot break the law of gravity. All you're ever going to do is reinforce it. Well, the law of SOC, the law of suck states, when you start something new, you're going to suck, but you must keep going. You must have the courage to keep going. Then you become competent at it.  You do it over and over and over again, and if you debrief every time, you're going to get a little bit better and become competent. When you have competence in something, when you feel like it's something you can do without even thinking about it, that's where confidence in your ability comes in. Embrace the confidence in that ability.

It's all about just getting out there and doing something that scares the crap out of you.  But once you conquer it, that’s where confidence comes from.  So, I'm going to ask you today, what do you need confidence in, and which one of the three are you not paying attention to? Two of them you can get right away. Confidence in your capability and confidence from other people borrowing it from other people happens like that. That's easy.

Confidence in your ability is a path and you need to stay on the path. Yes, it sometimes feels awkward and downright awful. If you back up, you're going to stay the way you are. Don't do that. You're meant for something better. You're meant for something bigger. Go through it, push through it, because everything you want is on the other side of that challenge.

Thank you so much. Go make a difference today and have some fun. Take care. God bless.