A new CEO with rugged good looks and a Stanford-educated mind sought executive coaching because he wanted more confidence to take his company to the next level. He was looking for the wrong thing.
To truly succeed, confidence is essential. Confidence is exhilarating, a feeling we all naturally crave. Yet, it’s courage that truly tests us, compelling us to step beyond our perceived limits and into the realm of the unknown. This journey begins with a commitment—a pledge to the goal and ourselves that summons the bravery needed to take the first step. It’s in the act of facing our fears and embracing challenges that we discover our true capacity. This is where confidence is born: not in the comfort of the familiar, but in the triumph over trials we once thought insurmountable.
The success we seek often lies just beyond the barriers of what we fear. So, make those prospecting calls. Voice your ideas in the meeting. Make the unpopular decision that you believe is right. Let go and encourage your team to do what you hired them to do. Embrace the risks and accept that missteps are part of the journey.
Each action you take builds the bridge from courage to confidence, leading you to the success that awaits. Step up and seize the opportunity to transform not just your world, but also yourself.
To lead himself and his company to the next level of success, here is how this CEO reverse-engineered his confidence so he could generate the courage he needed to step up, through the fear, and do what was needed.
Six steps to build the bridge from commitment, courage, and capacity to confidence:
- Identify the Key Goal: What is a goal or desire that is either eluding you or you are not getting the traction you desire and is causing you to feel you lack confidence? Write it down and commit to achieving it even if you don’t know how yet.
- List Avoided Actions: What actions or decisions have you been avoiding that are necessary to achieve your goal? Make a list of these actions and what’s at risk if you were to fail. Get it in front of you so you can think and work through them.
- Pinpoint Your Barriers: Identify where you feel you lack the knowledge, ability, or capacity to take the actions to succeed on what you listed in step 2. These show up on what we call the “If-I-just” list. These are the things we tell ourselves to “justify” playing small and staying stuck. (e.g., “If I just knew how to X,” ” If I was just good at Y,” ” If I just had more time, I could Z,” “ If I could just could get myself to ___, then I could achieve my goal.”) Most people stop there and hope something either changes, shows up, or goes away. So, for each item listed in step 2 above, ask yourself:
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- What do I need to learn?
- What skills do I need to develop or improve?
- How can I make more time for this?
- Who can help me with this?
- Find the Biggest Lever: From the barriers listed in step 3, identify the one thing that, if addressed, would have the most profound impact to move things forward. This is your most critical lever.
- Commit to Action: Commit to tackling that one thing. Embrace the fear and discomfort you feel and re-frame it as fuel to succeed. Then take courageous action. Make that better decision. Courage is feeling and acknowledging fear while getting yourself to do what needs to get done.
- Celebrate and Calibrate to increase Capacity:
- After taking action, or making a key decision in step 5, celebrate what worked.
- Assess and calibrate what still needs work.
By continually working the six-step process above, stepping in again and again around key decisions and actions, the CEO improved and learned with each step. Through his courage, he increased his capacity thereby building the confidence he was originally seeking. This progress doesn’t happen unless he first commits to the goal and himself. Because he committed, he is well on his way to achieving the next level of success with confidence.
Make it up, make it fun, and get it done!