Editor’s Note: This is the second of three great pieces of July 4th advice we will be publishing today here at TLNT.
I recently had a great conversation on Intrepid Radio with Todd Schnick about what holds people back in their careers and their pursuit of success.
I talked about how people often don’t see the possibility to break outside the constraints of their job description. So they get stuck just repeatedly doing what is asked of them, so they never create their breakthrough.
This, by the way, is why I wrote my book RISE — to help more people get the career they want. In RISE, I talk about how you need to do more than your job description if you want to get ahead.
I talk about why you need to, and specifically how to:
- Work in a way that doesn’t use up all your time so you can …
- Do the necessary, extra stuff above and beyond your job description.
Does fear hold people back?
Then Todd asked me if fear also plays a role.
Absolutely. Many people are held back by a lack of self confidence. People talk to me about this every week.
Just because you feel afraid, doesn’t mean you are not good enough. Everyone gets scared.
I talked about how it’s OK to be scared and that you just need to DO it scared.
But then Todd challenged me. “Patty, that’s pretty scary advice — to just do it scared. How can you help people who are too scared to do it scared?”
DO something
The reality is that only way to build self-confidence is to DO stuff.
You don’t build self-confidence just by preparing, or by learning about stuff, or thinking, or by waiting. You have to DO stuff. And while that’s scary in the moment, the benefit is that you actually build self-confidence each time you do it.
When you DO something you get one of two outcomes:
- You are successful, so you build self confidence. Each time you create success you build a little more confidence.
- You fail or get embarrassed … but you don’t die. The act of “doing and not dying” also increases your self-confidence.
So, the bottom line: The only way to build self-confidence is by DOING.
Doing and not dying builds confidence
The people who succeed are the ones who try stuff, and do stuff.
The people who get promotions are the ones who go for promotions and don’t wait to be discovered.
The people who get promotions are the ones that seek out and volunteer for experiences which will support their career aspirations. (See page 216 of RISE for ideas to learn about bigger jobs.)
They DO stuff.
They do more than their job description asks of them. And if they find it scary, they do it anyway.
Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, but they always learn something.
They build a bit more confidence each time, and they try again.
Listen to the whole conversation here.
More about dealing with being scared
If you missed these, I’ve recently written two other articles about working through being scared.
One was where I walked up to Clint Eastwood and Bill Murray at a dinner and said “Hi, I’m Patty,” just because it scared me. (I didn’t die.)
Another was an article about doing it scared, which also links to a wonderful Ted Talk by Dr. Brene Brown about fear and shame.
Was this useful? Feel free to let me know.
This was originally published on Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. Her latest book is Rise: How to be Really Successful at Work and LIKE Your Life.