Hello, I am Coach Tony… Welcome to Operation Melt!
My name is Coach Tony, and I am a coach, author and project manager on a mission. I am working to build a world where no goal ever dies of loneliness.
I almost allowed one of my biggest life goals to die without ever being attempted for forty years. My goal almost died, not of failure but of loneliness. But, I took a risk and leveraged a simple, logical process that helped me wildly exceed my goal.
I transformed my life, and you can do the same with the help of Operation Melt.
Operation Melt provides engaging, practical content and hands-on coaching to inspire, motivate and equip project managers and other left-brained high-achievers to pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
Ask Me Anything…
In Ask Coach Tony, you can put my Operation Melt coaching to the test by asking me questions about how to achieve your goals.
Because a question asked by one is often a question had by many, I am regularly sharing these answers via the Operation Melt blog.
Amuse Bouche
Before we get to today’s post, I offer you this light “amuse-bouche” to entertain your mind before we get down to business. Like any other amuse-bouche, you may hate my “dad joke,” but it is worth every penny you paid for it, right?
What’s made of leather and sounds like a sneeze? A shoe!
Ask Coach Tony: How Do I Improve My Confidence?
Coach Tony: I have noticed a recurring theme in my life, and I think it is holding me back. I saw a job that I wanted to apply for, but I talked myself out of applying because I didn’t think I could get it. Then, I also talked myself out of pursuing a big goal for a similar reason. Multiple times in my life, my confidence has caused me to make decisions that negatively impact my happiness. How can I fix this?
What a fantastic question! This question touches on a critical issue that often causes us to hold ourselves back.
As I have discussed many times, I am an advocate for SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that describes the five attributes of a well-crafted goal:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-based
Focusing on the A, a well-crafted goal is achievable. Being achievable includes two primary considerations. First, there is the consideration of whether the goal is practical. Is it even possible to reach the destination? For example, going from near bankruptcy to becoming a millionaire in a month is probably entirely out of reach. That makes complete sense, right?
The second component to an achievable goal exists entirely within your mind. Do you believe you can achieve the goal? No matter how practically achievable a goal is, you will likely fail to achieve it if you don’t believe that you can do so.
Taking this a step further, lack of confidence in yourself is likely the top reason that goals die of loneliness. If you don’t think you can do it, you probably won’t even try because you are afraid of failure. On the other hand, once you know that you can achieve any goal you commit to, you will become unstoppable.
Good news! With a few simple exercises and techniques, you can take control of your confidence in yourself and unleash your inner goal-crushing rock star.
Buckle up and get ready to start making your dreams come true as I share my 5 Ps of improved confidence.
Patience
The first step in improving your confidence is giving yourself a little patience.
While the nature and root cause of your confidence challenges may be unique to you, the outcome is not. You aren’t alone in questioning your ability to achieve the goals of your dreams; everybody has times when this happens.
Often, your confidence issues are tied to evolution and neuroscience. Your brain’s top priority is keeping you safe and avoiding being eaten by a predator. This means your brain is pre-conditioned not to like change because it sees change as a threat. Said differently, your brain could give a shit about your happiness and goals; it just wants you not to die.
Be patient with yourself, trust in the process and make small steps towards banishing your confidence issues from your mind.
While this may sound like a small, easy step, it is quite a challenging and rewarding one.
Prioritize
The next step is to focus your brain on what is important to you and why.
When you create and commit to a SMART goal, you are telling your brain that it is something important to you. When your brain knows something is important to you, it gets activated and continues working on it in the background. This quickly dilutes how much effort your brain invests in doubting yourself and immediately starts building more confidence.
Want to enlist your brain as an even more potent ally? Follow the process I laid out in my Goal Success Quick Start Guide (hint: we will follow a similar process if you become a coaching client). This process includes defining a compelling “why” behind your goal. This strong, emotional why will help engage your limbic system and further fuel your self-confidence.
Instead of doubting your abilities, refocus your brain on what is really important to you and let it start energizing your self-confidence.
Prove It
Once you know what is important to you, it is time to prove your doubting brain wrong.
While your specific situation may differ, the likely source of your confidence struggles is uncertainty. You don’t know whether or not you will be successful with your goal. The absence of facts telling you that you will be successful causes your over-protective brain is filling in the gaps with doubt. This doubt is part of what is contributing to your lack of confidence in your own success.
Guess what? Your brain is wrong. You’ve been here before, and you have been successful!
Ok, maybe you haven’t ever pursued this exact goal in your past. But you have pursued and crushed other big goals in your past, right? Your whole life has been based on new goals, building on top of previously accomplished goals.
For example, when you were born, you didn’t know how to crawl. When you started crawling, you couldn’t walk. Next, there was a time when you couldn’t ride a bike, but those training wheels are gone now, right? Now you can do all of these previously hard things and just out of reach.
While the crawl, walk, bike example may be a little silly, it illustrates the point that you have previously accomplished goals. What makes this time any different?
Spend a little time creating your goal success highlight reel. What are some things you didn’t think you would be able to do but then successfully achieved? What have been your biggest wins in life so far? Take stock of these wins and write them all down on a single sheet of paper.
Creating this personal highlight reel will remind you how many times you have been here before and were successful. This evidence will begin proving the doubting portion of your brain wrong. You will be able to refer back to this list every time you begin to doubt your ability to be successful.
Make sure to keep your highlight reel up-to-date as you continue to be a goal-crushing machine. Each time you accomplish a goal, add that win to the list. Creating a personal “ceremony” associated with adding items to your highlight reel is a great way to celebrate your wins.
Each time you question your ability to successfully achieve your goal, remember that you have done this many times. Use a personal highlight reel to deliver the proof that your doubt isn’t based on the facts. This is a good time to get proven wrong, right?
Pep Talk
Using your highlight reel to tell yourself that you are wrong is just the first step in giving yourself the pep talks you need to stay motivated.
When was the last time a friend, family member, boss, mentor or somebody else gave you a pep talk? How did you feel? Were you motivated? Did you feel like you could accomplish anything? Did you feel improved self-confidence?
Who says that pep talks have to come from another person?
Why can’t you give yourself your own pep talk?
It’s not as silly as it sounds; we all talk to ourselves. Self-talk is a real thing and is often negative. Our inner self-talk can be the worst enemy of our self-confidence. If you are going to engage in self-talk anyway, why not unleash your inner cheerleader instead of your inner jerk?
An easy way to get started with your self-pep-talking is by making a slight tweak to your morning routine. As you stand in front of your mirror each morning, don’t rush to walk away. Don’t spend time judging your flaws. Instead, embrace Mel Robbin’s high-five habit and physically high-five yourself in your mirror. Then, tell yourself one thing you love about yourself and tell yourself that “you got this!” This simple, thirty-second habit will start feeling just like that pep talk. It will be a tremendously empowering way to start your day.
Take your morning personal pep talk habit a step further by developing your own “pump up” ritual. When approaching a challenging situation, give yourself a quick boost of confidence. Whether you leverage motivational music, powerful self-affirmations, or power poses, this dose of motivation will be just the antidote you need for your momentary lapse of confidence.
When you need that all-important confidence boost, learn to give yourself a pep talk and to be your own best cheerleader. This may be just the push you need to get yourself onto the path to success.
Partner Up
Learning to be your own best cheerleader doesn’t mean you have to rely only on self-cheering; this is a time for partners.
Once you have committed to a SMART goal that requires a dose of confidence, it is time to enlist help from the people around you. Choose a small group of trusted close friends that can be partners in your journey. Tell them about your goal, explain why it is important to them and ask them to help support you along the way. Let them encourage you as you progress toward your future.
A coach is another type of partner who can help support you during your journey. A coach is a professional who will be 100% committed to helping you define and reach your goal. As your coach, one of my primary goals is to be your cheerleader and to help you overcome confidence issues. If you are interested in learning more about coaching, let’s chat.
There you have it, the 5 Ps to help you get the dose of self-confidence you need to commit to and crush the goals that will get you closer to the life of your dreams!
Ask Me Anything!
Do you have a question you would like to submit for a future Ask Coach Tony post?
- Do you want to know more about me?
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- Do you have a question about how to achieve your goals?
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Whatever your question, I am here to help. Ask Me Anything!
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