Confidence and Goal Achievement by Francis Bills

Q. What do you believe is the most important attribute to have for achieving your goals?

A. Confidence in yourself. Belief in your ability to do what you set out to accomplish.

Where does confidence come from? Can it be taught? And what isn’t confidence?

Confidence comes from our thoughts, what we are thinking about the task ahead and of our perceived ability to accomplish it.

Whenever we set out to accomplish a goal, we can ask ourselves:

1)    “Am I making the task appear larger than it is?”

2)  “Am I minimizing or limiting my strength and ability to overcome the task at hand?”

Remember, whatever we put our focus and attention to, with emotion and feeling gets magnified.

This is the reason why many of us allow ourselves to become fearful. We put our focus and attention on the worst case scenario and make the challenge out to be bigger than it is. In other words, we “make a federal case out of it.”

Why do we do this? There are many reasons but a few of them are:

-a lack of experience or a lack of understanding of the task at hand

-allowing others to discourage us or to undermine our capabilities

-allowing ourselves, our own thoughts to diminish what we’re truly capable of

-looking outside of ourselves or comparing ourselves to others’ abilities (having a competitive and envious mindset)

Q. Can confidence be taught?

A. Yes.

Q. How?

A. Practice having a “can-do” attitude toward any challenge or obstacle. See challenges as opportunities to grow, to learn and to advance.

Take action on and practice doing what you don’t have confidence in. This may sound counterintuitive but it’s the only way to gain confidence, by doing.

Take calculated action even when you’re not ready. You’ll find the strength to overcome as you go, but you’ve got to begin.

Don’t focus too much on the desired outcome as in the enjoyment of the process of getting better and becoming more confident.

Keep seeking ways to gain more experience at whatever the skill is that you’re looking to get better at.

There are plenty of books available at the Public Library for free on any subject that you want to learn about. Take advantage of this free resource.

You also have an encyclopedia in the palm of your hands everywhere you go. Use it to gain the knowledge and skills necessary and be sure to implement what you learn.

Celebrate your accomplishments and be a good forgetter of your past mistakes, unless you use these mistakes to gain valuable insight for improving yourself.

Expect the best outcome in all that you do. Think of the best case scenario when engaging in any activity, task or in the reaching of your goals.

Limit time with or completely eliminate negative people who would prefer to cut you down instead of lifting themselves up.

Having a healthy respect for your time is a great way to increase your confidence.

Keep a creative mindset and don’t envy others. A truly confident person wishes the best for others because they know that they have the ability to achieve what they want without taking anything away from another.

Be sure to keep your tasks at hand in perspective. We can decide to make our tasks out to be giants or grasshoppers.

You are bigger than your tasks and goals. If you’re going to create an image of them, make them grasshoppers. Make the challenge smaller, not bigger.

Give yourself more credit for what you’ve accomplished in life. Don’t be too down on yourself, there are already plenty of people who would be willing to do that for you.

Be proud of what you’ve done so far and be grateful for the opportunity and the confidence to do more.

Q. What isn’t confidence?

A. Confidence is not cockiness or arrogance.

Confidence is not telling and trying to prove to everyone how great you are.

Confident people don’t feel the need to diminish anyone, treat them as “less than”, feel the need to take from others or feel the need to intimidate or bully others.

Confidence is not your position, title or your rank.

Confidence is a calm knowing that whatever you set out to achieve, you will find a way to do it, no matter what.  

Keep charging forward with your goals and don’t let anything or anyone get in your way.

Thank you,

Francis Bills

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