Have you noticed how you tend to avoid things that seem a bit scary or unmanageable? I definitely do. Right now I am trying to avoid tasks that take a long time to execute. Yet I know that I need to start one day. If I don’t start I will never get where I want to be.
The same thing with confidence – it takes a desire to be more confident in something. My example is playing golf. When I first went to play with friends of mine, I did not know what to wear, how to behave or what is the etiquette. I was thinking to myself that it had been very unwise of me to agree to go in the first place and commit to wake up at 6am on a Saturday morning? What was I thinking! Since I am a person who does what I have promised, I got up and I went there. The whole way to the golf course my head was filled with the horrors of putting a foot wrong or doing something that I am not supposed to.
When I got there, things were very different. My friends were helpful in explaining what I need to do and how to behave, they were patient with me when I missed the ball the umpteenth time.. We ended up having fun and it was not all at my expense J
Yet it took me at least a year of going to play with the experienced people, before I felt confident on the golf course. I have taken a course with the pro and developed my own game by now. My handicap is not worth mentioning, but I do not forget to take things I need or talk when someone else is about to hit a ball in my vicinity and I am keeping up with the pace of the game. I even have developed my little habits: driving range and putting before the game at least for 30 min., chocolate bar and a bottle of water before the game and a beer after finishing a round. I can say that I feel confident on the course and interacting with other golfers and rarely miss a ball these days.
What did it take? The most important was the first step – start. Then came the desire to be part of the community and belong there. And the rest was practice. The same what Winston Churchill says about success could be said about confidence – Confidence is gained by going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
