We often hear about, or are asked, the thought experiment, ‘what if time and money were no object?’ It’s part of a question that encourages our imagination to run free as we envision an ideal life.
But I feel with my anxiety that a far greater resource exists … confidence.
What could we achieve if we had sufficient confidence?
Confidence is about the willingness to take risks in the face of Uncertainty. To risk failure and rejection. Feel the fear and still act. It’s an attitude we have about ourselves as we face the life we lead.
Most likely we would chase after our dreams.
The thing is, time and money are far less of a boundary than they once were. You can start a side hustle easily nowadays. Get online, sell your ideas, or share others.
Time is still a problem, given how complex our lives are. There’s so much to do and so little of it.
But the resource I want more of now is not time, or money but confidence.
From confidence success flows. Because you always have faith in yourself, and so keep trying, even after failure.
To have such a resource is to almost guarantee success in some form or another because the biggest step to success is just showing up, making an effort. It’s here that our fears stop us before we even try.
Confidence will always make sure we show up.
What would I do?
For me, now, I’d use it to create a social circle. It’s the one thing I need and wants the most.
Another is the courage to be more professional in my writing and art. To no longer think of it as a dalliance, or hobby, but to focus on making it work and getting paid for it. To give it the gravitas that it deserves given it seems to be essential to who I am as a person.
Confidence would give me the drive to keep trying and do it persistently. To trust myself enough to overcome whatever obstacles are in my way.
Confidence is like that, it’s the trust in oneself, a certainty that you can handle.
There is overconfidence, which can get us into a lot of trouble. But more commonly it’s the abscence of it that’s our problem
Confidence has to be one of the most underrated resources. We always think of time or money. But how we feel about ourselves and our abilities will impact on our success far more than even these two.
Building confidence is not something that you can do by reading books. It only comes from experience. We need to learn how to act even in the face of uncertainty, and at the risk of rejection, failure, and loss.
Practice and making and effort are the keys to getting it.
To take small steps, and with each step, whether we succeed or fail is experience gained. Such knowledge means we can push oursevles a little bit further the next time.
What would you try with more confidence?