How To Feel Confident Even When You Suck At Something!

So how do you feel confident when you suck at something? That's a challenge, right? We had a question from a viewer about that. It's like, well, it's all well and good if you're able to go do the thing, but what if you're not good? What if you're not good at conversations right away? What if you don't know what to say? What if you're not good at public speaking? What if you're not good at dancing or expressing yourself or singing or any talent or hobby or whatever? So what do you do? Well, my answer to him and to you is very simple. You're doomed. Don't do the thing. I mean, you're not good at it, so why try? No, I'm kidding. That's not the answer. That's not the confident answer. Because here's the thing. The issue is not that you're not good at it. That doesn't create low confidence. You might think, oh, no, no. Competence means confidence. Like, if I'm good at it, then I'll be confident. If I'm not good at it, I can't be confident. Well, there are many sources of confidence. And if your confidence only comes from being really good at something, then you have a very limited band of things that you can be confident in. So we gotta root our confidence in something different. And the biggest issue here is if we are feeling bad about ourselves and insecurity and anxious, if we're not good at something, then we can never be a beginner. And if you can't be a beginner, you can't learn. And here's the thing, even the stuff that you think you're good at, you gotta be able to take on beginner's mind and learn from someone new and go back sometimes to fundamentals and then therefore improve your skills even more. So we are always beginners in many different ways. And there's certain areas of your life. You might even be more of a beginner, like, truly know nothing in that. But that's the path to anything great, right? That's the path to change and growth and evolution. Right? Maybe you don't know how to have certain communication skills in a relationship. Maybe you do want to change something in your career where you need to learn a whole new skill set, or maybe it's a whole new career, and you say, well, I can't learn that because I'm 36, so I guess I got to do this other career for the rest of my life. Whereas, well, if you could just let yourself be a beginner for a short period of time, then you could be doing something you love a whole lot more. Right? So how do we shift that? The first thing is, when did you learn? Where did you learn? Who taught you? The being a beginner was not okay, that not being great at something was not okay because you learned it somewhere. You may consciously remember. You may not consciously remember. You don't have to exactly remember to be free of this, but you do have to realize that this isn't ingrained in you, that there was a time in your life when you were a beginner at all kinds of things and you didn't give a shit. When you were learning how to walk, you didn't care. Even before that, you might not even know. If you're not a parent, you don't know this. Even when you're doing tummy time and you sucked at it, you didn't care. For those of you who don't know what that is, tummy time is when this is long before walking, this is before even crawling. What experts recommend you do with your kid is you take a little bit of time each day and just plop them on their stomach, and then they're just like. And they're trying to. They're trying to move around, and they're just trying to. You're trying to strengthen the back of their neck, and they're back a little bit so they can move their head around. And of course, they're not very good at it. The first time you do it, they're just like, I can't. I can't move, right? And then after a little while, they're like. And they're moving around, and then eventually they're moving around. Then eventually they're crawling, and eventually they're taking their first steps and they're walking and so on and so on and so forth. And it's an endless process. So here's the thing, though. You might have learned somewhere along the way that if you're not good at it, don't do it. Someone shamed you, Someone yelled at you. And this is really fascinating. This is something I look at with my own kids, and to notice any patterns that I learn from the collective, from my own family that sometimes want to express with them. And one reason that parents will stop their kids from trying new things or get frustrated at them is because they don't want another thing to deal with, right? Another mess and another problem. And I noticed that in myself, right? So let's say we're making scrambled eggs and the kids are Like, I want to crack the eggs. And I'm just like, oh, God, that's like egg mess all over the counter, guaranteed. And so I'd be like, no, no, no, no. I'm crack the eggs, and you stay over there. Do it right. And then Candice, who's awesome, and I learned a ton from parenting about her from her, and she's kind of like, well, what are you teaching them? Teaching them they're not capable, or if you let them do it and you get all exasperated with them, then what are you teaching them? And I'm like, yeah, well, I got a lot of that when I was a kid. I don't want to pass that on, so let me shift it. So what we do now is they're like, I want to crack the eggs. I'm like, okay, how do I set them up to succeed? Well, let's first of all teach them how to do it repeatedly. Set up the bowl in the right place, put the place where they're going to put the shells right nearby, and then guide them through the process. And then if I notice when they make a mistake and my inside is like, ugh, I notice. And I'll contain that. I'll be like, okay, yeah, that was interesting. You know, let's shift that. Or, oh, what happened there? And then, you know, every start, then they wanted to whisk it themselves, and then they pour it in the pan and they want to scrape it, and they don't scrape it fast enough, and so it's getting stuck on the bottom of the pan. I'm like, get out of the way. I got to scrape the eggs, right? And I'm catching myself. Like, hold on a second, hold on a second. This is about learning. So look how much it's taking for me to change these patterns moving down. I don't know about you. Maybe your parents might not have done that to that degree. And so you probably picked up, in many instances, maybe hundreds or thousands of little micro interactions. You know, that if you make a mistake, it's frustrating, it's bad, people are going to be upset with you, you're in trouble, you're wrong. And so then we're frozen up. So how do we shift this? I mean, seeing this is going to be extremely liberating because you realize it's not inherent in the experience. You can be a beginner, you could suck at something and you could laugh and could enjoy yourself. You'd be like, I spilled those eggs. Wow, that was a mess. Let's clean it up. Isn't that possible? That could be your experience. Whatever your version of spilled, you know, cracked eggs are in your life. Whoa. That conversation. Woo. Could have done that one better. That was a doozy. You know, what can I learn from that? Well, next time. I just had a tough conversation recently, and it didn't. I mean, I did it. I don't think it went great. And afterwards, I was like, whoo. Well, that could have been better. And I was like, what can I do? I was like, definitely. I should do some role plays next time before I have that conversation. Yeah, yeah, role plays would be good, right? And so I learned something there. And I already knew role plays would be good. I just didn't do them. So you can have that humor, you can have that lightness about being a beginner, even in cases which are serious, serious business. Let's say you're learning something new in business. You're learning a skill like sales, or you're learning something. We had a client in our mastermind who was shifting. She was in the medical field, and she was still staying in the medical field, but she was, like, pivoting into a new area of discipline. And. And she was afraid, like, oh, my first experience sessions and doing this stuff, I'm not going to be as good at that as I was at my other specialty. And it was like, even in that serious situation, internally, you can have that lightness. I mean, you don't have to say, like, I made a mistake there with you, but inside you can be like, it's okay if I make a mistake. I'll figure it out. This is part of learning. Can you see that? Now, here's one last tip I want to share with you. Imagine you have your own kids. Maybe you do already. Whether you do or you don't, just imagine you're with kids. Maybe they're your own. Maybe they're your future children. Maybe they're your nieces or your nephews or kids that you love. And imagine that you're helping them do something like make eggs or some project or whatever. How would you want to be with them? How would you want to treat them? How would you want to guide them to learning something new that they're not good at right now. Okay, there's your answer. That is how you must treat yourself. That is showing you the best, most loving, most effective form of guidance. Because if it's some kid that you love or it's your own kids, like, you do want to guide them. You want to be like, yeah, no, you can't make eggs. And you Never will. Loser, right? You don't want to do that. You want to help them out. But your strategy, whatever just came to you, is the best way. Maybe it's a mixture of kindness and guid and showing them and modeling. Maybe you'd say, hey, I'd show you how to do it. Maybe you'd catch them. I've done this with my kids. It's like you can intervene at the right moment. So sometimes you can just let them make their own mistake and be like, okay, what can we do differently next time? But sometimes one of them was trying to crack the egg into the bowl, but they hadn't made a big enough crack yet to get it. And I was like, oh, hold on a second. Let me show you something. Crack it one more time against the side of the bowl. And then he did. I was like, great. Okay, now do that thing with your thumbs. And then, boom, the egg cracked open. So pay attention to. Maybe you could guide along the way. But this is what you want to be doing with yourself. And so it's one of those things, I talk about this in my book on my own side, where it's usually not that complex. How to love ourselves more, how to be more on our own side. You already know how to do it. You'd argue with your kids or with kids that you love or with niece and nephews, whatever. You already would do it. You're just not doing it to yourself. So you just gotta understand and study. Well, what would I do in that situation? Okay, great. Now I'm gonna bring that to myself. So find out what your strategy is. Commit to treating yourself that way, especially as you go into new situations. And watch how much you can feel so much more relaxation, peace and ease, even as you're a beginner, even as you suck at something. And then just let yourself start doing it. Because if you're waiting for yourself to get better without doing it, and I'll do it when I'm better at it, I'll sing. When I'm better at singing, I'll dance. When I'm better at dancing, I'll. I'll lead a business meeting when I'm better at leading meetings, but I'm not good enough yet, so I won't do it. And I'll wait until I'm better, and then I'll do it. Do you see? Is there something breaking down in that logic there? So now. Now is the time. Get in there. Let yourself be a beginner and realize you can actually enjoy it along the way. Awesome. Share down below what you're finding most valuable and let's all support each other in this community. Bring each other up. If you have ideas about what something you want to show, comment on their comment. Let's continue and support and grow together until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.