The One Thing That Can Skyrocket Your Confidence

Confidence is action and fear is indecision. Creators that are crushed by a lack of confidence are unable to hit publish on their posts, are unable to show up to record the shorts for their YouTube channel, are unable to push past the fear and do what needs to get done to actually see growth, to actually succeed. And creators that crush are able to walk with that fear and face it or exist with it at least long enough to make progress, to progress quicker, to achieve their goals quicker, to make a difference in their space. Hi, I'm Sean Butner. I'm a certified high performance coach and host of the Creators that Crush podcast. And in this episode we're going to talk about the the one technique you can do today that will change your confidence game as a creator, that will help you face those fears and move you from indecision into action and from stuck to progress. So with that, let's jump right in. I want to share with you a story of the first time I performed music. So it's senior year in high school. I've decided with all my friends we're going to go to college. I'm the only one in my friend group that's going to Purdue. All my other friends are going to a state college, which is great. I'm really excited for them. But I'm a bit introverted and quiet and shy and socially anxious. So a really great recipe to be sent out into the world by yourself and have to change. And so I'm starting to like ruminate and worry about this. I remember being up at like doing homework and then not being able to sleep afterwards because I'm like, how am I going to survive socially? And leaving everything, you know, at home in Chicago to go to Indiana for school. And an opportunity presents itself. My buddy Sarah is hosting a like coffee club is what she called it, which is a talent show essentially after school where people do poems or performances or can play music. And at this point in my life I love music so much and have always, it's been a big part of my life, it's a big part of my parents lives. And so I agreed with three months of guitar lessons and barely able being able to sing a tune to perform for like 10 or 15 minutes. So basically like two or three songs. And so I remember she asked this and I'm like, you know what, I need to do this to prove to myself that I can get up in front of people out in the world and not die, right? It really, for a lot of my life growing up there, like talking and opening up to new people really felt risky. And I don't know why that is, but I. I just remember being really, really reserved, and I wanted to see a little bit if I could do it, you know? So there's a little bit of, hey, can I do this? There's a lot of bit of, like, if I can do this, what this means is I'm going to be okay in college, right? I don't have to stress about meeting people. If I can get out and make a fool of myself and not get murdered by the crowd, that's the bar for success. So I agree to do this coffee club. And so we have another month or so to, like, practice my songs, work with my guitar teacher, try to figure out how to sing along with it. My mom and grand grandma are in the audience, and I remember the feeling of, like, the butterflies in my stomach and in my heart. I wasn't sure if I was gonna pass out or barf. I remember, like, kind of having that sweat sitting backstage, waiting for my name to get called to go on stage in this dusty auditorium. It's about, like, wood and paint and, you know, theater. And I remember they call my name, and you can see, like, the dust in the air from all the bright lights. And there's a stool, and I bring my guitar, and there's the swamp of the guitar as I plug it in and I freeze. I can hear. I could feel my. My heart in my ears. And I look out into the auditorium, and I know that there's 50 people out there, but the lights are so bright that you can barely make out, like, these shiftless shapes of people in the front row and nobody else, right? It's just completely dark, and the panic sets it, and I'm like, I'm going to yak. I need to run. This is terrible. And I start to panic, and then I start to say, no, Like, I need to see this through. I'm here now, Might as well move forward, right? And so for whatever reason, I start to strum my guitar and the chord is wrong. I start the song off wrong. I start off key singing it, and then kind of settle in and, you know, kind of, like, feel like I'm disconnecting until I see someone, a shapeless figure in the front of the audience, bobbing along to the rhythm that I'm playing. At least I got that right, right? And I remember being like, oh, okay, like, people are into this, at least enough. I know it's terrible, but it's not terrible enough where the mobs come in to get me. Like, people want to support me, and I'm able to, you know, sing that first song, sing the second song. People laugh. I go backstage and I get a big hug from my mom and grandma because they're like, I can't believe you did that. That is so crazy. And I'm like, yeah, I know, right? And I was a little bit, you know, an adrenaline rush at that point. And that's the power of testing yourself, right? Like, I didn't want to be the quiet, introverted kid that couldn't talk to people when I went to college and I proved that I didn't. I could be extroverted. I could get up in front of people, perform poorly, and actually have a little bit of fun. Like, once I understood that most people are out and want to cheer you on, they want to help, they want you to succeed. A lot of it is just, like, get out of your head, right? And that. That's been a process for me since that moment. But I was able to make some really good friends in college. I continue to perform. I've been paid in free beer through burritos and street change. I've joined a band and, like, can hold my own with other musicians. And so it's. It's led to this lifelong passion. It's led to this lifelong sense of fulfillment and way to connect with people. Because I didn't let the very real fear in my body overtake and prevent me from taking action, from doing the thing. The driving belief that I needed to do this to prove something to myself, to prove that I was brave enough to go out in the world, was a huge motivating factor. And that driving reason and purpose for doing the thing is what allowed me to continue. And so in your creative business and your creative career, you really need to be thinking about, you know, it's not about not being afraid. It's about showing up and taking action regardless of the fear being there. And the more that you're able to disconnect taking action with focusing on the fear, the more likely you will be to succeed in creative career, in a professional career, in life in general. I firmly believe that and am a living proof of that. And story after story of me just being like, can I do this? And it changes my life and that this, like, can I do it? I want to prove to myself that I can, is a very powerful belief that can get you a lot of results, can keep you going, do 700 videos on YouTube and get those reps in, because you know, you have to do it. Right. I really hoped it would only be like a hundred videos, but, you know, we're each on our own journey. Hey, it's Sean. And I know in this episode we're talking about how to boost your confidence. One thing that's true about this exercise that I'm sharing in this episode about boosting your exercise is it's being self aware. And one of the best tools that I know to be self aware is this high performance assessment. I have a mini quiz for, for you that I've taken countless times myself that helps you identify where your weak points are and what you might need to do moving forward. So if you are struggling or want to be more confident or are like, there's something going on with my performance as a creator and I don't know quite what it is, go to SeanButner.com quiz it's a quick 10 question quiz. Five of them are just picking a number on how you feel on different categories like clarity or energy or boldness or influence. And a quick exercise to help identify why you gave yourself that number and what you'll find going through this. And people have found over and over and over again with the people I've worked with that sometimes you think you're doing really good. I'm like a 10 out of 10 out of clarity. And then you have to explain why and you're like, ooh, I'm actually a seven. Or oof, I'm actually a four. I, I forgot this whole other thing that I've been ignoring because it makes me stressed out. So it's a powerful, simple tool for you to assess where you are in your creative performance. Love to share that with you. Go to SeanButner.com quiz and we'll see you on the flip. Now back to the episode. So how do you separate the fears enough for you to find that sense of purpose and to follow through and take action even though it's infecting every fiber of your body and causing your heart to beat in your ears. Well, there's one technique that I think is very excellent at this from my man, Tim Ferriss. So shout out to Tim. He did a TED talk about this years ago and it stuck with me. I think I saw that maybe 10 years ago now and I still think about this exercise and do this in my high performance coaching practice. Walk through a version of this, although I think Tim does a really great job of defining it. So I'll share this technique called fear setting with you, what it is, how you can use it. And then I'll add a couple of high performance aspects or angles to help make it even better. So definitely go watch the Tim Ferriss one. But if you want something a little bit more focused or a little bit of a performance focus, I have some ideas for you around that. So jump into it. So what is fear setting? Fear setting is Tim framed it as the opposite of goal setting. It's very hard to chase goals, but it's very easy to think about and address all your fears. So the idea is if you can name a fear very clearly and succinctly, figure out the worst thing that could happen and come up with mitigation strategies to either eliminate or reduce that worst case scenario that you will be more likely to follow through and take action on it. Right. And you add things of opportunity cost of like what happens if you don't take this action or why is it really important to you? And it really supercharges it. So that's kind of Tim's setup for it. And so if you're thinking of doing, making a decision in your business, right. Should I start a YouTube channel? Should I write a book? Should I start a newsletter? Because everyone's on substack now. You know, whatever the, the thing is, if you, something you're just trying to figure out if you should move forward with or not, think of that first. Then you list all of the fears that go along with that. And I'll get into a way to diagnose that a little bit further in a second here. And so you write out this, write out the worst thing that can happen if that fear is realized. So if I start a YouTube channel, I will get the flaming arrows of the Internet thrown at me every time I publish and it'll break me. Or if I go on stage in front of people or get noticed in a crowd, that you will spontaneously combust and die like I felt in the story of being on stage. So you list out all of those different fears, then you write out what you can do to mitigate that. Right. You know, if I spontaneously explode on stage in front of people and I actually will die, if I get noticed and I'm extroverted or putting energy out in front of a crowd, I'll be dead. So it doesn't really matter. Is maybe a way to look at that or maybe you go out with a bunch of people or maybe you go in a costume, create a character to kind of disassociate yourself from the crowd. And in my story I had the guitar kind of, I could hide behind the Guitar in a very comical way because I'm behind bigger than the guitar. But you know, still, it was a prop that separated me a little bit from the audience. So it wasn't just me by myself. Like I had something to focus on. And so you come up with these nightmare scenarios, you come up with these contingency plans on how you can mitigate or eliminate the fear. Then for each of those, you write out what happens if you do not move forward on this. Like, where is your life in six months if you don't start that YouTube channel now? What's your life like in 18 months if you don't start this channel now? And this is the motivational part of, oh, if I don't do this, there will be negative consequences because we as humans will discount that normally. And then, you know, what are the next best steps to move forward? So if you know what the worst case scenarios are, take the first step to mitigate that and to move towards making that big idea or decision happen and get into action, right? And it doesn't have to be like, do the whole thing, it's just your next best, like incremental. Anything that moves the football forward on the field or turns the dial as they say, or just a little bit of progress is really important here. Now I know that like this is also quick hedge. This is really great for most things that we face in our day to day life. But if you see a tiger running at you and looks really hungry and you're afraid of that, you don't need to do a fear sighting thing. You know, that's honest fear. You should, you know, go with your instincts, survive, you know, that kind of stuff. So there are fears that are worthy of heeding and responding to. And this is a really great exercise to suss that out of like, is this an honest, like true fear that's preventing me or is this something that I am anticipating is going to cause pain which is preventing me from moving forward? Does that make sense? I hope so. So, okay, here are the three high performance angle enhancers for this, right? In certified high performance coaching, we know that there are three types of fears. There's process fear, meaning that the act of doing it is going to be painful. There's loss fear, meaning you're gonna have to give up something that you love in order to make the thing happen. And there's an actual outcome fear that, you know, if I actually do this, it's not gonna be as cool to win to make all that money in the business, to ask that person out, you know, maybe they're a terrible person or whatever. So, you know, examples of process gain or process loss and outcome fear is if you want to run a marathon, right, you might think, oh man, doing the three months of training to do a beginner marathon training regimen is going to be so hard on my body and I'm not going to be seeing my friends and I'm going to not enjoy running all those miles, right? So the act of doing the training that, the process of training for a marathon, it's going to be painful. And so you're like, well, maybe I will just not do that. The last thing would be like, oh, if I'm training for a marathon, I'm going to lose time with family and friends. I might have to eat healthier. So all the junk food that I used to eat, I can't have anymore. Oh, like, you know, I'd have to make sure that I'm getting more sleep so I'm actually like going to bed at like 7 o' clock at night. These types of things. And so you don't take action because you're giving up something, you're sacrificing something. That's another word to look out for in order to take action and then outcome, right? If I run a full marathon, I'm not gonna feel proud to finish it, right? When I'm done, I'm gonna be like, why did I even do this? Or the act of crossing that finish line is gonna be like, no big deal. Or you're going to discount actually accomplishing the goal. It's like, nothing's going to change for me if I actually see this through. And the way to overcome these is actually built into the fear setting methodology, which is why I love it so much, is that you write out what you gain by taking action, right? The act of marathon training is going to be tough and hard on me and painful. But what you might make more friends or you're going to get into the best healthy body shape of your life and people are going to notice that and want to talk to you now or so on and so forth. You might have to give up some social time and you might have to maybe rethink how, how you meet people, but you also might meet healthier friends. Like you're going to meet people out on the trail or out in the world running. Maybe you make some running buddies and now you have a new social group to hang out with of motivated people that want to get healthy and that's, that's something worth doing right? Or outcome, pain, I might not feel proud after that, you know, but if you frame it like there's only like 1% of humans ever in human history that have run a marathon that have ever existed, you're going to be part of 1% of humans on anything. Like, that's pretty amazing. So maybe it's worth pursuing, right? Even if you don't feel accomplished, you can be like, wow, not allowed other people have accomplished this. And then you're a little bit more motivated to take action and move forward, right? So, okay, so know the three types of fear, process, gain, outcome. Second thing is to express things, right? This fear setting exercise is so much more powerful if you can express the things that you're afraid to yourself or to other people, right? Like if I start training for a marathon, my wife is going to love me less because I'm not going to be around, right? And you need to have that conversation of like, hey, I'm training for a marathon, I'm going to be running for most of my life now, you know, you might not want to have that conversation and it sounds silly maybe to address it or you feel shame around it. So these are feelings to maybe look out for. So this isn't a great example in the running example, but maybe, you know, the things that you're afraid to share about yourself and what's going on tend to be the really big limiting things that if you can address them, is a huge burden off your shoulders. So very, very impactful to express the things you find tough to, to admit to yourself or to others. And then the third thing is commit to your next best action. Right? Doesn't. Like I said, it just has to be a little bit of incremental progress every day for marathon training. If you just focus on the training, the miles you have to run that day, it's much easier than like, oh, in three months I have to run 26.2 miles. Like, that's insane. I've never run three miles, four miles in a row, let alone 26. You'll get overwhelmed thinking about the end goal and not focusing on what you need to do today to survive that long run. So this is all to say, you know, this fear setting exercise is to help you get into action regardless of the fear or concerns or things that'll hold you back, right? And it's a way of listing those fears, addressing them, coming up with a plan, because there is a confidence that comes with if this happens. Here are the three things that I need to do. And so that's the power of this exercise. That's why I love this and I love talking to people and coaching people through this. And so, yeah, be sure that if you are not making the progress you want or you want to feel more confident, do this fear setting exercise once and you'll see a dramatic increase in your confidence. And pro tip, if you want to be more advanced with it, do it once a quarter and continue to check in on this and your progress will be immeasurable. It will be so amazing and you'll be so glad that you're taking action, you're moving forward, you're learning things, and ultimately you're living your life. So that's all we have on today's episode of Creators that Crush. We'll see you guys next time. Sa.