During this series of “Overcoming Obstacles”, I walked through identifying common obstacles to achieving your goals (Part 1) to use as a guide to evaluating areas where you might have gotten stuck during 2021. So far, we’ve already taken a deeper dive into lack of creativity (Part 2) and negative thinking (Part 3). In the upcoming weeks, we’ll continue exploring the remaining obstacles and discuss ways to navigate around these obstacles to achieve your goals.
“Whether you think we can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right”
— Henry Ford
In Part 4 of this series, we’ll explore Lagging Confidence. Following closely on the heels of negative thinking, sagging confidence is the bane of goal achievement. You begin to seriously question your skills and abilities to complete the work required to reach your goal. Often, this sudden change in our confidence level is reflective of how we have been comfortable with reacting to obstacles that challenges the limits of our experiences or training.
Not to be confused with self-esteem, which is essentially an overall sense of worth or value; self-confidence focuses on the ability to succeed and beliefs about one’s likelihood of succeeding (Courtney Ackerman,2021).
Ironically, our fluctuations in confidence occur as a normal part of our learning, growth, and maturity process. According to the Conscious Competency Model, it’s awareness that we have a deficit in our knowledge (known as Conscious Incompetence) that either 1) becomes an obstacle to our growth; or 2) propels us towards actions that help us close the gap.
Where self-confidence comes into play is believing that our probability to succeed remains high once we reduce the knowledge deficit. A key indicator of the path that we’re most likely to choose is embedded in how we talk to ourselves when challenges arise.
How To Navigate This Obstacle
Now that you have a good idea of how to detect this block on your way to goal achievement, I’ll share a few options to overcome its presence.
· Review past achievements. Give yourself props for goals you’ve achieved before. What were those goals? Use these reminder techniques to find and connect with your confidence.
· Identify your strengths. Develop an understanding of what you bring to the table. These are characteristics that shine through regardless of a knowledge gap. Take time to review your strengths periodically to remind yourself how to apply the best of you.
· Reaffirm your goals and values. A lag in confidence may cause you to shift into a scarcity mentality and retreat from a challenge. However, focus on your goals to remind yourself of the higher purpose of your journey; and focus on your values to remind yourself why the higher purpose is important.
· Plan to close the gaps. This one can be tricky because it requires us to comfortable with change. Often, we get fixated on the idea of change because we think of it as a singular event. We can move closer to the need for change if we think of it as a process or transition. It’s necessary to insert small milestones during the transition, so we can mark our progress and celebrate small wins. Make sure to embed methods to reinforce the modified you (new knowledge, skill, behavior) at the completion of the transition.
The obstacles we encounter are a normal part of our growth process. We build resilience by identifying the sources of the blocks; developing solutions to navigate those obstacles; and following through with working the solution. One of the top methods of staying in front of this challenge is to develop or improve self-awareness and self-management habits. Take the time right now to put in the work necessary bring your most common obstacles to the surface before you commit to any goals for 2022.
What’s your favorite method for overcoming lagging confidence?
Drop me a note in the comments and let’s chat!!
Don’t know where to begin? Let’s connect on a brief call and we can explore together!
Excited For Your Empowered Life,
Coach Frederick