“Self-confidence” doesn’t exist
Words, which seemingly mean little, turn out to be one of the most crucial elements in the process of, for example, triggering behavior, motivation or decision-making. We think with words, or rather the meanings we give, and with images, sounds, and all these processes are often automated and unconscious.
Do I need self-confidence or self-confidence to succeed?
Some of the most limiting statements I have encountered over the years in my work with managers are “I don’t believe in myself” and “I don’t have self-confidence.” This is both the biggest linguistic lie as well as a justification, an opinion, but most importantly one of the logical traps we get caught in ourselves. What does it even mean that “I don’t believe in myself”? Then if “I don’t believe in myself” then who else do I believe in i.e. what specifically do I believe about myself? And isn’t belief a direction of thought and action? I ask managers. I believe that I am not, for example, Marcin Kowalski but Jan Nowak? After all, then I can be diagnosed as “insane?”. “These are just words” or “don’t catch my words, I had something else in mind,” managers reply.
In the beginning is the word – the power of assumptions
Words, which seemingly mean little, turn out to be one of the most crucial elements in the process of, for example, triggering behavior, motivation or decision-making. We think with words, or rather the meanings we give, and with images, sounds, and all these processes are often automated and unconscious. The subconscious gives the impulse to take action as early as 7 seconds before the consciousness performs a certain action. Consciousness provides a kind of justification for the choice made.1 However, how I name reality internally, with my thoughts, and then communicate them externally always gives direction to the organization of the data I select in the external world both in me and in my interlocutor. The basis for this selection are the assumptions and presuppositions I send out in the language I use. When I start talking: stating, asking a question or expressing an opinion I do so on the basis of assumptions – a mental map I have built and have about people, the world, learning, myself. In our example, “I don’t have self-confidence therefore, for example, I won’t succeed in selling product x,” the sender of the message assumes that self-confidence is a prerequisite for success. He also assumes that one has more or less self-confidence. In fact, how is it: when I go to the kitchen to prepare tea I have confidence, but when I present the product to the customer I no longer have it? Do I finally have it or not?
Viewed in this way, the problem is hardly logical and difficult for the mind to change because the lack of confidence “becomes me for a while,” yet it is otherwise. The problem is not me. I make the problem, through my way of thinking, acting or perceiving myself. In the examples given above, in some planes of life I make more certainty in action, and in others I make less certainty. When the problem ceases to “be me” and I realize that in some way I am creating it, I begin to open up more possibilities for changing my behavior or reaction. When in my thinking I define a problem from the level of identity i.e. it is me/have it, framed in this way it assumes that the problem was, is and will be. Automatically the direction of data organization is given and as a result the change for the better is difficult for me to implement. However, what I can do is ask a question and at the same time change the direction of thinking and consequently action: Do I not believe in myself? Do I not believe that I am highly competent in presenting or communicating a product to a customer? Is there a level of me-ness or my skills?
Manager’s attitude
“Your attitude is the frame of reference for organizing your thinking and behavior, then you have the ability to choose and shape your environment. “2 In achieving desired results, it matters less what happens to me or what I fear. What matters most is my own attitude, and exactly what I do with what happens to me. As Bob Iger, longtime chairman of the Walt Disney Company, points out, treat a problem as not something that happens to you by accident, but at least try to treat it as something you control, solve, arrange.3 The problem is not you, and like “self-belief” is a direction in thinking or one of the propositions of thinking about one’s competence, skills or self-perception that I can change.
In that case, is “self-belief, self-confidence” a condition for achieving success? In my experience, in working with people, it is not. I have worked and continue to work with managers who are afraid of many aspects of their work and often report “low self-esteem,” but continue to act despite difficult external conditions about their limitations in thinking. They have a solution-oriented attitude , seeking solutions in order to achieve organizational goals and their own careers. However, when they realize that self-confidence is really about their own social, business or personal competence, not about me, it is much easier for them to shape their proactive attitude, change their actions and achieve what is most important to them faster.
Biography:
- Peter Wohlleben, “The Spiritual Life of Animals”
- Christina Hall, “Language intensive”
- Bob Iger, “The ride of a lifetime. What I learned as CEO of The Walt Disney Company”
