Have you heard that if you have a human brain you're likely notoriously good at getting in your own way? That one of your superpowers is making simple things hard? If you didn't. Now you do.
This is particularly true when it comes to our career. Most of us are familiar with a certain level of confusion when it comes to this. Confusion about what to do when we first start out, confusion about what to do next, and confusion when it feels as though we've gotten it wrong.
We can question the decisions we made and feel a little shaky in the confidence department when it comes to making more.
Let's talk about confidence for a sec. Confidence is defined as “the state of feeling certain about the truth of something”.
We can't truly be certain about anything (other than perhaps death and taxes) until that thing has happened. Things aren't "true" until we have proof of them. Looking at confidence by this definition means we have to have proof and have to have actually done something before we can confidence in it.
In this way, we put ourselves in a tricky situation when it comes to planning what's next in our career. When it comes to career change, we have a sense that we should feel certain and clear and confident before we make moves. Read the definition of confidence again.
By definition, it's actually not possible to feel confident about something we haven't already done. Expecting to feel confident about changes we dream about when it comes to our career is one way we get in our own way of change. If we don’t feel confident or certain in our ability to do the new thing or get the new thing, how does that even work?
If we’ve never done the thing and certainly if we tried the thing and face-planted, we’d use these results or lack thereof as evidence that we shouldn’t try anything new or different ever because we absolutely DO NOT feel confident about it. It appears as if there’s no “truth” here.
This is what we do. We hold off doing something waiting for confidence to strike first. We do this because this is WHAT WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT!!!
It doesn’t work.
It’s also doesn't have to be a problem.
It just means that we cross out the goal of “feeling confident” at the top of the page and write this instead:
Self-confidence first.
Did you know that confidence is different than self-confidence?
I see self-confidence as a security within yourself and your abilities. This is different than being confident, which draws on evidence of things you've been able to do or achieve in the past. As we can see, only relying on confidence is an issue because what do you do when you have no evidence to draw upon?
Let’s be clear, we don’t have to be confident in the thing to be able to do the thing. To be confident in doing the thing tends to require that we’ve already done it and done it with some degree of success. We then use our success as evidence that we can expect at least the same degree of (probably more) success again.
This is why the goal or the “thing” is never the most important part. Achieving certain goals can be fun and awesome and of course it’s pretty cool to become confident at something BUT what’s even more fun and awesome, is feeling self-confident even before you’re confident at the thing. Right? Knowing that if and when you fall on your face in pursuit of “the thing”, you don’t make it mean you’re an absolute lost cause as a human and just give up. Right? Right? RIGHT? Isn’t this everything?
If you feel like career confidence is out of reach a lot of the time or even if you identify as a generally confident person who is feeling particularly stumped by a career problem, it may be because your brain is looking for past evidence to draw upon as proof that you’ve done this thing before and isn’t coming up with any. So, you’re left with doubts in areas like:
1. Your ability to make a career decision
2. Your ability to act on a decision you’ve made about your career
3. Your ability to get the result you want from your decision and the actions you take in your career
It’s likely you believe it’s difficult to make a career decision (decisions are hard and important). It’s likely you don’t feel confident that you’ll be able to take the action needed to get the result you want (possibly due to something like time, money, your own ability). It’s likely that you fear you’ll make a decision, take the action and STILL not get the result you want (you’re unlucky, this is just how things go for you, you aren’t deserving).
So, you think all of these things, and then are pretty sure if you try anything you’ll live the rest of your life in fear and failure but also that if you don’t, you’ll live your life in disappointment and regret.
This might be reading as a little bit dramatic but only a little, right?
Things just seem very complicated and difficult. Gosh, I love you and your brain. Mine’s the same darn way. Also, everything is going as it should. It’s not a problem.
The Upside
What is the upside to believing that career change in general and career decision-making in particular is complicated and difficult?
What is the upside to not letting it be simple?
It’s not a trick question, I promise.
There is an upside to believing that decisions are difficult to make. This is the reason I over complicate things, it’s the reason you over complicate things. It’s the reason ALL humans over complicate things.
These are probably some of the reasons you believe making a decision about what to do next in your career, business, or life:
Decisions are important – it’s critical to not make the wrong one
A good decision comes from spending a lot of time analyzing, and researching, and thinking about it carefully from all angles so as not to miss something
The more time you spend analyzing, and researching, and thinking the more confused and unsure you become
Making a decision slowly and carefully means I’ll be making a better decision and get better results
Getting advice from others—friends, family, professionals is the way to make a good decision and will lead to better results
Making a decision quickly is irresponsible and reckless
I’ll get bad results if I make a decision quickly
I require certainty before making a decision and that takes a lot of work
It’s possible to be certain about my decision
If I’m certain about my decision it will guarantee my results
If I’m not confident in my decision it means something is wrong
If I’m not confident in my decision it means my intuition is telling me something
There is a right and wrong decision to be made
Making the wrong decision will lead to terrible consequences and many worse case scenarios
I won’t recover from a bad decision
I can control my outcomes through my decisions
I’m going to take a wild guess and say there is at least part of you that believes these things are the reasons or the “upsides” to not letting a career decision be simple. You have learned to believe these upsides. They feel true.
Ready to hear some more upsides?
Here are more upsides to believing making a decision about your career is complicated and difficult:
We get to do fun things like research (and research and research) rather than do the thing itself
We get to think rather than act
We get to stay the same rather than change
We get to ask other people for their advice and opinion rather than trust our own, this gives us someone else to blame if something goes wrong, which is a sneaking way our brain tries to keep us safe
We get to stay comfortably uncomfortable rather than uncomfortably uncomfortable (say that 3 times fast!)
Gosh darn it, I love you so much. So much so that I’d let you stay the same-- indulging in indecision, or overwhelm, or overthinking, or research, if I thought that would lead you some place good. But it won’t. It feels productive but it isn’t.
It’s the seductive upside that many of us choose, over and over. Sometimes for years and it takes so much energy to indulge in overwhelm and confusion and indecision that you will actually think that you’re doing a lot. You will think that all that energy that you’re putting towards that is action, but it’s not. Always thinking about what you could or should be doing might feel like action. I mean, surely you’re doing something, you’re exhausted all the time, right?
Let’s look at decision-making. When you’re not feeling self-confident it shows up here. I’ve already written about how if I’m not on to myself, I can get paralyzed by even the simplest of decisions sometimes. What I’ve learned is that decisions don’t need to feel easy in order to be made. I also know that I probably won’t feel confident in all of my decisions while making them or after they’ve been made, all of the time. I don’t need to feel confident about my decisions and it’s probably not possible any way. What’s possible is my ability to make one, take action on it and support myself through it. I don’t make a decision and then let the decision itself determine my results. I don’t decide and throw up my hands and let the wind blow me wherever it wants. I commit to continuing to make MORE decisions based on the results I’m getting. The more decisions I make, the easier they become and the more self-confident I feel.
The space between where you are now and where you want to be is a series of decisions. Decide, decide, implement, implement, evaluate, evaluate. Keep going. Over and over again. For EVER.
Career confidence comes with making decisions powerfully.
If you have self- confidence (meaning you can have your own back, no matter what), you don’t have to obsess over whether or not every decision leads to the perfect out come all the time. You learn by doing that sometimes the opposite of what you want or think will happen is what happens. Sometimes you will be happy with that and sometimes you won’t but it’s the way things work. It’s how the universe works and it doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong.
Career confidence means you pay attention to the areas that are working, you get real about what isn’t, and then you commit to making small changes, experimenting along the way. You believe in your hypothesis, you test it out and you adapt as needed. Not simply by throwing spaghetti at the wall but in a measured way. This is part of what I help my clients with. I don’t spend a lot of time coaching you on how to make a decision. This is not the most valuable use of our time together. There is no need to spend all of our time searching for and making the “right” decision. This is where we all get tripped up a lot.
A decision made is the right decision. That’s all.
Then you try it, test it, evaluate it, adapt it. You go all in on it until you have a reason not to. You just make the decision. The coaching begins after the decision is made. This is the part that matters. This is how you create the result you want. You make the decision a good one after it’s been made. Don’t give this power to the decision and throw your hands in the air anticipating failure. Because then that will be what happens. A high quality decision can lead to a low quality result. A low quality decision can lead to a high quality result, a high quality decision can lead to a high quality result but if it you make no decision you get no result or the same result every single time.
The greatest decisions you make aren’t the ones that get you the results you want, they are simply the ones you make. See? Simple. Decide, act, learn, keep moving forward.
Believe, make decisions, implement, evaluate, learn, grow, move forward. Simple.
Easy? Well, not always but that’s why you have me!
We don’t wait until we feel more confident because we won’t. We don’t wait until we have more time or more money because there will never be enough time or money to convince you to do something you haven’t decided to do already or that you’ve convinced yourself you’re confused about.
We get what’s hard and what’s easy backwards all the time. We’re hard wired to do this. It’s okay but remember you can take a small step. You can’t do it wrong because no matter what, it’s going to move you forward. If you never move forward, you never get anywhere. Not deciding means not getting anywhere. You might go up and then realize you should have gone down. Perfect. Now you can go down rather than stay confused in the middle. What’s also true is there was some beauty in the up direction too. You saw something, you learned something, you grew. Elevators don’t go in only one direction. Neither do you. Stop believing the fallacy that’s been conditioned into you that there’s a right or perfect way to do anything. My way isn’t your way. You have to find your own. This is how.
So, if you’re trying to figure out your next career move, what do you know? What do you already know works? What are the things you already know you want? How can you move towards them?
In our Worthwhile Work program we make high quality decisions quickly and then go all in on getting the high quality results. We take a good look at what you already know. We look at what you want but think you can’t have—usually because you're holding off on making decisions for fear of making bad ones.
Of course, you don’t feel confident now but what would you be doing if you did? What would you commit to trying if you could believe your emotional and financial well-being were assured no matter what? This is what I teach. This is one of the ways you learn self-confidence. You don’t have to feel confident to tap into this. You won’t feel confident in something you haven’t done. You have no proof yet. Confidence comes by doing so you have to tap into something else. You can’t tap into confidence in your ability to do the thing because you haven’t done it. What you tap into is confidence in yourself. In the trust that you won’t be horrible to yourself if you get it wrong. This is what you fear most.
We work on your belief together and use a process I teach to make quick, high quality decisions, we implement, and we evaluate. Then we make more decisions. We follow 3 Simple Steps. You work on mastering 3 Simple Tools and follow 3 Simple rules that allow you to have your own back no matter what so you can keep moving forward even when you think you’re confused or things feel hard.
It’s okay if your mind still wants to worry. Let it. We will work together to turn the worry into wonder and from there you can start taking small steps. You'll use some courage and commitment until you tap into your self-confidence, and then confidence. It's amazing and it's the only way it works.
It's easy to get started.
Clarity around how to spend our time meaningfully helps us enjoy our work and our life by creating a sense of peace and well-being. Workplaces become happier places and home lives more satisfying by extension. I want this sense of peace and well-being for every working person, including you.
Always cheering you on,
Christine
I know something brought you here and maybe it was a search for what to do next about your career. There are a few ways I can help:
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Sarah took the Make Work Better quiz and said this:
“Christine! I wanted to say thanks. I completed the quiz and then it clicked: I don't feel my contributions are recognized or valued by my employer. Time to have a tough conversation and make some decisions. Thanks for the nudge.”
Kim, a one on one coaching client had this to say about working with me:
I followed Christine on social media for quite some time before I reached out so I felt confident that she was the right coach for me. I’d recommend her coaching for anyone who feels stuck in their career and doesn’t quite know where to begin – anyone looking for accountability and motivation to change. Working with Christine led to a huge shift in my thinking about the level of power I have over my personal contentment. What I liked best about working with Christine was that I felt safe – she is genuine, honest and supportive – so I was able to be vulnerable and easily share what I needed in order to move forward. Her constant reassurance that it’s okay to continue exploring, shifting and changing as I grow was invaluable for my piece of mind. Most importantly, Christine believed in me when I had trouble believing in myself. She helped me truly internalize that no matter what obstacles and challenges arise, I can persevere and continue moving forward.
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