Be Careful What You Say; You Might Start Believing It.

After a demanding day in the office on Tuesday a colleague asked the reasonable question; 'how are you doing'? I responded with the throwaway comment that I was 'surviving'. In many ways it reflected my state of mind and was a fair assessment of my emotions at the time.

Unusually I was instantly struck by the way my comments would have been perceived. I could sense that it caused the people around me a momentary discomfort at hearing such an expression of weakness. But what worried me even more about this outward reflection of an inner lack of self confidence was the internal effect. By giving in to the negative view of my achievements that day I was in some way re-enforcing this thinking.

Much of the content of 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway' is about changing the key internal conversations that drive all our confidence levels. The reality is that we all do generally survive the situations we face. Regardless of any short term discomfort we cope, learn and move on to the next challenge. Part of the rationale behind writing down these personal reflections in this blog is to consolidate the learning experiences and embed them in a way that makes them truly valuable.

The situation at work is challenging at the moment. But this experience has taught me two extremely valuable lessons. I cope; it doesn't matter how difficult I think the situation will be I do my best and I do come through with some degree of success. Secondly, you need to reflect confidence; half of the challenge of leadership is seeming to be on top of things regardless of how you are managing internally. The added bonus of outwardly reflecting positivity is the inner feeling of strength. So from now on I will be very careful what I say when asked about my day as I don't want to harm my inner opportunities for success.