I Have Lost My Confidence

I Have Lost My Confidence

So many things have happened to executives over the last few years: the economy going haywire, change everywhere we turn, the way we have always done things does not work as it used to…

And, a frequent confession, I have lost confidence. The extended conversation continues: I don't know if I have what it takes any more; I don't seem to be able to make the same impact as I used to; I feel I am loosing my grip…

The irony is that all of the people who share this conversation are great people, and the last thing you would know from the outside is they are torturing themselves with variants of, "I've lost it!".  

Confidence Is An Interesting Phenomenon

Confidence is an interesting phenomenon, like any feeling it is immediate and fleeting. 

Moods on the other hand are feelings that persist over time. 

To have a feeling persist it has to be  noticed when it is present, nurtured and sustained. For example, we can be happy as a momentary feeling, usually in response to an external stimulus. Being happy, as a mood, is an internally generated appreciation of life and the myriad things we are grateful for – it is a generative state rather than a reactive one.

Restoring Confidence Is Restoring Ourselves To Ourselves 

Or as Derek Walcott would put it:

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

Or, listen to David Whyte reciting Derek Walcott

None Of Us Speaks "The Truth"

No expert speaks The Truth, no matter how well intentioned the advice, and no matter how seemingly well grounded in research and the facts. We all trade in interpretations, perspectives, points of view… often presented with such authority as to pass for The Truth – but it is all made up stuff nonetheless.

The question that I think that is worth engaging with is, "Is the interpretation of reality I am entertaining, empowering, does it give me a new access to action, does it connect me with who I am really, does it nurture and strengthen my important relationships…?" If the answer is yes, go with it; it is fuel for a life. If the answer is no, change it; create a new interpretation of reality. And, as Walcott put it, "Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you". 

It is all a made up story anyway, so why not make up a story you want to inhabit, that you want to embody?