Here’s a quick little thing you can do to build up some confidence.
- Go buy a lottery ticket
- Before you check if you won, pause for a moment and imagine all the wonderful things you’ll do with that money. Imagine the vacations, the dream home, the paid off debts, the kids’ college tuition, your new car, whatever! Think hard, make it real, feel the joy of all that new stuff.
- Now check if you won.
Statistically, you’re now looking at a losing lottery ticket and you feel horrible. All those dreams, all those wonderful images, washed down the drain of disappointment. So why the heck did I just have you do this? Well, besides the fact that I’m a mean bastard, I want you to get a taste of failure and see that it’s really not that bad.
Yes, all those dreams are not going to happen today. You’re not going to win the lottery and tell your boss to go to whichever hell spawned him. Your life will go on. Nothing happened. Your life did not get worse. Your nightmares did not come true because of one little failure.
Now keep doing things like these.
- When you see a pretty girl or guy on the streets, say hi. Nothing more, no big goals here, just say hi. Now imagine all those wonderful things that could happen if you strike up a conversation with them. More than likely, you’ll never talk to them again. Is your life ruined because those dreams did not come true? Are you a laughing stock? Of course not. Nothing happened.
- Write an email to someone you admire. (I just wrote one to Steve Jobs). Their email address can be easily found if you’re determined, so go out there and write an email. Now imagine all the wonderful things that might happen if they answer. I bet they’ll invite you over to ask your opinion! Or maybe they’ll make you CEO of their company! Of course, more than likely they’ll never even see your email but hey, what happens then? Yah, so your dreams didn’t come true. Your life is still ok! You’re fine. Nothing happened.
There are numerous other tasks like these that you can find but the end goal is two things:
- Realize that failing isn’t that bad. You’ll go on and you can find other ways to accomplish your goals.
- Stop building these fanciful expectations. It’s your imagination that’s to blame for your lack of confidence. It’s building up these incredible dreams that reality can never measure up to. It’s also building up horrible nightmares of failure that stop you from doing the things that can really change your life. Once you learn to disengage that stupid imagination of yours for a moment, you’ll find yourself taking risks without over-inflated expectations of either failure or success. That’s when you start feeling confident!
