Successful, Self Confident People Act — They Do Stuff

Self confidence is one of the keys to personal and professional success that is part of my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart your Professional Success. 

You can become self confident by doing three things.  First, choose optimism.  Believe in your heart of hearts that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better than today.  Second, face your fears and act.  Procrastination and inaction feed fear and rob you of self confidence.  Action cures fear.  Third, surround yourself with positive people.  Don’t let the naysayers into your life.  Hang around with people who are positive about themselves, their careers and life in general.

A while back I did a blog post in which I mentioned Evelyn Roberts Brooks new book, Forget Your Troubles.  I discussed her S.M.A.R.T. method for dealing with stress.  Check out the post to see her S.MA.R.T. system for beating stress.

I was doing some more reading in Forget Your Troubles yesterday and came across some interesting points Evelyn makes about fear.  And, as you already know, if you want to build your self confidence and success, you need to face your fears and act. 

Here’s what Evelyn has to say…

• Take your worst fear and look at it from every angle.
• Examine it carefully.
• See what would happen if the absolutely worst most horrible terrible thing did indeed come to pass.
• Sit quietly with that image.
• Exhale.  Realize that if that horrible thing did happen…
• You would find the inner strength and resources and the help you need from outside sources to deal with it in the present moment…
• Which hasn’t come yet.

The stress comes from the fact that right now, this minute, you are imaging a future event that has not happened.  We create TV dramas of future events in our heads and play them out, feeling every emotion as it’s real – but it’s fake!

Take responsibility and take action.  But leave the worrying about the future to other people who don’t mind the stomach aches, wrinkles, insomnia and high blood pressure they get in return.

As I read this, I got to thinking that Evelyn is making the case for facing your fears and acting.  In essence, she says that worrying about something that could happen is just as, or even more, debilitating than going ahead and doing something and dealing with the consequences.  I’ve found that when you face your fears and act, more often than not the consequences turn out to be positive.  And, when they’re negative, you can use them as a learning opportunity.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people are self confident.  Self confident people face their fears and act.  Inaction and procrastination kill your self confidence.  They also can create stressors that can have a negative impact on your life and health.  When you face your fears and act, you are taking responsibility for building your self confidence and creating the successful life and career that you want and deserve.  Action cures fear.  It beats stress.  It builds your self confidence.  And it puts you on the road to a successful life and career.  The message is clear – do something!

That’s my take on action, stress, self confidence and success.   What’s yours?   Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, you have my most humble and deepest thanks for reading.

Bud