Self-Doubt
Many times advisors choose this profession because they are excited and passionate. Everything at first is new and wonderful. After awhile, though, the novelty wears off and these same advisors get jaded. They settle into a comfort zone. They try things and, if they don’t work out, their experience may produce less self-confidence and more self-doubt.
Many times when faced with a decision to move ahead, advisors will second-guess themselves. Questioning if they really are heading in the right direction. They lose all of their confidence, especially when times are challenging and not going they way they want them to.
Consider: Self-confidence is not something that, once had, is there forever. Like good health and physical fitness, you have to constantly strive to make it better. It really boils down to what you believe and whether you think you can do something or not. This shapes your destiny and, ultimately, shapes your practice. Confidence comes from a belief sys tem that basically works on this principle: Either you think you can do something, or you think you cannot.
Remember the example I gave earlier about driving a car? If you’ve driven for a long time, it’s not a problem, but for a lot of advisors, making a shift into unknown territory can be terrifying. No doubt you have thought about improving your practice. In order to accomplish this goal you need to do some things differently, something new. Be prepared to shift gears and approach your business from a fresh perspective. For example, you may have to time-manage differently. Change requires the following:
1) You must have the belief you can achieve your goal.
2) You must have the confidence to take action.
3) You must be willing to embrace failure.
When you think about trying something new versus doing something you could practically do in your sleep, you have to believe you can do this because you have achieved other tasks in the past.
I have often worked with people eager to try something new, like conducting a seminar, but because they’ve never done one be fore they freak out and lose all confidence to proceed. Whenever this happens to you, you need to look into your past to examine where you experienced the same kind of self-doubt, but were able to overcome it.
Perhaps you took in a sport you never expected to excel in, and surprised yourself by actually being successful at it. Your success changed your belief system and increased your self-confidence.
In the business world the same principle applies. You have to be willing to risk failure and work on the strong belief that by taking action things will work out. You have to possess the confidence to know you won’t have to do something a thousand times over in order to get results.
