2 Forms of Confidence Erosion

The other night President Obama talked about timidity passing for wisdom. That got me thinking.

How many times have you talked yourself into waiting, or taking a smaller step forward than you could? Was it a wise choice, or simply avoidance prompted by lack of real self-confidence?

Procrastination and an over-abundance of caution erode self-confidence. Confidence -- rather than being a prerequisite -- is the outcome of taking risks. If you make a habit of timidity, your confidence evaporates.

Real wisdom is nurtured by gaining new knowledge that only experimenting and seeing what happens can provide.

Another form of confidence erosion comes about when we keep doing the same thing over and over again, achieving poor or no results, but expecting something different.

While persistence is a very important quality for success, disappointment that comes from repeatedly failing in your efforts will be quite destructive to your sense of confidence.

Failure in itself is not terrible. It's simply a piece of feedback that another approach, new skills, different resources, or other help, etc, is needed.

Practical wisdom is gained by evaluating what worked, what didn't, and designing a new plan to maximize the one and minimize the other.

Knowing that timidity, procrastination, cautious avoidance, repetitive disappointment are the prescription for eroding self-confidence, what will you change today to gain real, practical wisdom instead?