Tag Archives: self-doubt

Take action despite fear and doubt

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This weekend I had the opportunity to see Chris Williamson speak at the Vogue Theatre.

A few things he said seemed to circle around a theme of taking action despite fear and doubt. Here are some of the ideas he shared:
(I took notes not perfect quotes, but all the ideas below came from Chris.)

He quoted Christopher Hutchins, “In life we must choose our regrets.” This is a feature, not a bug. You can’t pick the right path and not still have regrets for not making another choice, choosing another path. Which regret do you want? Which regret can you not live with?

Contemplate the consequences of inaction. Don’t pretend that inaction does not have a price. (ie. The anxiety cost of ‘I still have X to do today.’)

Belief: Self-belief never waivers when the hero decides on his journey… But there is doubt ALL ALONG THE WAY! That’s why it’s so easy to fall back into old patterns.

We aren’t afraid of failure, we are afraid of what other will say when we fail… Don’t outsource your self image to the opinions of others.

Best question to ask: What is it that ‘you tomorrow‘ would want ‘you today‘ to do? Optimize for your future self.

Don’t follow what most people do… you don’t want the results they get.

You make the most progress when things are hard… and looking back, in retrospect, would you avoid them if you could, now that you’ve accomplished those hard things?

You don’t need to be certain, just confident that you are moving in the right direction. Have a bias for action.

He also quoted Jocko Willink regarding the fact that you can’t fake bravery. Pretending to be brave when you are scared IS bravery. Motivation is similar, just do the thing… Preparing isn’t the thing, neither is telling people, writing about the fact that you are going to do the thing, reading about it, or fantasizing about it. Again, just do the thing.

And finally, on this topic, an audience member quoted Chis during the Q&A, “The magic that you are looking for is in the thing that you are avoiding.

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How much of our lives are spent questioning ourselves, doubting ourselves, and avoiding action for fear of an outcome we don’t want?

I’ve shared this before, but when my wife and I were deciding if we were going to take our young family to China to take jobs as principal and teacher in a Foreign National school, we discussed it for over 2 hours late one night. We didn’t come to any conclusion, and the next night after work we put the kids down to sleep, and we sat down to continue the conversation. We made tea and popcorn and prepared for another marathon discussion, and then one of us (neither of us remember who) said, “If we don’t do this, will we regret it?” Absolutely. We had decided. The discussion moved to how to tell the kids. Any regrets for going would be overshadowed by the regret of not going.

As a photographer, I never regretted taking a photo, but I regretted the photographs that I never took.

We avoid time under tension, even though we know it strengthens us, “We cannot strengthen our resilience unless we face things that are challenging us for longer than we could previously tolerate.”

And as a final thought from me, Avoidance is easy, “How much time do we spend in a state of busyness rather than dealing with business? Avoiding the real task by doing other things, or worse yet doing something that’s merely a distraction. Some things get automated, habits get ritualized, and the work just gets done. But sometimes the struggle is real. The action avoidance becomes the easy task and the work doesn’t become the work, but actually just getting down to work. Because once you start the work gets done.”

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Also related: Be Fearless, James Clear on The pain of inaction, and many posts on failure.

Invisible hold

The things that hold us back the most are usually invisible to other people. It’s a lack of confidence, a crippling amount of self doubt, a hesitation for fear of not being right, or valued, or heard. I see it a lot in students. These internal stressors are portrayed as avoidance, distraction, shyness, hesitation, and even self deprecating humour.

Don’t understand something? “I’m stupid.” Or just pretend to understand to avoid looking stupid.

Treated poorly by a fried? “I deserved it.”

Don’t know where to get started? Just do something else off topic rather than ask for help.

Sometimes it’s not a lack of work, but putting too much in that’s the problem… “It’s not good enough”, “It’s not my best work”, or “It’s not ready”… and all the while it’s better than what most students will submit. Perfectionism is crippling and sometimes “I didn’t try” is easier to face than trying hard and it not being up to par, or knowing just how hard it is to always do great work all the time.

We see a lot of undesirable behaviours, but we don’t see the hidden challenges, the internal struggles, the invisible hold of insecurities that are the root of the behaviours. We see the byproduct of the struggles but not the struggles themselves. Addressing the behaviours does not always address the problem.

This is why it’s important to teach students and not just subjects. Why relationships matter as much as content. Why it takes a village to raise a child. Helping students reduce the hold of their challenges and doubts is as important as any subject we might teach. The best thing we can teach is the wisdom to know themselves, and the confidence to know that they can be and are valued members of our community.