Courage Over Confidence

When I reflect on both my personal and professional life, I recognize the numerous instances I had to find the courage to move forward into the unknown.  It requires taking one messy, fearless action at a time.  It’s these actions that compound over time to result in a significant impact. 

There is a common misconception that you need confidence to begin, but this is simply not possible. Before I made the transition from fourth grade teacher to business owner, I had to have the courage.  I had to get comfortable with moving forward into the unknown.  Then little by little, my confidence grew. 

Courage is what you need to initiate your journey, even when faced with fear and uncertainty. Truth be told, even though I knew I had to resign from my teaching position and had already laid out a runway plan, as Amy Porterfield, author of Two Weeks Notice, suggests, to support my children and me during the transition, it took me weeks to make that call to my principal. I had written the resignation letter, but it sat on my desk for longer than I'd like to admit. I knew precisely what I needed to do, yet I felt frozen. I finally got the courage to make that call to my principal after checking in with my mother to talk it all out “one more time.”  We both knew what I needed to do, so she told me to make the call and then she hung up on me. I had to envision the two paths before me: making the call and resigning or continuing with something that was depleting my spirit. The fear and uncertainty were very real, but my intuition, that inner knowing, was stronger; it's what allowed me to tap into my courage.

There are many fears that you may be feeling, and they are keeping you from taking the first step.  Common experiences are not feeling ready, potentially being judged, perceived lack of knowledge, and the overall fear of failure. I want to address each of these fears with you.

You are never going to feel ready; life doesn’t work that way.  That’s the very normal lack of confidence in the beginning, but we know that comes in time.  

Judgment is an interesting one.  Let’s be honest, people are 100% going to judge you.  It’s up to you to decide if you care about other people’s opinions of you.  It took me getting really clear on what I want for MY life to shut out the outside noise.  I realized that the opinions of others were not going to magically prompt me to enjoy teaching again or allow me to reach the goals I have for myself and my family. 

You’ll notice when I mentioned lack of knowledge above, I called it perceived.  This is because I want you to believe that you know more than you realize.  So you may think you don’t have enough knowledge to start a business, but you do.  I’ve worked with clients across various industries, from hardware stores to event planning to holistic healing and property maintenance.  I am not an expert in any of those fields, but my professional experience has more than prepared me to take on these clients and support their businesses.  

Finally, there is the fear of failure.  Something I learned from my therapist was this: life is not a measure of successes and failures.  We can reflect on our life experiences as various levels of success. When I adopted that perspective, it created a complete shift in my willingness to lean into courage, resign from teaching, and go all in on my business. 

Now is a good time to take out a pen and paper because I have some actionable steps for you to take to assist you in moving past your fears.  

First, reflect on your past accomplishments and achievements.  Think about another time in your life when you were a complete beginner, maybe as a new mom or on your first day of school with your first ever class.  Then consider how far you have come since then.  

Next, set realistic expectations for your business.  Perhaps you want to start your business as a side hustle.  What will that look like?  When will you dedicate time to your business while also managing your full time career and the other aspects of your life? Will you eventually want to take your business full time? If so, that should be part of the plan as well.

Perfectionism and overthinking can be major obstacles as you’re just starting out.  It is imperative to learn how to manage them.  The best advice I can give, and something I have had to remind myself almost daily, is that done is better than perfect.

Now, I want you to consider the fears and insecurities you may be feeling. I get it, fear is real.  We are going to acknowledge and then move past it.  Fear can lead us down a path of imagining every worst case scenario.  It’s time to flip that, and doing so is simple.  Just say to yourself, “What if it all works out?”  I learned these six words from Mel Robbins, and I have discovered that repeating them can completely shift your mindset.  You can go from intensely focusing on the negative, which will only result in negative action, to opening to all the possibilities. 

Finally, TAKE THE ACTION!  I mean it; what is the next right step that you need to take?  Write it down, and then do it.  You might be taking this step scared and feeling intense self doubt, but you are going to do it anyway.  Tap into that courage and watch as your confidence grows with every fearless, perhaps messy, action that you take toward the goals you have for yourself.

I invite you to email me at cara@caraconnor.net.  I’d love to hear from you, learn about your journey and support you.  If you are looking for helpful resources, please visit https://stan.store/caraconnor.