The Dangers of giving up too easily

There seems to be a vicious circle where if we are low on confidence we don't persist with a task which then results in failure denting our confidence even further.

Another favourite book of mine; Bounce by Matthew Syed states the case strongly that we can't really give up on something or decide we are no good at it if we don't dedicate enough time to it. And that time has to be used purposefully making constant  improvements based on regular feedback.

Syed, along with others, argues that there is a 10,000 hour rule. In order to become expert at something we have to dedicate all those hours, or 3 hours per day for 10 years to put it another way,  to honing our skills.

Now have a think about all the activities, hobbies and skills we have tried to learn and develop before deciding we are no good. Did we give it 10,000 hours? Did we even dedicate 1000 hours?

This book altered the way I view the world and made me really appreciate the skill we see on the tennis court, football pitch or even board room as it has all been hard earned. There are no quick fixes or easy solutions, just hard work.

I have stopped using the word "talent" completely now as it is unlikely that it exists in the way we perceive it and it is not a helpful concept in the first place. It just gives us a reason to give up as we can claim "We don't have the talent."

Cheers 

Don't listen to other people's chimps

As I have mentioned before one of the best books around for mind management is The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters. It is one of these you books you need to read 3 or 4 times as the whole concept can appear slightly bizarre initially. The chimp part is the emotional, child like, reactionary section while the human equivalent is calm and rational using facts to reach conclusions.

He reminds us that the brain is divided into different sections including the human and chimp parts. Our job is to work out when the chimp may highjack our thoughts and make sure the human is in charge as it is only the human who can make rational, sensible decisions. This can be easier said than done, especially for those of us with explosive or emotional chimps.

It is all well and good analysing our own thoughts and categorising them as either chimp or human but we also have to make sure we are actually communicating with the human in others rather than their chimp.

This can be really tricky to identify and an easy trap to fall into. So we have to reassess our communications with others. Are they just saying something to let off steam and gain attention or do they actually plan to do as they say?

I have been guilty recently of listening to someone's chimp rather than their human voice and it was a bit of an error but is probably a mistake we all make.

Cheers

 

Sticking to your core skills

A big part of feeling confident comes from feeling accomplished at what we do in our careers.

I read an interesting article in magazine which I think was called Psychlogy while I was waiting for my son to have his hair cut.

The key point I took from it was that if we are feeling that we are directionless in our careers then we should look at our hobbies and interests for inspiration as these will reflect our key joys and passions.

If we have a role as a mentor or supporting people in our private lives could these skills be used in the workplace or if we are always socialising and organising parties at home, could we use this expertise in our professional life as well?

I guess I have already ticked that box as I spend a lot of my own time with my own children including taking my oldest son's football team while professionally I am a teacher.

Anyway I will give it some more thought.

Cheers

  

Can we unlearn a lack of self belief

As you may have already worked out I come from Glasgow, Scotland's largest city.

Although I love the city and have called it home for almost all of my life, it is by no means perfect.

When I was growing up in the 1980's the city went through a difficult time as it went from an economy based on heavy engineering and shipbuilding to today's service based economy. Unemployment was as high as most of us have ever known with all the attendant social ills worklessness creates.

It was also, to some extent, a divided city. Two separate religious groups Catholics and Protestants, with their children going to different schools and supporting different football teams (football is a big deal in Glasgow) led two suspicion and division.

I grew up in the Catholic community, which in the 80's still suffered from some historical job based discrimination.

Fast forward 30 years the communities are almost entirely integrated, people are more likely to send their children to the best school locally regardless of denomination and there is no Catholic/Protestant job discrimination to speak of. The football teams still exist though. 

I am sad to say I became part of the problem, I had few protestant friends and would judge people based their name trying to assess their religious roots. I am still completely ashamed of this now.

Thankfully, when I went to university I began to slowly realise this was all nonsense and any form of discrimination is patently wrong.

I made a conscious effort to unlearn everything about judging people based on their religion; it took me a while but I can safely say it is not something I have given any thought to in many years.

So is it possible to unlearn other things like our reticence and lack of confidence? 

Belief in your own values

The Labour Party here in the UK are undergoing a leadership election. The incumbent, Jeremy Corbyn has lost the confidence of his Parliamentary MPs but he has kept going despite widespread resignations from his shadow cabinet. 

Under most circumstances most of us would not have the confidence to keep going and do what most of the MPs want and resign. However, Corbyn has the support of many Labour supporters in the country, although it is unlikely he presuade enough of the electorate to vote for Labour if there were a General Election.

Corbyn keeps going, and has some fanatical support from rank and file members because he is seen as someone with integrity and as a man who stick to his values.

And sometimes we must stick to our values even when we don't have the support of our colleagues.

Cheers

Fear of others

This topic has been in the media a lot in recent weeks and months. There seems to be increasing media hysteria about immigrants playing on some individuals irrational fear of people who happen to be slightly different from them.

Politicians like Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and newspapers like the Daily Mail attempt to create division and create us and  them scenarios to put forward abhorrent political messages based on fear. 

Steven Pinker has written many fascinating books including the Blank Slate, which is a really worthwhile and interesting read. In this book he talks about the difference between races of people. The conclusion was that given how large the human population is it is exceptionally homogeneous when compared to other species. The fact that most stuck in my mind was that there was a far greater difference genetically within races of people than between different races.

In other words we have far more in common than anything that separates.

Maybe we should bear that in mind and switch over when we hear extreme right wing politicians like Farage on their rants.

But this fear others, where does it stem from? A lack of self confidence perhaps?

Cheers

Feel the fear and do it anyway

This was one of the first self books I ever read. I don't even know why it attracted my attention in Waterstone's bookstore where I was more likely to be found perusing the shelves of the sports section. This was in the 1990's long before the advent of online bookstores so, when I had a spare hour or two I would head into the bookshop

However, although initially I was a little wary of it as I feared it would contain Americanisms and not really be appropriate for me. However, it was a revelation, I really enjoyed it as it really spoke to me.

The basic premise of the book is that we all feel unconformable and fearful in new and unfamiliar situations and there is no point in denying that. Instead we should try to use this energy to go ahead and confront our challenges. This was really helpful for me because at that point I was unhappy in my career and life in general.

So, even though it is about 20 years since I first read it I would still recommend it to help us develop our confidence.

Cheers