Building Confidence

You will never feel confident before you start. There won’t be a day when you wake up and know just how things will turn out to be. It doesn’t work like that.

Confidence is built over time. It is built by starting the new project despite the resistance you face from within. It’s built by consistently showing up even when it is uncomfortable. It is built by doing what you say, every single time.

When you want to start something new and there’s uncertainty involved, it is natural to be scared. Our brains demand certainty, familiarity and comfort.

But what helps in this situation is controlling what you can control. There are always some buttons you can press, some livers you can pull.

New to cooking? Start chopping vegetables, arrange spices, put the pan on stove and then think what you don’t know.

Trying to learn music composition? Listen to your favorite tracks, extract out the verses you like, move some controls in the DAW.

Want a website for your business? Start by writing the content, explore some colors and take some pictures before diving into the code.

Try spending as much time in that unfamiliar space as possible, and soon enough, you get comfortable. Be consistent with the input and you gain control over the output. Over time, the hardest of tasks feel like breathing.

Writing this essay is daunting. I’ve been trying to structure my thoughts and formulate sentences since the morning, and it’s 11:00 PM right now.

I’m worried that maybe it’s not very good. Maybe it’s not quite valuable. What I’m not worried about, however, is publishing this piece.

Having published fifteen issues of this newsletter in the past four months, I’m confident that no matter what happens, this essay gets published today.

When I started though, just the thought of writing and publishing every week scared me. It was uncomfortable to finish the essay in a single day. And more so, publishing it with all its flaws.

I am still not sure if I’ll ever get good at writing. Still not sure whether I’ll ever get a thousand people to read my words. But I’m sure that I’ll continue to write for the years to come.

We’re in the last week of 2023 and New Year is just around the corner. You must have set some resolutions that you’ll start bringing to reality from January 1st.

So how about a little challenge? How about you don’t wait for a week and start with your resolution today?

Merry Christmas ❄️
Aachman