WHAT YOU FOCUS ON WILL GROW
Yesterday I presented the opportunity to my team to be the speaker at an online academy for our clients.
To my surprise, no one volunteered to be the speaker.
When I asked them about the reason that held them back they said:
What if I get questions that I’m unable to answer or that I don’t understand?
What if I lose the thread and forget what to say?
What if there are tech issues?
Right, what if???
The only reason why they were afraid of the ‘what ifs’ was because of the way they thought they would judge themself afterward.
If they knew they would have their own back no matter what happened, there would be nothing to be afraid of. Making a mistake wouldn’t be a big deal.
It was fascinating to hear their brain by default going through all worse case scenarios.
Next question I ask them was:
What’s the gain if you decide to do it?
They all agree that it would:
Build confidence
Strengthen their skills to prepare for a larger even
Improve their presentation skills
Provide them with valuable skills for career progression
Once we talked through what they would win from putting themself forward we all of a sudden had 2 volunteers to be the speaker at the event and 2 others once to be assisting with monitoring the chat.
The feelings we get from going over all the what ifs is very different to the feelings generated when we think about the gain from the experience.
Isn’t it interesting how our brains automatically go to the worst case scenario instead of becoming excited over what we can learn from stretching ourselves outside of our comfort zone?
Of all thoughts that are available to pick, notice how your brain is wired to the negativity bias.
It’s not right or wrong - but question if your current thinking supports you to try new things or if your brain is a master in keeping you safe?
Stop playing small and invite every opportunity you get in stretching yourself outside of your comfort zone. This is when you grow and expand!
#strechoutsideyourcomfortzone #newlearnings #publicspeaking
