Hey everyone, I got into a conversation with a friend earlier today about follow-through and self-confidence. My friend has some issues with making big goals and setting high expectations, but they hardly, if ever, put in the work to match their ambitions. I love big goals and ambitions - as many of you know - but it's actually detrimental to your own self-confidence if you set huge goals and then never follow-through on their achievement.
If you are constantly making goals and aspirations, but then not putting in the work and effort that you know are required to get the job done, then you will never build self-confidence.
I grew up as a really shy and quiet kid - even to this day, I have to work really hard to put myself out there and be confident about myself. I’ve found that my confidence has explosively increased over the last several years as I’ve set goals and achieved them.
Don’t get this twisted - I’m not saying to set small goals that you know you can achieve. What I am saying is that you need to set big goals that you have to stretch yourself to in order to achieve, but then actually put the work in required to achieve the goal.
I’m sure a lot of you have experienced a situation that looks something like this - you set a hard goal and you try to achieve it, but you also watch a lot of netflix or go out too much over the weekend and you know in the back of your mind that you’re not doing everything in your power to achieve the goal.
When the end date to that goal finally comes and you haven’t achieved what you thought you were going to, then you’ve just taken a huge blow to your self-confidence. Whether you like it or not, you’ve just lied to yourself. Every time you lie to yourself, you’re diminishing your self-confidence.
The flip side to this is that setting ambitious goals and not achieving them can also be a really positive driving factor in your success. I read the Elon Musk biography recently and Musk gets a lot of flak for setting overly-ambitious goals in short time frames and then delivering on the goals months after he said he would.
I don’t look at this as a failure, in fact, I look at it as one of the main reasons that Musk’s companies are so successful and innovative. He sets wildly ambitious goals and pushes his team to the limit in order to try and achieve the goal. They do everything in their power to achieve it in that time frame. When the time comes and the goal isn’t yet complete, they don’t look at it as a failure, they look at it as a motivational factor to push even harder to accomplish the goal as soon as humanely possible.
The key difference between these 2 types of people is that the first is setting an ambitious goal and then not matching their actions to that ambition. The second (Musk) is setting wildly ambitious goals as well, but then he is actually doing everything in his power to match that ambition. Even though the second may not reach their goal on time, you can rest assured that they will continue to push as hard as they possibly can until the goal is complete.
The takeaway: set big goals, but then do everything in your power to achieve your goals. Don't set big goals and then sit on your hands and make excuses for why you can or can't achieve your goals. If you continue to push yourself and set big goals, then you'll build your self-confidence and you'll know that if you set your mind to it, you can do anything.
Here's the Question of The Day, don't forget to post your answers in the comments!
Are you setting goals and matching your actions to your ambitions and doing everything in your power to achieve them?
Thanks for reading! Don't forget to leave your thoughts below and I look forward to seeing you in the comments!
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