NickVenturella.com 6-14-14

Move Through Challenges to Gain Confidence

June 15, 2014

Hi, do you shy away from challenges you face in your creative entrepreneurial pursuits?

Do you spend more energy coming up with ways to avoid the challenges you face vs. truly addressing them?

You're not alone.

One of the great things I took away from the certified coach training courses I've gone through has been the need to move toward those uncomfortable challenges that arise in your business, rather than away from them.

When you move toward the challenges you end up facing your fear.  It could be the fear of ending up with a dissatisfied client or something else, but my point is if you face the fear you will grow for the better.

Think about a time when you faced a challenge in your life, no matter how big or small, and you overcame the challenge.  Perhaps, the end result wasn't exactly what you wanted or expected, but you survived.  You likely felt a bit stronger for having dealt with the challenge and overcome it.  That's growth, and with that growth you've earned more experience and confidence to face other similar challenges.

What happens is, you raise your game to a higher level -- a new normal.

Any entrepreneurial pursuit is filled with such challenges, some smaller and others not so small.  However, if you had tried to avoid the challenge or turned and moved in the opposite direction you would be stuck at your current level, which actually feeds your insecurity and furthers the limiting beliefs we deal with.

I used to hate making sales calls, especially cold calls. Even to this day, the anticipation of not knowing how the person on the other end will react makes me a bit nervous, but earlier in my career I found myself in a job where that's what I had to do every day.

The fact that I had to force myself to do what was a challenge for me everyday helped me get more comfortable with it, and even good at it after a while.

After each call I gained a little more confidence.  I finally got to a point where I simply told myself that it was just another person on the other end of the phone, not some big scary monster.  Plus, I enjoy talking with other people, especially new people because I have a general curiosity to ask questions and network with others.

I continued to face my fear and with each call I discovered how I could gradually change my own perception about the task at hand -- I was able to raise my professional skills and experience to a higher level that became my new normal.

I still get those little butterflies in my stomach when I'm about to conduct a sales call, but now I can tap into my experience and I tell myself, "This is no big deal. You've made thousands of these calls before.  You're just having a conversation with another person." Then I go, I survive and I'm better for it.

What's one challenge you're going to move towards and through this week?  Hit reply and let me know.