Author: Paul Warriner – Chief Facilitator and Associate of Raising the Baa
When I sat down to write this article, I didn’t feel anxious or worried, I felt confident that I could put together a structured, thought-provoking piece that would engage people and put our services at Raising the Baa into people’s minds.
Why? Because I’d written about, spoken about, trained individuals and companies about confidence hundreds of times. I had a level of competency about the subject matter that allowed me to feel comfortable in my skills around the topic.
For that is what confidence is, it’s a skill. And like all other skills, it can be learnt.
Over many years I had learnt the skills needed to speak, write and coach on this subject of confidence.
It hadn’t always been this way. I remember talking in a none too confident manner about confidence, feeling awkward and self-conscious in front of my audience. With repetition and application my skills improved as did the interest of the audience and the impact and difference I made.
What was at play in this process was the Competence-Confidence loop that so many speak about. The better you become at something the more confident you are in doing it. Tying shoelaces as an example.
So, I had achieved a level of competence that allowed me to be of service to others, but I hadn’t mastered it yet. I was on the eternal road to mastery, a much more relevant journey to be on.
Enough of me, this article was written for you, the reader no matter how you are coming at this. You may be a business owner, an employee, member of a team, a team leader, a manager or be responsible for developing a brand-new team to launch the next wonder product, it matters not.
The principles are the same for all: confidence is a skill and skills can be learnt. If there are confident people in the world you can learn how to be confident too. You’ve got this.
How good would it feel to know that you could find yourself in any new environment and quickly apply your skills? To be comfortable and confident in your ability to achieve the desired outcome?
The principle of the Competence-Confidence loop will allow you to gracefully try, fail, quickly learn, adjust, try again and be on the way to leading the pack.
It’s this principle of try, fail, try again and get better that is so evident in the challenges which are at the core of all Raising the Baa programmes. It’s a safe, fun space to practise and develop the leadership and team building and skills that are totally transferable to the workplace.
If you would like to know how to distil this principle and apply it to your circumstances, then the exercises and the environment we create at Raising the Baa will show you the way.
Not too far away is a world where mastery of this particular skill will open many doors for you. I am confident of it!
Confidence is just one skill our team and leadership development programmes will teach you and allow you to practise. I guarantee you will be amazed at how much can be learned from herding a flock of unpredictable sheep with your team.
