High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 181: The Confidence Game

Episode Date: May 16, 2018

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off your bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain   High performers know that confidence is a decision and a skill. It’s more important that they act in a confident way, and then the feeling of confidence come after. To build their confidence, and decrease their FEAR, they DARE. Defuse their negative thoughts, accept the discomfort, set realistic goals, and then embrace their values.   Power Phrase this Week:  "I choose confidence. I act in a confident way, and my confident feelings follow."   Dr. Cindra Kamphoff is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, Speaker and Author. She provide mental training for the Minnesota Vikings along with many other championships teams. She coaches athletes, CEOs and executives one-on-one to help them learn and apply the mental tools that lead to success. Cindra also speaks to and works with businesses and organizations on how to gain the high performance edge while providing practical tools that work. Her clients range from Verizon Wireless to Mayo Clinic Health System. Cindra's first book: Beyond Grit: Ten Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge was published in August. Her Ph.D. is in sport and performance psychology and she is a Professor in Performance Psychology at Minnesota State University. To book Cindra for your next speaking event or learn more about her one-on-one coaching, visit: cindrakamphoff.com For more information about Cindra's book, visit: beyondgrit.com

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Dr. Sindra Kampoff with us today. High Performance Mindset. What does it take to have the grit to stick around and wait for that cue to call and when all those concert tickets were given away?

I was thinking that was worth it. That is a really cool prize that we're giving away here. And it comes up on June 1st with all those tickets. Happy Mother's Day to you. Did you have a great day yesterday? I did. I got to do a lot of fun things that I got to choose. And you got to choose?

I got to choose. It was fun. That should be the way it is. Today's topic is the confidence game. And we start with a great quote from someone I think we've all heard of. Mark Twain said, quote, 20 years from now, you're going to be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off your bow lines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, and discover. Love that.

I like it. So tell us a little story, first of all, about confidence. Yeah, so yesterday I actually got to choose what we were going to do as a family. It was pretty fun. So I decided we're going to go to a movie. And we saw the movie Wrinkle in Time. And in this movie, the lead character, Meg Murray, doesn't believe in herself. She's kind of blocking her light.

We could see in this movie. And so she sets off on a quest to find her father who's lost in the universe. And in the meantime, she discovers herself, her confidence and her inner belief in herself. And I think what I loved about it is I think that we can each kind of forget who we are and we can each kind of lose confidence in this inner belief in ourselves. All right. So coming from a professional then, how do you define confidence? So I'd say confidence is your belief in your trust and your ability. And it's your certainty that you're going to be successful. You're able to shine your light in who you really are. But I think the thing that's really important is that

confidence is a skill and it's a decision. So that's really what we're talking about today. And high performers, they make a daily decision to be confident, to think confidently and to act confidently, but it is a skill. And I think that I've seen so many people kind of just have this thought that they're going to wait to follow their dreams until they're more confident. And that's what really inspired me to talk about this today is because I think this is the number one thing really holding people back. I like how you said confidence is a decision. It's not something you just are born with. It's something you decide to do and have. So why is confidence so important to us? Yeah. And it's a skill that we develop, right? And why it's so important is because we know that people who are confident, they work harder, they set more challenging goals, they persist longer. And so maybe the way to think

about it, how it shows up in your life is, you know, maybe you call it lack of confidence or fear of failure or performance anxiety or self-doubt. But, you know, the chances are that it's costed you at some point in your life, maybe even dearly. So, you know, before we get into this, I want you to just ask yourself the question, you know, before we get into this, I want you to just ask yourself the question, you know, what have you given up on? What have you missed out on? You know, what opportunities have you lost because of confidence? All right. So I know this is a topic you've been reading about, correct? You have some insight about confidence that you want to share from something that you've recently learned. It's good to know you're continually educating yourself as well. I'm always continually learning. Yeah. So I've

been reading this book called The Confidence Gap by Dr. Russ Harris. And I thought his first rule of confidence was really powerful. So I wanted to share it. So he said, the actions of confidence come first. The feelings of confidence come later. So kind of what he's saying is that, you know, I think most people kind of have it backwards. They think they have to feel confident before they can act confident. But really the only way that we can grow is to get out of our comfort zone. And so the moment you leave your comfort zone,

you are going to feel discomfort, right? So this discomfort doesn't feel good. So if you let those feelings dictate whether you're going to act confident, that's when you're in trouble. So I'm going to repeat it again. The actions of confidence come first. The feelings of confidence come later.

Revelation right there. This guy, Russ, you're talking about. Russ Harris likes to do something I know you do a couple times in your book as well, and that's use acronyms to help you remember things, and he has a good one. He has a good one called D.A.R.E., and that's what I thought I would share with you today. This D.A.R.E. acronym that's what I thought I would share with you today. So this D.A.R.E. acronym helps you build confidence and the D is actually something we've talked about quite a lot on on the spot here on the radio spot this morning but the D is diffusion. So he says you know that just like one of the things I talk about that our brain has evolved over millions of years to survive and so we're we have a bias to see the negative. We can't get rid of our negative

thoughts, but we can unhook them or diffuse them. And so the way to do this is just to realize that our negative thoughts are normal, no reason to fight them, but instead, you know, just engage in what you're doing and let these thoughts move by, you know, like passing cars. And so just recognizing that you're going to have the negative thoughts, but don't engage them. Don't believe in them. That's what the D for diffusion means. I like that because it doesn't make us feel like there's something wrong with us having negative thoughts. Why can't I get rid of these? It's normal. It's normal. Every single person has them. It's because your brain is here to help you survive, not to keep you a peak performer. So you have to train it differently.

All right. So what's the A in DARE? So the A is accept the discomfort. That's really the only way that we're going to grow, literally, is if we get uncomfortable. We do things that just are a little bit scary. So we have to make room for kind of these racing hearts and sweaty hands. And one of the things he says is like, there's no such thing as a pain-free life. So he says we can choose the pain of stagnation or we can choose the pain of growth. I was like, whoa, that was good. So we have to get out of our comfort zone, which takes courage. That's the A, accept discomfort.

It's a little bit of like fake it till you make it when you said the action comes first, then the feeling comes later, right? That's a good point, yes. So R in D.A.R.E. is what? So R in D.A.R.EARE is set realistic goals. And I think, you know, it's really, really important to dream big, but we want to focus on the process, kind of the next step. And the example I can give is when I was writing my book and I would sit down

and, you know, it'd be like so big, such a big goal. And then I would lack confidence because I'd wonder how in the world am I supposed to get this done? So what I, what you have to do is just think about what the next doable goal is. You know, what's the smallest, simplest thing today that you can get done that's going to take you just a bit closer to that goal? Chunk by chunk. Chunk by chunk. There we go.

Exactly. How about E for dare? So E is embrace your values. So asking yourself kind of what sort of life do you want to live? And when it gets tough, reminding yourself of those things you stand for, because these values are really like your fuel. So for example, maybe, I mean, I know some of my values are compassion, encourage, positivity. And so reminding yourself of what you stand for can help you be more confident,

even though when you don't feel confident, right, you can act confident by reminding yourself of your values. All right. We were all taught what D.A.R.E. means as a young child, but this is a completely different way to look at it now. Good point. The acronyms work well. And they work well for me because they're a little more sticky, I think. Sometimes these things are so abstract that we don't really know what to do with them. We can't remember them.

So let's summarize the whole thing today, this confidence thing and put a nice little bow on it. So high performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential, they know that confidence is a decision and a skill, something that you can develop. And it's more important that they act in a confident way and the feelings of confidence are going to come later. And to build our confidence, we can dare. So we can diffuse our negative thoughts, accept the discomfort, set realistic goals that we can do today, and then embrace our values. All right. And a power phrase for this week that goes along with everything? I choose confidence. I act in a confident way and my confident feelings follow. That's perfect. That's awesome. All right. Well, if we want to follow along with you on social

media where we see this power phrase every Monday morning or get the book or listen to the podcast or any of that stuff, learn more about CINDRA and what she can do for you perhaps or for your team or your office or there's just so many ways that that particular mindset stuff can help out. How do we get in touch with you? So you can head over to drcindra.com. So D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. And if you want to re-listen to this podcast episode, it's everywhere you can find podcasts. iTunes, Stitcher Radio, iHeart Radio.

Awesome. And then the book is beyondgrit.com, so you can check it out there. All right, a lot of people grabbing the book and all this, I shouldn't say all this, but lot of stuff that we talk about has as in the book yeah and some of it will be in probably future books right yeah there we go that's the plan there we go but it's all good stuff every monday here on the country club with dr cindra kampoff thank you so much thanks for having me today thank you for listening to high performance mindset if you like

today's podcast make a comment share it with friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Sindra's free weekly videos, check out DrSindra.com.