A long time ago, a mentor of mine told me, “If you’re not a little nervous, you’re not stretching yourself enough”. Of course, he was trying to make the point that if you’re too comfortable, you stop growing. At the time, I was ready for a little comfort, so my thoughts were, “I wouldn’t mind trading off a little stagnation for a sense of certainty for a minute!” I’m sure I’m not the first to feel this way and I know there are more than a few of you out there feeling this way now.

One of the challenges with pitching your tent in that camp for too long is when we cower from uncertainty and insecurity; we simultaneously limit or eliminate our opportunities.

Sometimes, I will hear clients say, “I wish I was given the opportunity to do ……” and for a brief moment, I am empathetic to their feelings of having missed out or being passed over for something. I usually follow that feeling by asking them something along the lines of:

  • “Who have you told you want more challenges or opportunities?”
  • “What projects or teams have you volunteered to work on/with outside of your regular workflow?”
  • “How have you approached uncertainty and work frustrations in the past?”
  • “How secure with the insecure do you feel you are?”
  • “How do you think your colleagues might answer if I asked them that same question?”

Insecurity, as in being okay with moving forward when not all variables are known, can feel unnerving, and if we don’t push ourselves to attempt it, others won’t do it on our behalf.

As we focus this month on confidence and doubt and the behaviors that help us increase one and move through the other, I encourage you to hone in on something you feel insecure doing and test the waters. What will you do that with today, this weekend, or this month?

Remember, life is cyclical. Opportunities that once made you uncomfortable and nervous eventually became your cone of comfort. What makes you think you can’t repeat that process? You’re insecurity?

You’ve done it before. Don’t miss the opportunity to do it again.
I think you’ll see a little goes a long way.