Get In The Driver's Seat!

So many people don’t rule their own lives. How do you feel when you enter a room full of people at a party? This is usually dictated by the makeup of the group. If you are acquainted with most of them, odds are you will feel at home unless you have anxiety about groups. If you don’t know them, there are many behaviors you might adopt. Which one of these sounds like you?

a) I head for the buffet or the bar. I need something to occupy myself with while I check out the situation

b) I look for a friendly group of people and join in the conversation

c) I look for a convenient corner to hide in and observe the party

d) I calmly and coolly circulate the room looking for someone I know

For the sake of this article – it really doesn’t matter what course of action you choose, the question is what causes people to have reactions like these. What would a young child do? I am not talking about a 5- or 6-year old, I am talking about a two-year-old. Generally they would head right into things and not have a care in the world about what anyone thought. They would do whatever came into their cute little heads. Now I am not suggesting that all your cultural mores should be tossed out the window. Barging into a situation is not particularly the best way to go about things; only a toddler could get away with such behavior because they are what they are.

The real question is when do we lose the fearlessness of a child? If you move forward just a few years, the reaction would be totally different in most cases. The shy child hanging onto their mother or father’s leg, hiding behind a skirt, and the general reaction, “Oh, she’s a shy one. Isn’t that cute?” And it may be sort of cute for a youngster to be shy, but how does that serve you today? Does that shyness develop into fear? Fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, fear of what other people might think? How do we get past the fear to get to the success that we all want?

The truth of the matter is that most people never get over the shyness that they had as a child. With few exceptions, the successful people in life did not get that way by hiding in a corner. What can you do to get out of that corner and into the driver’s seat? You do not want fear ruling your life or driving your career, do you?
This is the part that is going to be hard for people. Do you want a solution, and will you actually take the steps to get out of the hole you are stuck in? If I can tell you the tools to build a better future, would you take them? What you need to do may be the opposite of what you have been doing. Have you been to networking events and actually talked to people about what you want to accomplish? Have you told people of your goals, so that you will have something to drive you? The accountability factor can really drive some folks to new highs and push them past their inhibitions.

What is your goal? “My goal is to _________.” Tell people about it. Don’t do that in a way that you are using them or trying to enlist their help financially or to join your business. Do it so they ask you, “So, what about_______ what are you doing about that? Is it going well? What steps have you taken to make that happen?” Ask them to help goad you into continuous action. And don’t ask just one person to do this. Get your mother, father, best friend, siblings, co-workers, minister, mentor, business associates involved. If you ask ten people, maybe five of them will come through for you, and that will push you to achieve what you want to achieve.

If there are naysayers in the group, drop them from this aspect of your life. You will never star in a Broadway show or write the great American novel with people dragging you down. The biggest naysayer can be you. Don’t let you stop you either. Self confidence is what successful people owe their success to.

Did you know that many years ago (over 40) a young singer opened a show for an unknown comedian at the Hungry I nightclub in San Francisco? Almost no one came to that show. The singer was a nineteen-year-old Barbra Streisand and the comedian was Woody Allen. They didn’t stop pursuing their dreams because of fear or rejection or an empty house. I’m sure they both did have fears, but their self confidence drove them to succeed. What are you doing to build your self confidence and muffle the voices of fear and doubt?