Had a conversation with a coaching client yesterday that I think applies to everyone.
He has a habit of stopping whatever he’s doing whenever it goes “wrong” (i.e. failure, or doesn’t meet expectations, or he feels confused), and then he reassesses his approach to identify what he should do differently.
Lots of people do this. They think they must be doing something wrong if things don’t go perfectly, and so they quit their strategy and try to find another one (or just give up completely).
While it’s good to constantly upgrade how you’re doing things, the worst time to do this is when you have a failure that provokes a big emotional reaction (e.g. disappointment). If you constantly think that feeling “bad” means you’re “doing it wrong”, then you’ll never stick with something long enough to find out for sure.
Learning and mastering something means many failures and a huge range of emotions, many of which will be unpleasant.
Especially at the beginning of a new process, like learning to dance, trying a new eating regime, or upgrading your social skills, the progress is going to be slow, inconsistent, and sometimes seemingly non-existent… even when it IS working!
You might be doing everything right but need to first get through a learning and discovery period before you will see consistent results.
But, of course, at the same time you need to ensure you’re not doing it wrong either.
So the best way to manage this is to have a strategy for assessing progress and implementing changes that is completely DETACHED from emotion. Simply put, you need an objective measurement system that is reviewed at set times/dates, regardless of how you feel it’s going.
In general, I recommend trying methods for at least 30 days at first without any changes, and then making weekly small upgrades. Measure only objective results (e.g. increased weights lifted, quality of connection with others, amount of sales etc.), and only measure these after getting a good sample size.
As I learned when developing my social skills by approaching strangers: “The first 1,000 don’t count!”
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Dan’s Top Resources
Books
Dan has 3 bestselling non-fiction books available in both written and audio form:
- The Naked Truth, his latest release, shows you how radical honesty builds self-confidence and relationships
- Nothing to Lose explores how to build confidence from the inside by correcting the programming in your brain
- The Legendary Life is a very practical, action-focused guide on how to plan and execute a life plan that brings you your ideal lifestyle
Online courses
Dan continues to put out high quality online self-paced courses through the Udemy platform
- Nice Guy Recovery: how to transform from a people pleaser into a confident beast.
- Shamelessness: how to relieve yourself of the “not good enough” story
- Powerful Honesty: takes you through step-by-step development of your communication skills to be more charismatic and powerful in your honesty
- The 3X Confidence and Authenticity Masterclass program: use the famous 3X Model to build confidence in all areas of life
- Financial Freedom for Beginners: includes everything from budgeting, to getting a raise, to investing in the stock market, to starting a side-business and more
- Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection… Permanently!: covers the psychology of “rejection” and what actions to take to make yourself immune to the fear of it