You must have heard from motivation speakers about living your dreams.  Thinking is believing (following the doing).  But is that possible in the real world now?  We have tons of baggage to carry along with us in the journey of life.  We have to make money in order so survive.  How can we think ideally and achieve the ideal outcome?

It is possible in some sense if we believed and hold on to this belief!  It goes the same at work as well!  Ideal situation wants the best of both worlds.  NO! Ideal situation wants the BEST OF ALL WORLDS! That is what it means.  This will make us plan and execute to have the ideal outcome.  But what we are doing at work is compromise.  We adopt a give-and-take mentality with whatever situations that are given to us.  We work with our limited resources and optimize the maximum outcome.  We work with our colleagues to achieve results that are partially beneficial between both of us.  It’s not ideal at all!

Now, let’s compare between ideal situations and compromise.  Ideal situations plans for getting an ideal outcome while compromise plans and executes for a compromise outcome between both sides.  We should achieve more than what our normal (compromise) baseline!

From young we were taught to live our dreams.  But when we step into the real world, it is almost impossible to vision what we dreamt of in the young.  We were taught to compromise on resources.  What must go up somewhere will result in something going down somewhere.  When you want to earn more cash by meeting more clients after work, you get less time to spend with your family for dinner.  It is a zero-sum equation. But now, think Ideal situation!  You want to meet more clients after work yet you want to have time to spend with your family for dinner every night!  You work towards that by planning effective schedule, by meeting targeted high ROI clients!  You get your sales and you get more time with your family!

That’s why; thinking (and planning and executing) of achieving ideal situation is such a powerful concept in personal productivity and success!  Now do you compromise your position or negotiation power in order to keep things moving?  At the end of the day, do you get what you desired?  Is it what you want in the end?  Can you feel the potential of this concept if you were to apply it to your daily life and work?

Do not Bow to Challenges!

The first and foremost, do not bow to the difficulties of the challenge.   Think, a challenge would not be called a problem/challenge if there isn’t any difficulty with it.  If we withdraw ourselves from facing a challenge, and admit that we will never overcome the challenge, then we will never be able to achieve any success in our life.

Challenges can be seen like a wall. This wall separates the people that want to achieve success and those that do not want to achieve success.  If you allow yourself to stop in front of the problem/challenge, then most likely you are not those that have the desire to succeed in life.  In fact, you should consistently tell yourself, by taking up challenges, you are actually keen to succeed in your life.  The challenge is merely a door that you have to walk through.  Those that fear walking through it will never be able to find success.

Get Back Your Life Goals

In our modern age, we tend to seek a lifestyle that is far necessary of what a normal human being should.  The pursuit of such life style makes the world we live in more demanding and complex. Behind the pursue, when we achieve the type of lifestyle, we become complacent with what we have.  Our desire to excel slowly fades away in time when we always want to go the easy way out.

Sometimes, we need to look back at where we started off.  There are people who left their high-paying job in exchange for a simple business.  Or even join volunteering groups.  By looking back at ourselves, we find things that are close and true to ourselves.  We find new challenges in us and the motivation to push ourselves to excel.

Transform Risk into Motivation!

When the tough gets going, the rewards are higher.  No pain no gain.  These are unarguable truth.   We frequently get disappointed after a failure.  More than often, we are afraid to bear the consequences of failure.

Everything there is an associated risk.  And we know, risk and rewards come together in a package.  If you choose to take low-risk approach, your rewards will be not as fantastic.  You might as well continue with whatever you feel comfortable with.  However, when you take a high-risk approach, your rewards can be of limitless.  View risks as forces of motivation instead of fearing them.  We are sure that by doing sufficient preparation and homework, you will gain confidence in taking up the challenges!

Yes, it’s true.  With the Me factor alone, we are comfortable with any situation by being aware of ourselves.  We know what we can control and what we can’t.  With the You factor, we are able to understand someone else’s need and thoughts.  We stand a higher chance of negotiation and influence with the other party.  With the final factor, Situation factor, we complete the equation of personal productivity with the awareness of situational demands and boundaries.  Awareness of the Situation factor allows seeing what is really needed at that point of time and context.  Thus guiding us to take the correct action and gain confidence.  Remember, awareness is always the fundamental block of confidence!

We can consider Me factor as the first layer, You factor as the second layer and Situation factor as the third layer.  Each additional layer allows us to achieve a higher personal productivity, which inherently ties to individual confidence.  We must agree that each situation is different with different objectives and history.  Furthermore, there are different demands and boundaries in different situations.  We won’t be able to use the same techniques to boost confidence and personal productivity.

How do we boost confidence and personal productivity? We want to know as much as possible of the situation.  Let’s take the presentation as an example.  What are we presenting?  Why are we presenting? What’s the objective of this presentation?  What’s the key message you want to drive the point across?  Who are we presenting to? Where will the presentation be?  What do you want to be in the slides?  Are you sufficiently prepared for FAQ?  Do you need additional experts to be in the presentation to take questions?

Having asked the questions, you have built an awareness of the situation (Situation factor).  You know what to expect in the situation.  Now you address each question on the situation.  Which are the ones that you can control (Me factor)? – Key message, content of slides, FAQ and additional experts.  What are the things that you can influence (You factor)?  — Key message, management and additional experts.  Which areas are still not addressed? – You identified the missing gaps and fill them accordingly.  Your confidence eventually builds up in handling the situation.

What’s next?  You want to be well-prepared for the presentation. A “well-prepared” presentation is the position you want to be in before the situation arises.  Essentially, you want to enter into a position that is advantageous to you and does not jeopardize you in anyway.  By doing necessary preparation of the presentation, you are entering a valid position for the situation.  With everything addressed (at your best knowledge), you will feel comfortable and confident for the situation.

In summary, lack of confidence in a situation is attributed to the lack of awareness of the Situation factor.  By understanding the Situational factor, with the assistance of awareness of the Me and You factor, you are able to boost a higher level of confidence in handling them.  Re-look our presentation example.  An understanding of the presentation needs, demands, scope and context allows the presenter to be more prepared for it – essentially the confidence level for presentation.  Keep in mind that confidence is about awareness.  We hope you will develop a higher sense of awareness, thus boosting the confidence in handling situations.

Having no confidence to approach your boss can be attributed to the lack of awareness of the You factor.  Remember, personal productivity is the equation of the Me, You and Situation factor.  Personal productivity requires confidence of one self and handling of situations.  You’ve gotten your Me factor right.  Now you’ve got to work on awareness of the You factor.

All of us have needs.  Marslow Hierarchy of Need tends to explain at the fundamental level, what a human being would desire (need) to have.  He proposed that all of us have needs of different level, in particular, physiological, safety, love/belong, esteem and self-actualization at the top.    That may be too abstract for us now.  Let’s bring the context closer to us.  Your boss may be thinking of his target, such as the next promotion or hitting company sales.  Maybe he is concerned with the timely delivery of the piece of work.   Or it could be even out of work concerns, such as if he can leave the office on the dot to catch a dinner with his family on time or he just wants a peaceful holiday without phone calls from the office.  Do you feel more “closer” after understanding him more?

Now think.  You can’t hide from your boss everyday.  You need to consult him for advice.  You need his approval.  You need to meet up with him to discuss your career development.  Career development equals promotion!  (A discussion about your personal career development shows your interest to work for him)  Are you saying you are going to forsake your chance of promotion?  Every little day that you “expose” yourself to the boss, you stand a higher chance of promotion than the others.  So you see, it’s impossible for you not to see your boss.  Not even using the reason of unconfident meeting him.

So, what now?  Bridge the gap between you and your boss.  Remember, he is also a human being.  He has to eat, drink and sleep.  He too has needs to address.  Find out what he REALLY wants.  Is it his promotion or a less problematic holiday?  At the task level, find out what he wants to achieve.  Is it a dateline or a political agenda he is driving through the completion of the task?  Also, find out how he think, what is he’s mental model like?  Is there some form of working style that he is particular with?  Are there things that he doesn’t like to see?    With a little bit self-questioning and observation of your boss, you’ve got the You factor answered.

After you have found out what he really wants, you get down to the managing process.  Your personal awareness of the Me factor will come in handy as it complements the You factor.  With the Me and You factor, you are more accustomed to handling your boss.   You do not feel uneasy approaching him.  Now, confidence is regained when working with him as you now how to manage his expectations.

Confidence can be lost in a variety of ways.  It can be after a series of failures at work, or consistent lectures from an un-motivating and demanding boss.   Setbacks after setbacks definitely will bring the even a strong man down with doubts of your abilities.  You start to loose touch from your personal awareness of your abilities.  You start to question your abilities.  You begin to be unaware of what you can achieve.  You do not know what to deliver.  You begin to drift into “I do not know what I can do”.  If you continue to drift, you eventually end up hopeless and loosing your self-worth, falling into the combination of “I do not know what I can do” and “I do not know what I cannot do”.

On the opposite end, a confident you would have know what to do.  You know what your abilities are.  You know you can achieve.  You do not cast doubts on yourself.  You deliver results.  Essentially, you would have belonged to the “I know what I can do” and “I know what I cannot do”, “I know what I can do” and “I do not know what I cannot do”.  This is where you want to be again.

So now, throw the despair feelings aside.   To regain your confidence back, you’ve got to move yourself back to the correct quadrant, the confident combinations.  You’ve got to move yourself away from “I do not know what I can do” and “I do not know what I cannot do” to “I know what I can do” and “I know what I cannot do” combination.  You’ve got to re-look at the Me factor in yourself.  Re-assess all your abilities.  Ask someone else for their opinion on you.  They may have a different view of your abilities.  Do you have the qualities that are useful in the given situation where you failed?  Was it a direct fit in that given situation?  Think Situation factor.  It may not be always your fault.    In this way, when you work from the inner self of personal awareness, you will realize your self-worth.  Remember, self-worth leads to confidence.

Confidence is all about knowing yourself and what you can do.  Confidence is your level of self-worth and hope.  All these relates closely to personal awareness.  It is essential that it served as a foundation block for you to regain confidence.  Do not despair that you are loosing confidence.  The answer is that you have yet to find yourself, the personal awareness within.  Give ample amount of time for yourself to discover the person within.  Eventually, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.