Management - The Roller Coaster Ride Of Confidence

Being a manager, have you ever had those times when you are in front of your team in a meeting, trying to develop the next idea or plan and for some reason your mind is blank?  You feel lost and for a short moment you feel that you can't articulate this to your team because you feel that you should be leading the way?  But in that moment, all you want to do is hide away?

Then there are those times when you have the wind behind you and all the planets are aligned and everything feels great.  You are feeling full of confidence and have direction.  How nice is that?

For me, it seems that being a manager is a 'roller coaster ride of confidence' and whilst at times it can be up for us, there are plenty of times when we are down.  This is normal.  So if this is normal, why do our peers seem to always be 'up'?  It doesn't take an psychologist to realise that they are not being honest with themselves or others.

You see for me, being up or down is normal.  This is our natural ability to react to change.  If we felt good all the time we would not feel the need to change anything. Ironically if we always felt good and kept within our comfort area, then that feeling of good would become normal and we would have nowhere to go emotionally.  We would not feel the need to change and ultimately we would become stuck.

So those times when we feel lost, lonely, directionless, lacking in ideas.  Ironically, this is a good time for us.  It shows us when something is missing and creates the desire for change.  It is at times like these that we need to acknowledge the feeling, but not get attached to it.  We need to be grateful that that feeling is revealing a need for us to get up and move forward.  We can use that feeling as an indicator of the need for action.

My advice in times like these?  Be grateful for the indicator, and then note down what aspects of your role, job, life etc are giving you the strongest negative sensations.  

Then have a think about what those aspects of your life are and allow yourself to dream a little about how you could change them.  Really go to town on that level of thinking.  Play with the dream, allow yourself to be able to taste what that change is and if that type of thinking gives you hope and builds confidence then plan some steps that you can take to move in that direction.

Of course there is always a risk that you won't get to realise that dream, and to some extent that is perhaps not important, but what you will have done is start to move and you will find yourself back in the game again.

Another trip on the roller coaster anyone?