Confidence is key to performance. My last post outlined the affects of confidence on our mental performance given many situations.  The lack of confidence given a scenario can increase emotional turmoil, thus taking up valuable mental resources we would otherwise be using to perform in that situation.

Today I will discuss some factors that make up our confidence.  As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, the beginnings of how confident we are is dependent on the scenario we face.  Where we might very well be extremely confident in our ability to complete a project, we may not necessarily be confident in our ability to present it to a conference of 200 of our peers.  The first step off the bench and into the game is generally framed by our expectations of the outcome.  How do we think it will come out?

Part II  Expectations

When you look at the prospect of delivering a presentation to your peers, what is the very first performance marker that your mind must pass on the way to a success?  Let me reframe the question.  How well do you think your performance will fare if you expect to fail?  How far down the path can you get if your expectations are for failure?

While a positive expectation is not enough to ensure success, and rarely is, I bet my bottom dollar that it is present in the vast majority of the great victories in the lives of those who achieve.  Positive expectations, or even so much as a positive attitude is a crucial starting point for confidence in any endeavor.

Look at some of the challenges and hurdles you have between you and your goals.  If your expectation is that the challenge will bring failure, it diverts us from our purpose, our goals, and saps our energy for solving problems along the way.  Somewhere I heard that Tiger Woods uses the phrase, “Expect performance, not success”.  I find this a very insightful way to look at expectations.  Notice how the focus is on something internal, something we can control.  Our performance is really all we control, even if it is only to maximize our preparation and practice, in our world.  The rest is nature, or the act of others.  Is it a more reasonable expectation to prepare, practice, and perform, or to expect success in everything we do?

Can you see how disempowering an expectation can be if you hang it on an external factor, one over which we hold no control?

Making the Case for Expectation

I can recall early in my flying career being shot down pretty handily in an interview with a commuter airline.   As I sat in the waiting area at the headquarters of this little airline, I looked around at the other pilots who were there for the same interview and began comparing myself to them.  Many of them were from an Air Guard unit and had been flying turboprop transport aircraft for some years, and were now separating from service and looking for civilian employment.  I hadn’t spent a lot of time around the military guys, but I put a lot of respect behind their preparation and mission ability.

I quickly went to work comparing my resume to theirs, and came to the decision, about 5 minutes before my interview began, that I would not be selected due to the depth of experience in the room.  That moment of doubt, of failed expectation changed the course of my day.  That expectation of failure must have been apparent to the two gentlemen that interviewed me, because they began bombing me with a myriad of technical questions, some of which I did not find answers to.  As I will reveal later, not because I hadn’t the knowledge, but I was so emotionally wrapped into the expectation of failure that I couldn’t see straight to give the proper answers.

I sat there in an emotional hurricane.  I had gotten up that morning, dressed in my only suit, kissed my parents goodbye, packed my interview materials into a brief case and went off to join the airlines.  Now, I sat in that interview, just moments after resigning myself to the fact that I wasn’t as good as the other applicants, getting pummeled by questions I could have answered if I were not in the middle of an internal emotional letdown.  I had already resigned myself to the fact I wouldn’t be selected, and how it would feel to have to fly home on their airline, face my family and tell them how I didn’t get the job.  The reality was now going to be even worse.

I fought through the interview.  I answered some questions with poor answers, some with a sense of indifference.  If I were on the other side of the table I wouldn’t have been impressed with me.  One of the interviewers was combative from the get go.  You know, good cop,  bad cop.  I almost was combative back to him.  I had lost my ability to see the big picture.  I floundered a bit, and when it was over they asked if I had any questions for them.  I was so disgusted with the whole event I said no, thanked them, and walked out.

The decision process was a pretty simple one.  They interviewed everyone in the group, then, after a few hours, they would come out and hand everyone an envelope.  Some had offers of a simulator evaluation, others had a thanks for applying, but no thanks.  I didn’t even wait for the letter.  I asked for a ride back to the terminal and took the first flight back home.  The walk of shame.  I got the letter in the mail a week later.  No surprises.  I didn’t get the job…. I have no idea why?

Insult to injury, when I got home, my family was at our big family reunion with all of our out of town family members, and none of them had cell phones.  I had to sit and wait for my uncle to come and pick me up…..two hours after my triumphant return.   Ouch.  Tough ride home.

Here is the sick reality of that event.  I wrote down every question they asked me in the interview.  When I got home, calmed my temper and started to put humpty dumpty back together again I saw the horror of it all.  I knew every answer, cold.  Every single question they asked me I could have easily answered and moved through that interview with ease.  But, in those few moments in that waiting area, seeing other aviators with thousands of hours of experience in big, cool airplanes, I placed value and expectation on those pilots, on the interviewers, and on the company I interviewed with that they had not truly earned.  Of those parties I had no control.  And to them I gave my opportunity without a fight.

It is sickening to even relive it here for you to read, but in those moments my career was set back another 12 months….for absolutely nothing.  It would be another year before I would make my way to another opportunity to fly in the airlines.  That opportunity would turn out much differently, as you will see in the next blog entry, but the simple step of expectation had generated a death spiral of confidence, thwarting my performance in the opportunity.

To pour concrete in the point of expectation being a core first step in confidence, and a key element affecting personal performance, look at how that one erroneous investment in things outside of my control took me out of the game.  I guessed that those other pilots had abilities to answer questions better than I could.  (some years passed before I realized that as a civilian I had quite an advantage over military pilots in that type of interview, solely because of the nature of flying we do.  Not to say I was better, but had different experience)  I also assumed that the commuter airline wanted the military pilots over a well qualified civilian.  The truth is, they take about half and half.  I assumed they would like them better, not even considering my own sense of humor, ability to work with professional clients in my own background, and excellent references. I sold myself short.

One lapse in expectation torpedoed an outstanding opportunity to move into my career for another year.  The result of that interview would create a neuro-association to that company that lasted till the day they went out of business.  I secretly cheered when they ceased operations, because I could finally put that association with my failure to rest.  I didn’t know how else to do it.  We will cover that in this series also.  Beating a neuroassociation is another big step to unlocking confidence and performance.

Conclusion

The point is folks, that expectations, are the first step to confidence in a scenario.  I think I have made my case using the story I relayed about my only failed airline interview, and how that expectation was the trip wire in an explosion of self doubt and emotion that prevented me from performing at my best in that interview.  It honestly felt like somebody put me in concrete boots and then lit my hair on fire.  My opportunity died one step from a bucket of water that day.

What opportunities have you missed, or sold yourself short on due to an unrealistic, or disempowering expectation?  Can you see how this first step can be what it takes to build a rock solid confidence?

Take a few moments to think of what positive expectations can do for your performance in important situations in your life.  Also, take the time to make sure your expectations are grounded in things that you control.  We can’t control outcomes, we can’t control the actions of others, but we can control expectations of our own behavior.

As Tiger says, expect performance, not success…..

Our next building block of confidence will involve visualizations.  How do  we see ourselves performing in a given situation, and how does that empower confidence and affect outcomes….