178 Why Waiting to Feel Confident Is Killing Your Growth — And What to Do Instead

Welcome

Welcome back to Treat Your Business. I’m recording this straight after a coaching session with our Ascend members, and I felt called to share something that can change how you approach growth. Today, I’m talking about the difference between fear and courage, and why courage is the real turning point when you want to level up.

Episode Summary

In this episode, I break down Dan Sullivan’s Four Cs model and explain why confidence is not the starting point. The process begins with commitment, then requires courage, which creates capability, and only then produces confidence. I share why procrastination and paralysis are often forms of courage avoidance, and how leaning into discomfort is the fastest way to create new skills, innovation, and results.

Key Takeaways

• Fear is normal. Courage is taking action even when you feel afraid.
• There are only two options, courage or courage avoidance. Avoidance often looks like procrastination, paralysis, or busywork.
• Confidence is not what you need first. Confidence is the outcome of commitment, courage, and capability.

The Four Cs model:

• Commitment: decide on a specific, measurable result by a specific date
• Courage: take action before you feel ready
• Capability: build the skills by doing the work
• Confidence: the byproduct of the first three stages
• Strong commitments and clear deadlines shorten the uncomfortable courage phase.
• Innovation comes from being committed and then figuring it out in the pressure of real action.
• If you keep playing it safe, you only get the same results you have already achieved.

Resource / Links

Dan Sullivan, The Four Cs model: Commitment, Courage, Capability, Confidence

What have you been avoiding because you are waiting to feel confident first? I’d love to hear what you are committing to this week. Send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook, or message me if you have my details. Whatever your day has in store, just commit, just decide, and I’ll see you next week.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Katie Bell: Welcome back to this week's episode. I'm doing this straight off the bat from a coaching session with our Ascend members, and I left feeling super inspired and energized after the session, and I thought there was some really valuable stuff that we were talking about on there that I wanted to share with you there was, it felt like I was called to talk about this in a bigger way to all of you Fabulous listeners.

[00:00:25] I want to tell you the difference between fear and courage. [00:00:30] Fear is wetting your pants. Courage is doing what you are supposed to do with wet pants, and there are only two options in life is that there's being courageous and having courage and there's courage avoidance, and you are either courageous. Or you are indulging yourself in some sort of method or some sort of activity to avoid being courageous or to avoid courage, which [00:01:00] shows up as often as paralysis, procrastination, some cases addiction.

[00:01:06] Philippa likes to clean her grout with a toothbrush. I would also, start mowing the lawn and painting skirting boards and doing various things to to. Stop myself from making a decision or to avoid doing something, making that commitment. So courage avoidance actually means that you are not allowing yourself to actually experience something you are supposed to experience in order [00:01:30]to grow to the next level.

[00:01:31] But having courage and pursuing a goal, despite fear or discomfort, is what actually moves you forwards. And we were talking about with our ascend, program members and they are all running significantly bigger businesses. And we're all in that zone of really stepping into that next level of leadership and growth and profitability in our personal lives and in our professional lives.

[00:01:57] And. There was lots of feeling [00:02:00] and we actually did some scores on the doors, which was we score ourselves in business, personal and confidence out of 10. And actually, as we went through the session together this morning, we realized that actually confidence was the wrong score, and we decided to replace it with a commitment score.

[00:02:15] And I'm gonna explain why. So I'm gonna talk to you on today's episode about the absolutely crucial step. In your growth formula. So grab yourself a cup of tea. Enjoy if you are driving to the clinic and listening to this or to your [00:02:30] studio. But I feel like you're gonna get a whole lot of value from this episode.

[00:02:34] Welcome to the Treat Your Business podcast, the show for clinic owners who want real, honest advice and tried and tested ways of doing things. I'm Katie Bell, and this is the new era of bigger insights and bolder conversations to help you grow a clinic and a life you love. Let's dive in.

[00:02:52] So from having lots of conversations with entrepreneurs, with clinic owners, with studio owners. [00:03:00] Often courage is the key part of the formula that everyone must go through in order to achieve. Greater levels of capability and confidence. So often when we are looking at our lives and our business and we're scoring ourselves in confidence, we're like, oh, I don't really feel very confident this is gonna happen.

[00:03:17] I'm not confident that this is the right team member. I'm not confident that we're gonna achieve those results. So I'm not confident that we're gonna get that number of new patients, and I'm not confident I'm gonna get the level of funding where I'm not confident to step out of my. Clinical [00:03:30] role and become the CEO.

[00:03:32] I'm not confident to invest in myself and step into coaching. I'm not confident to all of these things. And actually confidence is the last thing that comes. Confidence is as a result of commitment. And courage. So if you look at anybody's life and identify where they're successful and also where they're frustrated and where they're failing, you'll immediately see that the crucial difference is the presence of courage or the absence of [00:04:00] it.

[00:04:00] So people who are successful are just super courageous. They just go, fuck it, I'm just gonna do it. I don't know the how, but I don't need to know the how before I make the commitment. To do the thing. So being intelligent, yeah, it's important. Skill is important and successful experience is important, but without courage, none of these will lead to that transformative, personal breakthrough, and without courage.

[00:04:27] You can't generate new kinds of growth [00:04:30] in every area of your life. I had a conversation with two of our new Elevate members last night, in fact, and I was asking them to be courageous in making some big decisions to get the lady in particular out of her clinic. Because if she doesn't, and she doesn't make some courageous decisions, she cannot invest the time needed to move the business forwards.

[00:04:50] So the model that I'm talking about is actually the four Cs model, and it's how every breakthrough happens. It was, it is not invented by [00:05:00] me, it's being invented by Dan Sullivan, and it's illustrated by a kind of four stage clockwise progression. So commitment comes as stage one, courage is stage two, capability is stage three, and confidence is stage four.

[00:05:16] What often happens is people wait to feel confident before they then go and do something. I see, and I hear this all the time, but actually nothing starts until you commit to achieving a [00:05:30]specific measurable result at a specific date in your future. Once you've committed to the thing, courage is then required because you have to take action.

[00:05:44] Before you've acquired the capability to achieve the results. So whether it's something that you're trying to do in the business, whether it's stepping into getting help, whether it is outsourcing, whatever it is that you are [00:06:00] having to do within the business, you can't wait to feel confident before you make the decision to do it.

[00:06:04] You have to just decide. You then have to be courageous enough to take the initial action you need to actually move the needle, but you're not gonna know how to move the needle until you are courageous enough to just start. And capabilities actually created because of your commitment and because of your courage.

[00:06:23] And then finally, confidence is a result of those three stages. So what [00:06:30] often happens is that when we're waiting. For this feeling of confidence to do the thing, we're just getting in our way. We are procrastinating. We are paralyzed by fear. We are listening to the little monkeys in our brain that are chit chattering away, trying to keep us safe, trying to keep, pull us back to our ego, trying to pull us back into our safe or comfortable zone, even though it's not that much fun.

[00:06:57] I want you to think about when was the [00:07:00] last time that you were truly courageous when you threw it in the, if your children are listening, just stop them listening right now 'cause I'm about to swear. Throw it in the fuck it bucket and just go and do it. I'm doing it. I'm making the decision. I'm being entrepreneurial.

[00:07:18] I'm stepping out of this zone. I'm stepping into, yes, what is an unknown? Do I know how to do it yet? No. If I knew how to do it, I would already be there and be courageous enough to [00:07:30]make that decision. Entrepreneurs are actually,

[00:07:35] How can I say this? We are courageous individuals by nature. But past experiences can often hold us back and hold us in our safe zone. So most people don't take action, and most people don't take action on a project or a goal or a thing that they wanna achieve until they feel really confident, until they feel really capable about it.

[00:07:57] But. When you look at the four Cs formula, that's stage [00:08:00] three and stage four, so you can't have confidence until you've created a new capability and you can't acquire a new capability until you first made the commitment and gone through a period of courage. And this four stage process is the formula for all your breakthroughs.

[00:08:17] This formula is really universal and it starts with entrepreneurs when the moment that you recognize and you realize that it's okay to go through a period [00:08:30] of courage, we produce really big things. The formula tells us, of course, you are feeling a sense of fear. Of course, you are feeling uncertain. Of course, you are feeling discomfort.

[00:08:41] You've committed to doing something that is much bigger and better than what you were doing before. Now we have to grow into it. And growth at the early stages feels bad. It does not feel good. It feels scary. It's [00:09:00] about understanding that what you are experiencing is very natural. It's not something to be avoided.

[00:09:04] I want you to lean into it. It lets you know that fear isn't a sign that you should stop. It's a step. The process towards the next breakthrough. And this is something that you can learn. Now, a really simple way to do this is to remember a growth experience. So make it super easy. Start with something that you, personally a personal growth experience in the [00:09:30] past where you clearly went through these four stages, right? You have to make a commitment to be really brave. You then developed a new skill and capabilities and then you felt confident. So this can be something that's happened recently, a long time ago.

[00:09:43] And the important criteria here is that you took a big jump in capability and confidence as a result of going through this experience. Okay? So you're gonna draw your own four. You are gonna put four boxes on a page of a four. Okay. Two at the top, two at the bottom so the top right box [00:10:00]label what I committed to the box underneath that one.

[00:10:05] So the bottom right why this took Courage, bottom left, the capability that emerged. Top left the new higher confidence. Okay? And you are gonna fill those four boxes in. Recall your experience by writing down what your commitment to growth was in the situation. Describe the courage you required.

[00:10:27] Identify the new capability that [00:10:30] emerged as a result of your courage, and then write down the whole new level of confidence that you achieve from this experience. So you've got this kind of recognizable. Formula that you've grasped from this past experience, so you are ready to understand why this can now be the most important skill in the rest of your life.

[00:10:51] Okay? You've all taken risk, you've all been courageous. You've just probably not written it down and not recognized it. But after you've thought about it, [00:11:00] discuss the process. Keep it in mind as you go through. Making this next big decision or stepping into the thing that you have been avoiding, or you've been putting off, or you've been convincing yourself that you will just figure it out by yourself or you will just try something.

[00:11:17] First of all, commitment is the first part of the formula. First, you've gotta sell yourself. You've gotta, you've gotta have this strong, specific [00:11:30] commitment. You might not have the motivation to even begin, but commitment happens when you make a sale to yourself. It requires you to sell yourself on doing something you don't yet have the capability to pull off.

[00:11:42] When we made the commitment to have clinic growth, live version 2 20 26, I just made the commitment of how many people I wanted in the room. I didn't have. The capability. I didn't know how, like I didn't have the room. I didn't have, the hotel that was gonna be able to do it.

[00:11:58] To start with. We [00:12:00] didn't have the AV team. I had never presented in front of that many people before. I hadn't held a room like that before. I hadn't done the format that I'd produced before. I hadn't taught the things that I was gonna teach in that way before. I'd never had my team support in that way before.

[00:12:17] We had not done the marketing in that way before. We'd never done a WhatsApp campaign before. Like all of these things were created as a result of me making the commitment to sell myself on something [00:12:30] that I didn't have the capability to pull off at the time. That's what emerged as a result of it. So you are stating a particular result.

[00:12:39] It could be that, like for me it was the number of people that I wanted in the room to be able to help. So that is your the the first thing that you need to do. And the moment that I'd made that kind of commitment, and I had a deadline, it was like March the 26th, March 27th, I can't remember what it was.

[00:12:57] It was like, shit, now I have to [00:13:00] scramble. So procrastination stops you. Courage keeps you going. So often when we think of making a big commitment, we think of facing fear and uncertainty. Courage is your response to all of these worries and to all of these fears. It's the most important thing is to keep going forwards despite the temptation to procrastinate or to clean the grout in your tiles or.

[00:13:24] To turn away from that commitment. I see this time and time again when shit gets [00:13:30]tough for people, when things aren't working in the way that they think, they often push the blame, oh, this is not working for me. This format's not working for me. I'm not getting what I need from this. Or the marketing isn't working or This is not working, and actually this is the time that you need to lean in.

[00:13:50] You need to. Own it. You need to be courageous. The difference between procrastination and courage is that procrastination, like you feel the [00:14:00] fear, you make the excuses, and you stop. While the courageous person feels the fear and moves forward anyway, it's that whole moving forward, being courageous with wet pants.

[00:14:10] The opposite of courage isn't fair. It's actually being a coward and all of us experience fear, but how we respond to it. It's absolutely crucial. Confidence feels great, right? But courage really doesn't courage doesn't feel good to start with, but it doesn't mean periods of short periods of courage are necessary or are [00:14:30] not important.

[00:14:31] So my feeling is that. We talk about building resilience in business and how do you move to the next level. It's actually just like courage must be talked about as a major skill that you need to develop and learn and as a necessary step in the process of building confidence in any area.

[00:14:50] And then. Courage creates capability. So when you commit to achieving a breakthrough in your performance and your resource, the commitment triggers the courage to go into unknown [00:15:00] territory. The courage suddenly puts you in a position where you can fail, and it's scary because you are risking all of that you've already achieved.

[00:15:08] You are betting what you've already done. On the future, you are taking yourself out of your existing comfort zone, even though it's boring, letting go of your existing confidence to create a new higher level of confidence. Do I now think presenting in front of just short of 200 people is a big scary thing?

[00:15:29] No. [00:15:30] Did I think before I walked on stage, was I shitting my pants? Yes. Am I now going to do an event if I was to do it again next time for any less than that? No. So I've developed this new level of confidence. The brain. This brain puts you on a high alert and it has this like ability to create this new capability, but you get this big sense of adrenaline, you get a sense that like the sense of urgency [00:16:00] sharpens your mind, simplifies your priorities and your decisions, and you are highly energized to just make this breakthrough.

[00:16:07] And we saw this on the Ascend call this morning. We were talking to. One of the the girls in particular, and she was like, God, I feel like I could go and run 10 miles. I hate running. But yeah. And this is what was happening. It was like we were making the commitment and she's got that courage was coming through.

[00:16:22] So the moment you make a commitment, you might not yet have the capability or the confidence to pull it off. So when you go into action and start moving towards the [00:16:30] result, that takes courage. It doesn't mean you feel good about it, but you're gonna have to persist. Until the new capability and confidence actually comes into play.

[00:16:39] So did I feel good walking? Investing all this money in the hotel and the AV team and having all the team there on the day and all the marketing spend that we did to get people in the room. No, that all felt really scary. Did I stop at any point? No. We pushed harder. We lent into it. I was like, just lean into this feeling of discomfort.

[00:16:57] While you might not have the [00:17:00] choice about going through a period of courage, you do have a choice as to whether it's going to be a long period or a short period. A long period of courage would've been like committing to running that event in two years time. Okay? That would've taken me a long time to feel courageous and put all of that work and keep myself where I needed to be to deliver it on that.

[00:17:23] Whereas basically I gave myself six months. So it was a medium length of time that I had to really [00:17:30] lean into that into that courage. The uncomfortable period of courage is also shortened by the strength of your commitment. So the more specific your goals are and deadlines are the stronger and more achievable your commitment will be.

[00:17:43] Writing it down is on paper, like really important. Oh, having an accountability partner, being surrounded by people who are doing great things makes you step in and step up at a much bigger and higher level.

[00:17:59] [00:18:00] Outside of existing capability and confidence, this is key. You can skip the courage step, but you won't turn out a result that is any better than what you've already achieved before.

[00:18:11] If you skip this step, if you play a same safe game, you're just operating within your current, like present level of capability and confidence and courage comes into play when you've committed yourself to something outside of your level of confidence and capability. It's [00:18:30] the commitment without the guarantee of capability or confidence that it's really effin in scary.

[00:18:36] And this is actually where innovation comes from because innovation starts when people are thrown into a situation. They are committed to getting a bigger and better result, and then they have to figure it out. I didn't know all of this stuff that I needed to do. Before I made the commitment. But you can't sit on the sidelines and try and come up with a new capability.

[00:18:55] You actually have to be in the stress of it, the stress of that situation [00:19:00] to figure it out and to work your way out of it. So one of the great thing that happens when you let yourself go through this really uncomfortable period of courage is that you zone in on your most powerful areas.

[00:19:12] Like your zone of genius, which is where your greatest energy, your greatest usefulness, your greatest creativity are always found. So being in a committed state of courage enables you to use your zone of genius to innovate an [00:19:30] entirely new level, and then capability creates confidence. So the activity of going through a period of courage.

[00:19:39] With a clear breakthrough in mind produces the innovative energy to create a new, more powerful capability, more new skills. And the moment you acquire this capability, your confident goes bam, up next level. But so many of us wait to feel confident before we actually decide to do the thing that we want [00:20:00] to do.

[00:20:01] Bigger futures, better futures come from new capabilities. Confidence is just a byproduct. So I'm no longer gonna get people to score BPC business. Personal confidence, I'm gonna score business. Personal commitment. Confidence is how you feel as a result of acquiring the capability. That confidence in turn creates the capability to go to the next level again, and it sets you up for your next level of growth, and [00:20:30] that is why success breeds success.

[00:20:32] When we feel stagnant or when we feel stuck or we're playing too small a game it's because you're not being courageous enough. You are not making a commitment soon enough, quick enough. You are procrastinating, you are in a state of paralysis. So the bigger payoff from achieving greater confidence is actually a much stronger motivation and ability to start again.

[00:20:57] At a much higher level of performance and impact and to [00:21:00] keep doing this for the rest of your life. That is why you often see people who are courageous, who lean in, who are challenged and stick with the program and do the things we tell 'em to do, are the ones that breed more success and go to the next level.

[00:21:16] And that is why I love teaching our Ascend members, because they take responsibility. They own it a hundred percent. And I'm like, what do you need to do? Not blame your team. Not blame the marketing, not blame your coaching. Not blame this, not blame that. [00:21:30] What do you need to do? What do we need to commit to?

[00:21:33] How do we need to be courageous? And then we know that we are gonna, we're gonna get the capabilities and the skills and the things that we need to make that thing happen, to take us to the next level. I hope you have enjoyed this little short, sharp burst of motivation. And I just felt like I needed to share this concept, this formula with you, for you to take this into your week.

[00:21:57] What have you been avoiding? Where are [00:22:00] you waiting to feel confident before you actually do the thing? I would love to know, you can send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook or send me an email. If you've got my email address, send me a WhatsApp. If you've got my WhatsApp number loads, if you have, what have you been avoiding?

[00:22:14] Because you are waiting to feel confident. You're waiting for something to happen and evidence to be there for you to take that next step. Have a great rest of your day, and whatever your day has in store, just commit, just decide you're gonna do it, and I'll see you next week.

[00:22:29] [00:22:30] Thanks for listening to the Treat Your Business podcast. Hit subscribe now and keep joining me for bigger insights, older conversations to help you build a clinic and a life you [00:23:00] love.