When you know you won't give up, then - as long as you're willing to play the long game - everything is possible.

One of the most pernicious ideas that has somehow permeated so many of our lives is that we need to feel confident before we do something.

When reflecting on why coaching seems to only always increase people's confidence, I realised that it's because of what confidence really is: an embodied belief that the actions we take will lead to the outcomes we desire. And the most powerful way to develop that embodied belief is to take actions and see what happens. And, if they tend to lead to what we want - which, if you choose them wisely they tend to - then the confidence grows.

Then I met Rich Litvin and he told me why that is important: that confidence is a RESULT not a requirement, even though we treat it the other way round - as a requirement for action, not a result of it.

And then Meg Lyons shared this video with me, from Dan Sullivan, which gave me the final piece. Because if confidence comes after action, what comes before? And as Sullivan says in the video: courage and commitment come first. And those are attributes which I prize very highly.

I have found those stories about confidence to be true. When I published my first book in December last year it was tense, frightning, full of Resistance. I took to re-reading the 'impact' testimonials at the front of that book as a way to keep going through the 'Who am I to do this?' that was flaring in my mind. It took me more than two years from the book being finished to releasing it. It took me weeks and weeks after the book came out before I became remotely comfortable talking about - but that's normal, when our identity shifts, it's always going to feel awkward at first to talk about that.

And when, last week, I published my second book - How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up - things were different. It wasn't without stresses, it wasn't without Resistance, it still came out later than I had planned, but it wasn't as bad. There was much less fear.

Part of that was because my confidence had grown. I had an embodied belief that the actions I would take would lead to the outcomes I desired. The unknown quantities of the process were smaller.

So share your work: because each time, it gets easier.

Because it is less scary.

And so with Book 2, less courage was required.

And because less courage was required, well, something else was different.

The rush was smaller.

Fewer people celebrated with me on social media, and maybe that was part of it, and who knows why.

But more of it, I think, was about me.

I love starting things. When I made a list of my meaningful and enjoyable successes at the start of last year, none of them were about carrying on with things, keeping things going. They were about scaling mountains for the first time, learning new things, creating amazing first-of-a-kind experiences for myself and others.

That's a part of myself I have to recognise. I get rushes from starting things.

One of the most powerful things about publishing a series of books about the creative process - about what I've discovered about what it takes to make work that counts and share it - is that they are books for me, first of all (as Toni Morrison said: 'If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.')

And in publishing the series, but particularly the second book, about how to keep going, I saw something new. That I am in a permanent discovery, week after week, as someone who has kept going with something for this long. That this mountain, really, will never be scaled.

I have been amazed by the transformations created in me by holding to a commitment for nearly six years. And at no stage have I known what the next transformation would be. Except, perhaps, right at the start, when I had a sense that I could become someone who could share themselves online without the crippling fear and anxiety I felt at the time. And that - by sharing my work week after week - I have certainly become.

But since then, the things that have happened to me as I have continued to lean into creativity - to keep going, week after week, even when others would have stopped, even when I have stopped everything else comparable that I've done in my life - those things that have happened have suprised me. Who I have become, who I am becoming, surprises me.

That in some ways, shiny as the next new project might look, exciting as the next new mountain might be, the practice of keeping going has been one of the most amazing mountains I have ever climbed.

And as I wrote on the back of the book: one of the discoveries I have made from becoming someone who can keep practising something for nearly six years is that when you know you won't give up, then - as long as you're willing to play the long game - everything is possible.

That's what I want for you, too.

So keep creating. Keep sharing. And don't give up.

—

This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online. 

The first two 12-Minute Method books are out now!

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