Confidence —What Happens When Your Abilities Aren’t Enough?
What happens at the moment in time when you’ve run out of skills? You’re in a challenging situation, you’ve run out of skills, what do you do?
The proverb has it that necessity is the mother of invention; it is also the mother of virtue. Virtue is an acquisition to which pleasure must be sacrificed; and no-one sacrifices available pleasure unless his or her mind has been opened and strengthened by adversity, or the pursuit of knowledge goaded on by necessity. It is a good thing for people to have the cares of life to struggle with; for these struggles prevent them from becoming a prey to enervating vices purely through idleness!
— Mary Wollstonecraft
Fear predominantly comes from confronting the unknown. When we step out of our comfort zone, we are leaving familiarity. The significance of familiarity is the knowledge that no matter the challenge that may arise, we have proven our ability to overcome it and with that, comes comfort. However, when we step out of our comfort zone, it is more difficult to rely on past experiences and successes to give us confidence when we don’t know what type of challenge we will face next.
In an interview with sport and performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais, professional rock climber and free soloist, Alex Honnold, was asked, “What happens at the moment in time when you’ve run out of skills? You're in a challenging situation, you've run out of skills, what do you do?”
Initially stumped, Alex jokingly responded, “I dunno, you pee yourself.” Which is a realistic answer because these types of situations we either worry and fear about or experience in the moment and simply do what we need to do to overcome. Yet, in neither situation, did we realistically know they would occur.
These aren’t the moments we prepare for because they are the black swan’s of our profession. We don’t know how or when to prepare for them because we don’t yet know they exist. Although, that doesn’t mean they are a bad thing.
After some thought, Alex responded, “You just rise to the occasion. […] I go into Antarctica or places like that where you’re suddenly doing something that you’ve never technically done before, or you don’t exactly know that you can do it. But you just sort of have confidence that, you’re like, “I am a good climber. “And I will figure this out.””
This point was reiterated by US Air Force TACP Chief Master Sgt Tim ‘Chachi’ Pachasa. Because of his training and deployments in the military, he realized fear was a constant aspect of our lives. To live and operate under that fear, he learned that even if he doesn’t have the skills he needs now, he won’t shut down when the moment gets tough. Rather, he said, “If I run out of skills in this moment, I know I have the capability to be flexible and achieve the objective. I know this because I’ve done the work and I’m ready for the challenge.”
Running out of skills is often the true underlying fear that’s holding us back. When we think about the failure associated with trying something new, it is likely either complete failure, where we shut down and freeze up (an evolutionary response derived from a time when failure meant death), or social failure, where we are worried how we will be perceived by other people (also an evolutionary response derived from the time when being exiled from a group also meant death). But, these two responses don’t pose grave threats for us anymore.
Unlike Alex Honnold, we aren’t holding ourselves off the side of a 3,000ft cliff with just our fingertips. However, like Alex, we are facing challenges that we have the skills to overcome. It may not seem as if we have the skills required to face a big challenge, but that is likely because we aren't understanding how our current skills will translate to a new situation. Or, maybe, we don’t have the skills now, but we will develop them along the way or as a result of overcoming the new experience.
We mustn’t allow big goals, dreams, or the fear of the unknown hold us back from confronting the future. As Alex and Tim said, our skills don’t run out. Rather, we adapt to what is needed in the moment and respond with the skills that are required. There are innumerable skills underlying the ones we can see. Over time, we have been unconsciously accumulating abilities and skills that we will draw from when we face an unexpected challenge.
The fear that we are facing in anticipation of these events is very real. Denying that this is a reality is never my intention. In fact, every time I strap into the F-16, I confront these same types of fears. I constantly question whether I am ready or whether I prepared enough. However, I don’t let these fears hold me back because I know, when push comes to shove, and I find myself in a new situation, I can lean on my past experiences and training to discover a new solution and overcome. We can prepare nonstop for an event, but at the end of the day, we can’t control the situation we face. Instead, working to remain flexible and respond to the reality we are in will lead to lessons learned or success in every situation we face.
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
