Confidence: Too Much of a Good Thing?

There are certain occasions where having confidence serves you well – when you’re trying to land a job, dating, giving a presentation, etc.

However, there is a time when being overly confident can actually hurt you, and it has to do with your health.

While you do need some confidence when it comes to making lasting changes to your health and well-being, there is such a thing as being overly confident.

When we’re overly confident in the area of making healthy changes, here’s what happens.

We tend to make changes that are too big and overwhelming for us.

It’s like having a big project such as decluttering your entire house, garage, basement, and attic… and trying to tackle it all at once.

Feels overwhelming, right?

It’s no wonder we procrastinate so much and so often – it’s because we can have a little too much of a great thing – that thing being confidence in what we can accomplish in a certain amount of time.

I have a client who is currently working on just this – decluttering her home.

However, she works in very small chunks each week, like a cabinet or pantry or bag of T-shirts that have been collecting dust in her closet.

It sounds like it could take forever to declutter your entire house this way, but what’s the alternative – never starting because you bit off more than you can chew?

Consider your health goals as well.

Imagine transforming your body and health like decluttering the house – you can’t do it all in one Saturday afternoon; it’s more manageable to take it in small chunks and work through it slowly but surely.

Reaching your health goals are simply another project, and it’s important to treat it like one.

It’s really hard to work on everything at once; that’s why I believe in working on one thing at a time, like I shared about my client who is making incredible progress decluttering her entire house by just working on one cabinet or one bag a week, and she gets excited to check in with me each week to report her progress.

This is how I recommend moving toward your health goals – one small area at a time. 

This way, it’s doable for you.

While you might feel like you have to be Superwoman in other areas of your life, it really doesn’t work when it comes to your health.

Being overly confident and ambitious are traits that I love seeing women have, but again, it can work against you when making long-lasting behavioral health changes.

I’ve been emphasizing “The Tortoise and the Hare” analogy a lot lately because while it may not seem sexy to approach your health like the tortoise rather than the hare, recall the story of who wins the race in the long run.

If you’re not interested in the long run, then go ahead, be the hare, but know that she eventually burns out quickly because she was overconfident from the beginning, while the tortoise keeps moving and keeps making progress, putting one foot in front of the other, even if slowly.

The take-home message is to be confident, yes – we need more confident, ambitious women like yourself in this world, but realize that being overly confident when it comes to making changes to your health habits and behaviors can work against you.

Remember, you can’t declutter the whole house in one day and you can’t transform your health that quickly either.

Take it one small step at a time. It’s much easier to course-correct than to start and stop over and over again.

You got this! (but over time, not tomorrow)…

 

 

 

P.S. I was recently on a podcast talking about this, so if you’d like to hear more, you can listen in HERE.

 

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