The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett: Moment 127: How To Build Unbreakable Confidence By Making This ONE Promise To Yourself: Chris Williamson

You talked about the the paint the like the layers of paint that build confidence. This

is something that I've been particularly compelled by because so many people that listen to this

podcast struggle with the idea of confidence and there's a big industry out there as you've said

that says you know look in the mirror tell yourself you're a millionaire say it three

times write it in your journal but then as I reflected in as I've written in my book the

thing that and it relates to what Alex Hamosy said is the thing that I've learned is it's all

evidence for better or for worse stack of undeniable proof and it goes the other way

that evidence that you got at seven years old when you went up and tried to do a public

speech and everyone laughed at you it's more it's a thicker layer than than one layer of

evidence to say that you're capable it's a harder layer to sort of strip um if there is

someone listening now and they want to maybe orientate their drive to the fulfilling pursuits

that you talk about but also they want to build their confidence what advice would you give them

I imagine that's 80% of the listener base here act first okay you have to lead with action

because if you are someone that deals with a crippling sense of insufficiency

your ability to discount any good thoughts you have in your mind is going to be so strong

if you try and lead with positivity first I need to think it wish it believe it and I will achieve it

your set point of negativity is going to just crush that into the ground I'm speaking from

personal experience right as the guy that was chronically unconfident and still has you know

the imposter syndrome that does creep in you have to start with action it needs to be okay what would

have had to have happened in a week's time for me to look back on that week and find pride in myself

pride's seen as something that you should be ashamed of it's one of the seven deadly sins

but David Goggins I did an episode with him a couple of months ago we could put it in the

in the show notes if people are interested and he said pride is something that everybody misses

that having pride in your name your performance the way that you show up for other people is

something that you can do but you need to do something that is worthy of being prideful about

right what would have had to have happened in a week for you to look back on that week

with pride okay maybe stop breaking promises to yourself when you say I'm going to wake up

tomorrow at 7 a.m and when the option comes to hit the snooze button don't do it there's one win

that you've got for the day that's action right and it is just you know it's tried to say the

Peterson clean your room thing but the reason that that works is that you start with the smallest

step a step and you expand out from there you want to become a writer you want to leave your

job and become a writer okay can you commit to writing one blog post on substack per week for

the next three weeks that would make you feel like less of a loser if you did that

action has to come first if you're the sort of person who is chronically unconfident

because you will drag your sense of identity behind you Mark Manson says that identity lags

behind our status by about one to two years so for both me and you in two years time we'll go I

understand why I was in LA that day and and and look back start with action and make small promises

to yourself that you don't break if you had a friend and every single time that you and your

friend decided that you're going to go out for dinner that friend either showed up two hours

late or didn't show up at all you would stop trusting that person that is the relationship

that you have with yourself you need to be able to trust your own word and a lot of us don't

because life is very convenient and it is easy for people to not stick to the promises that they

set themselves because our ability to be idealistic is always going to outstrip reality's ability to

deliver that to us soon as you posit an ideal you then begin to compare yourself to that ideal

and true hell is when the person that you are meets the person that you could have been

sometimes I ponder how you've probably seen this in your own life I'm sure you have where

you'll have a friend in your life I've got a couple of friends back home who

I've tried to help in some way maybe give some advice when they're struggling in their hardest

times and the advice has been ineffective and then you've got another friend who will just

need one idea they'll be listening to a podcast and one idea will be the seed that changes their

life I often like think that I overestimate the power of words because everything you've said

there makes perfect sense but we both know that 95 percent maybe more of people that have just

received that it will not convert into any kind of behavior habits are hard to break man and the

habit of not doing things is unbelievably difficult to get past it's one of the problems with

anyone that listens to your show or my show you will love being cerebral right you will love the

idea that I can use cognitive horsepower to just get myself out of problems and there is a case of

learning as masturbation right and believing that learning about something is the same as enacting

it and it's not that's why it has to be action first a quote from one of my friends that he uses

when he's thinking about a concept is does this grow corn basically is it useful tell me how I can

use this in my life does it grow fucking corn right it's this beautifully beautiful sounding

concept cognitive bias that helps me understand the way that my brain works and my relationship

with everybody else how do I use that in my life give me something to apply it to and that's why

with the confidence thing choose promises that you will never break to yourself I'm going to get

up on time for the next month I'm not going to hit the snooze button if you do that and you look

back in a month and you go oh my god that that's the first time I've done that in forever maybe

that's a big win and you can do the James Clear thing we'll write it on a board we'll track it

what gets like measured etc etc but the main thing is just keep promises to yourself and that is a good

way to go from here is an insight I learned about I want to do breathwork cold plunge go to the gym

fast until 12 midday get up on time sunlight in the eyes and then whatever it is right that you want

to do turn it into a promise don't break the promise one of the really important things you said

there was about the size of that first step I was reflecting there on the way that video games are

designed to make sure that every subsequent level is not too intimidating that you lose a motivation

but it's not too small that you lose motivation as well you can lose motivation on both ways

and so it's the same with crosswords and video games they get incrementally more challenging to

keep you engaged the size of that first step is I think a central point there because when people

listen to podcasts with people like me and you or Andrew Huberman and they hear that they've

got to maybe get up at this time go outside gaze earth like put their feet on the ground cold

plunge and I go I'm going to do that and I set that as my first step I'm set up for failure

how important do you think the size and the subjective size of that small that first step

you take to build trust with yourself is and to start that discipline the goal isn't to have the

perfect daily routine tomorrow the goal is to still be winning your daily routine in 50 years time

if you expand your time horizon sufficiently you will realize that very very tiny steps can compound

look at the graph of mine or your followers on Spotify especially mine right because I was doing

my show for so long and it's just nothing nothing nothing nothing everything well why well it's

because it's latent leverage it takes so many layers of paint to get there so yes the first

step has to be incredibly small do that make it so small that you can't say no to it and then what's

next and then what's next so when I decided that I was going to try and become a more virtuous

version of me I was going to start telling the truth I was going to have a morning routine I was

going to develop a meditation habit I was going to read all of these things that I wanted to do

none of which I did right toward the end of my 20s none of which I did all of which are now the

foundation of of my life over I don't know 1500 meditation sessions and all of the authors on the

podcast and etc etc I had to do that one step at a time I didn't have a stable sleep and wake

pattern until COVID ever in my adult life I'd never gone to bed and woken up at the same time

for seven days in a row until COVID because I was running nightlife events right so if no matter how

difficult the setback is even if you're a shift worker you're a nurse you're a parent whatever

your challenge is just make the promise to yourself sufficiently small that even with

that challenge in front of you you can make it work

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.