I’m willing to bet that there’s something you’ve always wanted to do.

Maybe you want to write a novel, maybe you want to visit Africa, maybe you want to open a little coffee shop in your neighbourhood or maybe you’ve had an idea for a neat little product that just might change the world.

Everyone has at least one thing that you dream about, and 99.9% of the time you never do anything with them.

You persuade yourself that it’s pie in the sky, that’s it’s just a pipe dream and that it could never actually happen because you wouldn’t know where to start, couldn’t afford it and it probably wouldn’t work anyway. You lose faith in your ability to make your dream reality, and lose a little faith in yourself in the process.

The more you filter what you wish for, the more you train yourself to think small, and the less confident you become.

But what if it was possible? What if you could make some or all of it happen? What if you had what it took to see something come to life? Wouldn’t that be cool?

Here’s my 3 step process finding the confidence to do what you’ve always wanted to do.

1. Look into it

   Do some leg work and investigate what might be needed to get going. Look online for resources and examples of how other people have done similar things. Go talk with people who’ve been there, done that (use Ecademy or LinkedIn to find good people to talk with).

   Write down what you need to know and what you need to figure out so that you can make a decision to do it or not. Having investigated you might find that in reality it’s not up your alley after all, or you might find yourself getting pretty darn excited at what you’re discovering. Either way, looking into it won’t cost you anything and you’ll never know without doing the leg work.

2. Make a choice

   Once you’ve looked into it, you need to make a choice based on 2 things.

   a. What matters to you. Is the choice founded on something that matters to you personally? Is it something you can engage with on an ongoing basis? Is it something you’ll enjoy no matter how it turns out? If not, you’re much less likely to follow through with it.

   b. Your priorities. How does this fit in with your other priorities (family, finances, career, hobbies, etc)? What compromises are you willing to make going forwards, and where are the boundaries? It might be the case that your priorities are such that now isn’t the right time, in which case figure out what criteria needs to be satisfied and when is the right time.

   Once you’ve figured those 2 things out, make your choice and commit to it. That commitment is what will carry you through, and it’s an attitude and a way of behaving that shapes your experience and behaviour as you go forwards.

3. Do one thing
   If you’ve made a choice to go forwards, do one thing today. Just one thing. Then do one more thing tomorrow.

   That’s all.

   Do one thing every day – no matter how big or small – and in a year you’d have done a whopping 365 things towards something you want. Even the most complex of tasks (and the Biggest and Messiest of projects) can be achieved simply by doing one thing followed by another, then another, then another. Don’t elevate the task to something bigger than you, break it into chunks that you can deal with and tackle each one in turn.

   If the one thing you do on a particular day doesn’t work out, don’t sweat it. There’s the next day to try it a different way so don’t beat yourself up – you can’t control how everything turns out.

   Oh, don’t think that once you’ve made a decision that you can’t make a different decision. Often you need to tune things as you go, and sometimes what you learn along the way renders the destination redundant. Being confident means allowing yourself to continue to make choices that serve you well.