High conviction

Arjun’s note: Welcome to Edition 16. I write about the importance of conviction and how you should leverage it to bet on yourself. If you are feeling generous, please share the newsletter (linked here) with your favourite Whatsapp group chat and ask them to subscribe :).

You know it when you see it. This is true for most things in life, but not for conviction. You feel conviction in your voice and in others. You sense it in the room and sometimes it’s your mind playing tricks. It is a sense of belief in your words or actions. Infectious like the common cold, it spreads rapidly if it emerges from a sense of purpose. All it needs is one person with an undying belief in their ideas.

It is a starting point but it’s not the sole determinant for victory. You can possess the greatest conviction in the room and still fail at your task. It does not inoculate you from failure. It only steels you to get back up and pursue your task with unimpeded faith. It reminds you to be disciplined in times when others lose their heads. Conviction doesn’t strip you of hesitation; it lets you believe even when you hesitate. You can still question everything but you do so knowing that you can win. It will just take longer and require a different path.

You can buy energy in beverage form in <$1 from the nearby supermarket. This fuels you to do things. However, sans conviction, you don’t want to do things. You can use the same bottled energy to stretch out on a couch and watch sitcoms. You waste away if you lack conviction. It is not an antidote to commercial consumption. You will still want to kill time with friends/ family and eat things that are bad for you. A fascination with cringe television will persist even if you possess an ounce of conviction.

The only thing that conviction does is to make you want more out of life. It pushes you uncomfortably to do things that you have never done before with elevated levels of self-confidence. It cannot be easily explained. When you possess conviction, it shows on your face and it reflects in your acts. You don’t have to know everything on day one, and it allows you the grace to discover your capability.

It looks different for everyone. The conviction required to re-record four bestseller albums and counting as with Taylor Swift is immense. Similar levels of conviction were required for the Cleveland Cavaliers to come back and win 4-3 from 3-1 down in the 2016 NBA finals. Beyond tabloids and sports pages, this conviction shows up closer to home when you take a bet on yourself.

Unlike sports and elections with publicly available betting odds, your life outcomes have no publicly declared percentages. You have to figure it out for yourself. Your victories and failures are deeply personal. These resurrect and ransack your conviction in varying measures. The only thing you can do is to keep believing in yourself and your purpose. You are good enough especially when every shred of evidence indicates otherwise. 

Your delusion is worthy when you have conviction. Even your odds are unfavourable when you abandon conviction. There is no greater swing factor in your life than your sense of purpose. Full of yourself, and you might make it. Uncertain and afraid of your own shadow, and you will lose out. The vicissitudes of life are easier to contain when you act from conviction and not coercion.

Use high conviction to chase ideas and projects that excite you. Your greatest stories emerge from uncertain times and that is when you lean on your reserves of conviction. Your floor for failure in uncertainty should be higher than your ceiling for success in certainty. This is when you are on the right path. Remember, you are ready to do things before you have the required experience. Conviction will delude you just enough to get you over the line. Run, walk, crawl- it’s all the same once you land on the right side of the finish line. Odds aside, believe in yourself like your life depends on it.