So you’ve heard it all before? Part 2: Confidence

 

This is part 2 of a four part series titled So You’ve Heard It All Before?

1: Gratitude
2: Confidence
3: Destiny
4. What Next?

 
This short series began after I attended a school awards night. One of the speeches was on confidence, and the material presented was not exactly new. But it was compelling. And inspiring! So I really just want to pay tribute to something I was reminded of – sometimes it’s good to hear material we may have heard before! It helps reiterate what we already know, and gives us a fresh perspective from another person’s view point. From time to time we also learn something!

Confidence

I’m going to cut right to the chase here with confidence. Confident people have always been role models for me. When I sit down and think about how I want my life to be, I often reflect on people I admire. Many self help books recommend doing this little exercise – finding a mentor, someone to model your life on. When I come up with such people, I always come up with people who are strong, confident.

Sometimes it’s people I know, other times it’s people who have celebrity status. When John Mayer waltzes onto the stage with just an acoustic guitar and a mic, that’s a lot of pressure. It takes confidence to pull it off. I can’t imagine how Barack Obama felt when under scrutiny on some tough issues with the media and masses of people ready to pounce. Confidence. I always love it when people can stand up to their beliefs with confidence, especially in the face of criticism or pressure.

Confidence encompasses so much of our lives. From trivial, daily tasks to massive undertakings – they all require some degree of confidence in yourself and confidence in other people. So what is it about confidence that’s so great? Why do I aspire to be like these people? And are they really confident, or just giving off the illusion of confidence?

Confidence:
1. belief in own abilities: self assurance or a belief in your ability to succeed
2. faith in somebody to do right: belief or trust in somebody or something, or in the ability of somebody or something to act in a proper, trustworthy, or reliable manner

What is Confidence?

Confidence is a broad topic that literally refers to not only a belief in yourself, but also a belief and trust in other people or things, as the above definition suggests. What I’m actually going to focus on in this post is self-confidence.

Self-confidence is the quality I admire most in people who I hold in high regard. It’s that it factor that some people just seem to have that separates them from others.

Let me present you with some interesting thoughts on confidence from Steve Pavlina:

One of the reasons people don’t feel confident is that they harbor limiting beliefs that block them from tapping into this inner resource. For example, do you believe that in order to feel confident, you must be well-prepared? Believe it or not, that’s a limiting belief.
 
Even if you aren’t well prepared for a situation, you can still choose to feel confident. It’s entirely possible to be competent and well-prepared and still feel tremendous self-doubt.

I’ve roller-coasted through different phases of self-confidence as follows:

  • Over-confident phase (high-school)
  • Under-confident (University)
  • Somewhere in between (Current)

I’ve always been told that to gain more confidence, you just need to do it. Go out and do the things that you are unsure of, or things that make you nervous. “With practice and experience bring confidence”.

And so begins the great paradoxical dilemma – to get it, you need to just do it. But how do you have the confidence to do it, when you are lacking in confidence to begin with?


credit: Army.mil

 

How To Boost Your Confidence

When I get tips from people I like them to be experts on the subject, or at least for the information to come from a credible source. For example, it’s tough to take financial advice from people who haven’t made a lot of money themselves (where’s the proof!?).

These four fantastic ways to inject a massive boost to your self-confidence come directly from someone who exhibits great self-confidence, Steve Pavlina.

Steve recommends using each of the following four strategies to strengthen and improve upon your levels of self-confidence:

  1. Visualisation – If you picture yourself sometimes doing well and sometimes failing, this is really promoting a lack of confidence. You’re sending your mind and your body mixed messages. Instead, when thinking about a particular situation or event where you want to be confident, see yourself acting with confidence in your minds eye. Keep your mind focussed on what you want, and permit only images of you performing at your best.
     
    If you start to have feelings of uncertainty, stop running that pattern and replace it with confident images. When you constantly visualise what you want, you’re far more likely to be confident when the event occurs.

    2.  

  2. Speaking Confidently – this is all about projecting confidence, also sometimes known as a fake it ’till you make it approach. You can often pick up in someones voice when they are doubting themselves. This is partly due to word choice, and partly due to the delivery. Lines like “umm I might be able to” or “I’ll hopefully get to it” are a lot less likely to instill any confidence, compared with statements like “no problem, I’ll get it done”.
     
    When you speak confidently you create the feeling of confidence. Word choices like absolutely, definitely, and no problem are much better than hopefully, probably, maybe. Confidence is a state of being, and language choice helps to put ourself in that state.

    3.  

  3. Moving Confidently – nervous people exhibit symptoms like shallow breathing, rocking from side to side and slumping their shoulders. Shuffling from side to side is a common indicator of uncertainty in someone’s mental state – mixing feelings of confidence coupled with self-doubt. To stop your body having symptoms of self doubt, you need to create symptoms of self confidence. Take deep breaths, put your shoulders back and stand tall. If you are putting your body in confident positions it helps to over-ride feelings of self doubt.
     
    Smiling is also indicative of self confidence. The way you use your body creates an emotional effect on the inside. One suggested method of using movement techniques to be a confident public speaker is to take deep breaths, relax, pause over a room and smile at the start of a speech. Even if you’re not as prepared as you’d like to be, it’s better to feel confident because it will allow you to perform better, even when conditions aren’t the best.

    4.  

  4. Stimuli – you can also use external stimuli to trigger feelings of confidence, for example, listening to empowering songs before a situation where you want to project confidence. Triggering stimuli helps to induce self-confidence by making us feel a certain way.
     
    Music is one useful stimuli, another might be using or looking at something that reminds you of past successes. Remember a time in the past when you felt confident, and use a physical trigger to remind you, like a photograph or award etc.

I really believe these four areas are significant ways to improve self-confidence – they have worked for me, and I’m getting better at being more confident in a variety of areas. One thing I’ve discovered with self-confidence, is that you have to work at it. For me personally, I like to tell myself to remain cool and calm on the outside, even if when I’m lacking in confidence on the inside. This helps my whole body calm down and maintain an air of confidence, even when its lacking.

Want to improve self-confidence? Get in and do it rather than shying away, and make use of the four techniques: visualisation, speaking, moving and stimuli.

What are your experiences with confidence – have you had any successes with techniques like the ones presented above?