How many of us wish we could have more of it? How many of us act out our aspirational confident selves hiding like the Wizard of Oz behind a curtain of confidence our more vulnerable selves?
Hardly anybody has enjoyed a seamless stream of success. Life inevitably unfolds its challenges as well as triumphs. When we are on a roll, even setbacks can be easily overcome and forgotten as our positive momentum pushes us forward. However when our luck turns and we go through times when it feels that nothing works, our skin becomes thinner and we tend to dwell on failures, sometimes imaginary, and second-guess ourselves, rather than trusting that life will help us come to a point of resolution.
Self-confidence is ultimately about TRUSTING LIFE.
Easier said than done, isn’t it? Many people come to me as a coach when they go through periods of transition - be it career transition, break-up with a partner, move to a different cultural environment or a change in their usual routine such as when children leave the parental home. It is understandable that we may need support at such times. Our confidence gets particularly shaken when we go through periods of significant change in our lives.
While “this too shall pass” may be a useful mantra, I know how difficult and daunting it can be to pull yourself together while you are feeling low.
Here are a few coping strategies which have worked for me and my clients:
1. Reach out to people who can remind you of your achievements and help you internalize your success. Discuss your struggles with like-minded people who have proven to be nonjudgmental listeners and useful sounding boards in the past. Avoid discussions with people who you have experienced as critical or judgmental in the past.
2. Focus on your body and your body language. This one is probably worth a separate post, but even simple things like standing and sitting up straight, grounded and occupying more space, and making sure that you breath properly, can inhibit the release of adrenaline and cortisol - hormones which make us feel stressed and anxious.
3. Avoid comparisons. It is wise to be aware of what the competition are doing, but we don’t grow grass by focusing on our neibour’s garden. Instead we need to nurture our own.
4. Go for quick wins as an immediate confidence boost. Even tiny achievements like tidying up your bed first thing in the morning, clearing up your inbox, tidying up your desk or completing some paperwork (finally!) will make you feel as if you are making progress, which can provide that much needed positive energy for discovering what is right for you in the long run and implement your vision.
5. And finally- “Keep buggering on!”- as Churchill was fond of saying. The moment when you feel like giving up might be just a step away from when you are about to break through!
Who is in your personal boardroom?
In the pursuit of a basic human emotional need to belong and be accepted, on the one hand, and desire to realise our ambitions, on the other, many of us experience the tension between seeking external approval and an immunity to what others make of us.
One way of analysing this tension is to imagine that you have a board of directors governing your life. On this board are a number of people, some from your current life, some from the past - the ones whose judgement of your actions you often try to second guess.
Notice who appears in your boardroom, without judgment or editorial control; whether you like who has a place there or not. Maybe a parent or spouse? An ex-boss or colleague? Ex-husband or boyfriend? Friend from University? Old school teacher? Or maybe even children?
Then ask yourself:
Who is in charge?
Who is holding you back?
Are you happy with the number of people on the board?
Do you have the right balance of positive and negative voices?
Watching you? Watching me?
Are you familiar with the feeling that other people are watching and judging you? Whether it is in the context of public speaking, starting a new job or even taking up a new sport?
Overcoming fear of public speaking is one of the most common issues in business coaching. Even very experienced people often report great discomfort when facing the need to appear in front of an audience.
This short article is not about giving advice on the presentation skills. I would rather like to focus on one particular aspect relevant to it, since I noticed that many people sigh with relief when I share this thought.
The idea is simple: most people in your audience while indeed looking at you with interest are no less concerned about the impression they make. Some of their energy goes to either formulating some clever question to ask you, or making sure that no one notices that they struggle to keep their eyes open after yesterday's sleepless night, or imagining what they will look like if they are to speak after you.
In 1991 Flett and Hewitt proposed the concept of "socially prescribed perfectionism" as one of the dimensions of perfectionism. This is a tendency, mainly displayed by people with high expectations from themselves, which manifests itself in the assumption that others have expectations of you which are almost impossible to meet - in the quality of work/ presentations etc. Needless to say that people with such tendency find it particularly difficult to overcome the fear of judgement and criticism. But you can work with this.
Based on my yesterday’s experience, even when you go out as a learner on the golf course, and it seems that all your fellow golfers are watching your swing closely, ready to judge, in fact they are much more concerned what their swing is going to look like when it’s their turn to play. So you are not the only one under the spotlight!
Of course other tricks can help to build confidence - as wisely observed by my trainer - "You might have no idea what you are doing, but you clearly look the part!”
Limiting beliefs
⚡️”I am not creative enough to run my own business”.
⚡️”I’ve never been good enough at dealing with people to become a senior executive”.
⚡️”I just don’t have the confidence you need to stand in front of hundreds of people”.
I often find myself exploring such limiting beliefs with people, especially when they are going through career transition or trying to develop their own business.
We all have limiting beliefs and they can often be difficult to see because these are assumptions that we hold about ourselves, which we take as “givens”.
However, reframing limiting beliefs is a SKILL and one which CAN, with a bit of practice, most definitely BE DEVELOPED.
“I am not a native English speaker. I speak with an accent. The UK market is full of seasoned native English speaking coaches. Therefore, I will never be able to find clients here”, - that used to be my limiting belief when I first moved to the UK, my husband’s home country.
Then one day I realized that this story was effectively just self-sabotage and made a conscious choice to reframe my story. So instead of telling myself that my accent was a disadvantage, I started thinking that the fact that I come from a very different background, that I had worked internationally in big multinationals and had exposure to many different cultures could serve me as a competitive advantage.
We all have limiting beliefs, however it is our CHOICE whether we use those beliefs as excuses not to pursue our vision of success or whether we revisit them and consciously develop the skill of reframing them.