23 October 2020|Latest Posts, Psychology
By Paul Russell. I get told all the time ‘you’re lucky, you’re confident, I wish I had more confidence to speak to people I don’t know’. Realistically everyone tends to lose confidence from time to time. It is very hard to stay confident 100% of the time. Ask any speaker or trainer and they’ll tell you that they get nervous and have a small crisis of self-doubt almost every time they’re about to set foot onto a stage. I know I certainly still do.
If you take a step back and think about it; we speak to people we don’t know all of the time, on a daily basis, and usually don’t give it a second thought. The new client who calls is a stranger, as is the shop assistant in the shop you’ve never been to before. Your work colleagues were all strangers at one point and yet you managed to be confident enough to speak to them.
On the other hand, people who appear more confident do tend to get ahead more. They usually get chosen for the more important projects, they appear to get promoted easier and faster. It stands to reason that possessing confidence is something we should all aspire to.
Here are some tips that I use:
Self-talk. You probably already use self-talk, we all practice a run through in our heads, the conversation we’re about to have with our boss, what we’re going to say at a meeting and so on. However, it’s what you say to yourself after that practice run that can be harming your confidence. Running through failure options as a strategy to understand how you might avoid them is one thing, telling yourself you’re doomed to fail is quite another! Switch negative thoughts with positive thoughts and start thinking positively. Start telling yourself you’re going to succeed rather than fail. What we tell ourselves can be self-prophesising. Positive thinking is the first step towards becoming confident.
Visualise. Start visualising yourself accomplishing the important things. It is a very powerful tool. Never visualise failure. Try to see yourself as accomplishing goals from the moment you start working towards them. This gives you the motivation and belief to achieve things and ultimately become more confident.
Don’t compare yourself with others. No one is perfect and you certainly don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s head. Certainly very few people believe me when I tell them that I am, in fact, naturally quite shy. It’s easier for me to speak to 2000 people than it is for me to approach one stranger and speak to them, but I’ve learned to deal with it and overcome it. So instead of comparing yourself to others, try to think about your own achievements and what you’re good at. Everyone is unique and has their own set of strengths.
Change your attitude. Attitude is everything. If you believe you will fail, you will. It’s as simple as that.
Reinforce the belief in you. If you have the belief in yourself that you can achieve anything you put your mind to and that nothing is impossible, you’ll start to see changes. Tell yourself ‘I am confident’, ‘I am talented’, ‘I am self-assured’. Sounds silly right? But it works. Reinforcing your own belief in yourself makes you more confident in yourself.
Remember confidence is the key to success. If you’re not confident in your own abilities, can you really expect others to be confident in them?
Paul Russell is the Director and Co Founder of the Luxury Academy
