Gaining confidence

Confidence has a different meaning for all of us and sometimes we can be brimming with it and other times we feel like it has disappeared altogether.

It is very natural to have confidence dips in different areas of your life.

Dictionary definition

con·fi·dence – noun

• Full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness or reliability of a person or thing: “We have every confidence in their ability to succeed.”

• Belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities;   self-confidence; self reliance; assurance: “I feel so confident that I can win this race.”

Look at the Wheel of Confidence areas - What are your confidence scores?

One is low and 10 is high.

• Career.
• Finances.
• Personal growth.
• Health.
• Family.
• Relationships.
• Social Life.
• Family.

This helps you to gauge where the low scoring areas are that might need to be focused on first.

How do you know when you or others are confident?

What do you see, hear and feel?

Imagine you had all the confidence you needed:

• What are the benefits of having all the confidence you need?
• What would that look and feel like?
• How would it improve your life?

Negative versus positive thoughts

Write a list of all the negative thoughts you have and then change them to helpful, more empowering ways of thinking.

Example:

• "I cant get the next step on the career ladder."

changed to:

• "I will focus on what I need to do in order to achieve getting the next step on the career ladder."

Five secrets of naturally confident people

• Talk to themselves in a positive self-empowering way.
• Make big, bold, positive images in their mind.
• Body language – Use their body as if they are confident.
• Learn to embrace the full range of their emotions.
• Become a role model and learn from the success of others.

Visualisation is a strong tool!

• Think of a memory when you were feeling confident.
• Notice everything in that memory (what you see, hear and feel).
• Picture it like it is happening now and notice what happens to you (your nervous system is strongly affected by your visualisation).

Knowing that you have a choice in how you perceive and respond to things that happen to you in your life is empowering!