LET’S TALK CONFIDENCE
There’s not much research into confidence from the positive perspective, there’s lots about what impacts it and what happens to us when it’s negatively impacted.
Did you know that:
• 93% of people believe self-confidence is critical to professional success
• 85% of people report struggling with self-confidence issues at some point in their lives
Source – Psychology Today – 2019
Interestingly, I know some people are interested in whether confidence is gender specific and there is some research from 2003 that suggests men overestimate their performance and abilities, and women underestimate them – but when it came to
actual performance there was no difference in performance or abilities between genders.
What we know about confidence is that it’s something we can build.
But put simply – true authentic confidence can be moulded, it can be what we want it to be if we practice – like anything we want to be good at – confidence takes practice.
THE SCIENCE BIT
I explore what makes up our confidence in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUcXjsJsHjI&t=16s
Confidence – outward display of behaviour, it means different things to different people and will be situational – it has a presence in everything we do.
Our UPBRINGING is where our beliefs and values are created. We form our identity and who we are fundamentally at this stage. These beliefs and values are held close, we learn right from wrong, we learn manners and we copy and believe those around us. We often take “things” from our childhood into later life.
We can’t change our upbringing, but we can choose to look back at it through different eyes and perspectives and this can help us to see things differently.
Our EXPERIENCES are where we learn, grow, make memories, build resilience. These experiences are so wide ranging from childhood through to the present day.
Experiences are significant things that you can relate to your confidence levels – high and low.
Maybe leaving home, going to university, first job, first love, mistakes you’ve made, successes you’ve had.
Our ENVIRONMENT is not just our physical environment, although that can play a part in how confident you feel. Environment is also about who we surround ourselves with, are they our cheerleaders that don’t just tell us what we want to hear?
It might relate to what we are doing and our knowledge of that task.
It can be related to the here and now as well as the past where certain environments make us feel less or more confident linked to our EXPERIENCE in that environment.
For that confident display to take place, there are 3 more points that can build a stronger, more confident you.
COURAGE – you can’t get to confidence without courage. Let’s be honest where something new of different is concerned, it’s unlikely you’ll feel confident. So having a bit of courage to give things a go – to take action – will help to build that confident feeling.
PRACTICE – as the saying goes “practice makes perfect”, (if there is such a thing as perfect?!). What we do know is that anything we want to be good at takes practice. Confidence is no different, it takes practice.
CONSISTENCY – We don’t very often if at all become good at something when we’ve only done it once! Along with practice, once you’ve started to master this thing, being consistent will be what makes a lasting change, a difference. Hormones and neurotransmitters such Serotonin for mood and keeping us calm, Oxytocin for optimism and warmth and dopamine to inspires doing, exploring and taking action all lay the ground work for us to experience confidence as a feeling,
BUSTING SOME MYTHS ABOUT CONFIDENCE
• You’re either confident or you’re not – no-one is born confident, those you perceive to be confident are likely to have faced into uncomfortable situations, they’ve taken action to push their boundaries all of which combine to build confidence.
• Fake it till you make it – True Confidence isn’t about pretending, it comes from having courage to take action and it’s the result of practice and consistency.
• Confidence is only for extroverts – It’s important to remember that you can absolutely be a confident introvert, just as you can be an unsure extrovert.
• Confident people are always confident – Confidence doesn’t hang around 100% of the time, it’s situational and confident people have insecurities too
• Confident people take big risks – The size of the risk is not important, what you think is a big risk will be a small risk for someone else and vice versa.
Find more detail on how you can bust these confidence myths for yourself with a downloadable document: https://www.enrichmentcoaching.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/5-Confidence-Myths.pdf
5 CONFIDENCE HACKS FOR YOU AND YOUR BUSINESS
I believe that we are our engine rooms of our business and we have to look after ourselves, we have to do some of this inner work – when we do it we are stronger, more confident and ultimately our businesses will benefit.
#1 – Tame Your Inner Critic
We all have one! It’s that voice in your head that tells you what to do or what not to do, for some it’s loud, for some it comes at 3am, for some it’s like a broken record saying the same thing – like you can’t, don’t do that.
The role of the inner critic is to protect us, it appears to have our best interests at heart. It comes from pre-historic times when we had to avoid danger. Don’t kid yourself that the inner critic is always right – they’re not! That little voice makes us
question ourselves, stops us from taking action and opportunities.
My inner critic is called Betty – she loves to ask me what if? Betty reminds of a lovely old lady who goes on a bit, outstays her welcome and has too many opinions, particularly about what I should do to have a successful business. Now I can’t be
rude to Betty, but I can happily thank her for her opinion and tell her I have it covered.
There are many ways you can tame your inner critic – from turning down the volume to being curious about whether what they are saying is true or false.
For me, naming her has taken away a bit of her power, it makes my critic less of me, makes her easier to tame.
#2 – Stay in Your Own Lane
Comparison is the thief of joy according to Theodore Roosevelt. Ask yourself, how does comparing yourself or your situation to others make you feel? I imagine probably not great – especially with the show reel of life that is social media!
You know the comparison I’m talking about:
• The person who’s at capacity with their work – I’ve only got 3 spaces to work with you
• The person who’s SOOOOO busy – but they have time to constantly post on social media
• The person who’s always travelling for work – you don’t see the bit where they’re sat in their hotel room on their own.
• The person who’s always on holiday because that’s what their business has given them – living their best life!
Actually, it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not – you will compare yourself to what you see, your perception of reality.
You know when we suffer from comparisonitis there will always someone you know, you meet, you see, listen too, who you perceive as being better, more successful, more capable or who have more and have done more than you. You will always find
ways that you don’t match up to that, because with comparisonitis that’s what you’re seeking.
You’ll look for more evidence to support and confirm what you’ve decided is true; the negative ways you don’t match up, what you don’t have, can’t do or will never be.
But these sorts of negative comparisons only create resentment and feelings of unfairness.
You can never be fairly compared to anyone else. Your time and effort could be better spent thinking positively about yourself.
Stay in your own lane, Compare yourself to yourself. Your business to your business. Don’t let comparisonitis steal your joy!
#3 – Take the Fail
Whilst I would never advocate calling yourself an idiot when something goes wrong – I think we’ve all been there! I’d say,
embrace the idiot in you and accept that in business you are going to make mistakes, you are going to get things wrong. Unless
of course, you don’t want to grow, you want to stay over there in your comfy outfit and stay as you are?
We have to make mistakes to know what works and what doesn’t work. Mistakes are where we grow and where we learn.
We fail (FIRST ATTEMPT IN LEARNING) fast and we have to learn to take that fail.
Instead or calling yourself an idiot for making that mistake, reframe it as an opportunity to learn for next time.
Because real life suggests that somethings we’ll do will go really well and our confidence level will be high. Some things won’t go as we planned resulting us rapidly descending that confidence rollercoaster.
Keep track of the things you FAIL(ed) at so you can see how far you’ve come and what you’ve learnt.
#4 – Environment
Running a business can be lonely.
Your environment becomes important for you, your business, your confidence and your sanity!
By environment I don’t just mean your physical environment such as where you work, although that plays a part in how you feel and your levels of confidence. I mean environment in terms of who you surround yourself with. The people around you have an influence on you whether consciously or unconsciously.
I’m a big fan of the work of Brené Brown and in her book Daring Greatly and in Dare to Lead, she talks about a “Square Squad” of people.
Get a one inch by one inch piece of paper and write down the names of all the people whose opinions truly matter to you. It needs to be small so you are forced to edit it.
The people on your list:
• Are not “Yes” people – as Brené says this is not the “suck-up” squad
• These are people who respect you enough to tell you the truth, not what they think you want to hear.
• They are happy to give you feedback that points out where you didn’t quite appear to get something right and you accept it as it’s intended because you have mutual respect
• You’d hear them saying – That was a huge setback, but you were really brave, courageous, resilient and I’ll be here to dust you off and cheer you on when you go to do it again.
• They challenge your thinking and enable you to see different perspectives I’d challenge you to think about who you would put in your square squad and if you have done the square squad activity before, go and review it, are they still the right people for what you need right now.
COURAGE
Remember the film The Wizard of Oz, and the Cowardly Lion? The lion who said he had no courage. Apart from trying to scare Dorothy, travelling to the Emerald City and fighting the Wicked Witch.
When the Wizard of Oz bestows courage upon the lion he says:
“You have plenty of courage, I am sure. All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty.”
Courage doesn’t mean FEARLESS – without fear – it means don’t let fear control you. To Fear less.
I’m not talking big courageous things here – although if that’s what it is for you great.
When we look for courage we can find it in everyday things, from coming to networking, to making that call.
Courage is: I’ve got this, I’ll keep going, I can do it, I’ll experiment, I’ll pick myself up and carry on.
Courage also is: admitting you were wrong, learning from others, saying you don’t understand, sharing your ideas and changing your opinion.
Now one of things about confidence that I’ve heard time and time again is people say I wish I was more confident – when actually what we are lacking is the courage to go and do that thing that we are putting off, that thing we’re procrastinating about, that thing we fear.
Because it’s those moments of courage where we make a decision to take action that confidence is built.
Yes, it feels horrible, it feels vulnerable, your inner critic is shouting at you, ‘Don’t do it, you’re making a mistake’, but you know if you don’t do that thing you’ll always wonder what could have been – I always think better an ooopps than a what if. And what will happen if you don’t do it.
And for those of you that know me and follow me – this is for you, if we’re not yet connected then welcome to my world of BIG PANTS.
I get my courage from pulling up my big pants and facing into the things I find hard, the things I find a challenge, the things that make me nervous, anxious, clammy and make my heart race. The everyday things that require my big pants, that even
includes my coaching sessions, where I have no idea what the outcome will be from that session. And remember, situations that require courage are different for everyone.
For me, those big pants are my version of a super hero cape because when I pull them up, it means I’ve made a courageous decision to take action.
Courage provides a foundation for you to build confidence, to make the most of every opportunity that presents itself, and if we don’t have that courage to say yes in business where would we be?
Without courage, you can’t get to confidence.
