5 Simple Strategies for Unstoppable Self-Confidence

Imagine approaching any new or challenging situation with the calm self-confidence that you will be able to do what needs to be done.

In my work with hypnosis and coaching clients I am often asked for advice on building self-confidence in various situations. Here are 5 Simple Strategies for Self-Confidence. They can be used in any situation. Use any one or all of them at the same time to maximize the benefit

1. Change Your Body Language
Stand up (or sit up) straight. Relax your shoulders and arms. Keep your chin up with your gaze forward. Breathe deeply.
Ask yourself:

• How would you move if you were extremely confident? Do it.
• How would you sit or stand if you were extremely confident? Do it.
• How would you breathe if you were extremely confident? Do it.
• How would you use your facial expressions if you were extremely confident? Do it.
• What gestures would you use if you were extremely confident? Do it.

Using your body in a strong confident manner will have a direct effect on your mental attitude in any challenging situation.

2. Remember Past Victories
Close your eyes and think of a time in the past when you were extremely self-confident. Imagine that you are there now. See the sights, hear the sounds, feel the feelings. Really feel the feelings.

Come up with a word or phrase that expresses how you feel.

Hold on to that feeling, open your eyes, say or think your word or phrase, and do what you need to do. If you’ve done it before, you can do it again!

3. Imagine Future Victories
Rehearse mentally the activity you need to feel confident doing. Imagine that you are there now and you are extremely confident and totally successful at the task you have in front of you. See the sights, hear the sounds, feel the feelings. Really feel the feelings.

Come up with a word or phrase that expresses how you feel.

Hold on to that feeling, open your eyes, say or think your word or phrase, and do what you need to do. Remember, the subconscious mind does not know the difference between something that has been vividly imagined and something that has actually happened! Imagine how confident you’ll feel when you know that you have already done the thing you need to do 5 time, 10 times, or even 100 times (in your mind).

4. The Little Train That Could
Remember the Little Train That Could? “I think I can, I think I can, I know I can.” Create a positive, motivational phrase like “I will do this” and repeat it, rhythmically, to yourself (or out loud, if circumstances permit), as many times as possible before the moment of action. Combine your rhythmic affirmation with a rhythmic physical activity (such as tapping your foot, pumping your fist, or walking or running to a steady rhythm). This will intensify the effect and help store the thought in your body as muscle memory.

5. Decide, Declare and Do It!
Decide what you want to do. Make a statement “I am doing (this thing)…”

Declare why you want to do this.

String the WHAT and the WHY together in a strong statement, “I am doing _______, because ________”

Do it! Step off the end of the board, open the door, pick up the phone, pull out into traffic, walk to the podium. Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Any one or all of the 5 Simple Strategies above will be the catalyst for your taking strong, confident action. Practice these strategies until they become second nature. You will find that the more confident action you take, the more confident you become. The more confident you become, the more you will recognize and take advantage of opportunities that show up in your life.

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.” ~ Henry Ford

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” ~Vincent Van Gogh

From David Allen’s Productive Living Newsletter:

Productivity Doesn’t Happen By Itself

There are three things that have to happen in order to define our work and be maximally productive about it. And these three things don’t happen by themselves. We have to train ourselves to do all three, and until we establish them as automatic, habitual behaviors, we have to exert a conscious redirection of our focus to get them done.

We have to:

(1) Make decisions about what we are going to do with our “stuff” and the next actions required to do it (what would “doing” look like?) “Stuff” is un-actionable until we’ve decided the outcome and the next step to move toward that result. Things on lists and in stacks and in email generally repel instead of attract us to get involved, until we decide what exactly our intention is about them and whether the next step is a call, draft a response, buy nails, set a meeting with someone to discuss it…, etc.

(2) Put those outcomes and actions down in written form, if we don’t do them in the moment we think of them. Even if we decide what we need to do about something, if it’s filed in our “psychic RAM” we run serious risk of losing sight of the option and (worse) we create instant failure and unnecessary stress. That part of our psyche seems to have no sense of past and future, and it acts as if we should be doing everything it’s holding on to all at once.

(3) Look at the reminders (when we can effectively use them and move on them). Even if you have decided the next step is a phone call you need to make, and even if you have written that down somewhere, if you don’t look at the reminder when you are at a phone and have discretionary time, you risk missing an opportunity to move something forward when it might be the best thing to do, given all the variables. When you are in a certain context, you need to reflect on all the things that could be done in those contexts, to be the most efficient. And you need to know what it’s OK not to be doing, even if you could do it there. If you don’t, something in your core knows that you’re not optimally handling your agreements with yourself.

These three behaviors combined are a master skill set for knowledge work. Yet virtually everyone I encounter could significantly improve the consistency with which he or she does these three critical productivity activities.

We were not taught these practices growing up. The workaday world of our parents did not require these critical behaviors of knowledge work. People just showed up, and did what obviously needed doing—they could see it in front of them. Few people work in that kind of world any more. These days, just showing up and expecting to work on what’s visibly been put in front of them, is hoping for a retro world that doesn’t exist, and is likely to be experiencing mounting stress that is not going to get any better.

“The ancestor of every action is a thought.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.” -Jean de La Bruysre

Creatio Continua = constant creative action

Henry James said, “To live in the world of creation—to get into it and stay in it—to frequent it and haunt it—to think intensely and fruitfully—to woo combinations and inspirations into being by a depth and continuity of attention and meditation—this is the only thing.”

What are you creating today?

from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” by Robert Heinlein (the bold emphasis is mine):

Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad [a thief] than it is to deal with a leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please – this won’t take long. Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time – and squawk for more!

So learn to say no – and to be rude about it when necessary.

Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.

What do you think?

Guess what? Change is simple. Make the decision to change and you have flipped the switch in your brain.

Then you have to take action. That’s where coaching can help. Coaching will help you decide what to do and how to structure the steps to solidify the change and move you toward your goal.

I’ve decided to change my coaching model. After discussion with my coaches, I’m going to steal the title from my book “Coffee Break Coach” and become The Coffee Break Coach.

My standard coaching session will now be 15 minutes for $15. Have you ever wondered if coaching can really make a difference for you? Invest $15 and find out.

Any questions? Leave a comment or email me for more information.

“The most visible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself, the ones who express the inexpressible – without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt – their medium is being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.” ~J. Stone

I believe that inside everyone is an Artist, someone who wants to create. What are you doing to nurture the Artist inside?

“To be nobody but yourself –
in a world which is doing its best,
 night and day, to make you like everybody else –
means to fight the hardest battle 
which any human being can fight,
 and never stop fighting.”
~e.e. cummings

What’s your story? What’s the story you tell others? What’s the story you tell yourself?

sto·ry ¹

(stôr, str)n. pl. sto·ries

1. An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious, as:

a. An account or report regarding the facts of an event or group of events: The witness changed her story under questioning.

b. An anecdote: came back from the trip with some good stories.

c. A lie: told us a story about the dog eating the cookies.

2.

a. A usually fictional prose or verse narrative intended to interest or amuse the hearer or reader; a tale.

“Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom.”~Marilyn Ferguson

Having difficulty picking up the phone to make that important call? Just start dialing (you have to pick up the phone to dial).

Difficulty starting to write the letter that has to be in the mail now? Just write the first sentence. You have to sit down, open your word processing application, and start typing to do that.

Remember:

Just get started. It only takes 5 seconds to take the first step.

A brilliant, funny, though provoking talk by Sir Ken Robinson about the importance of changing our model for education. Take 18 minutes and enjoy.