Great Self Confidence

...to live the life you want

3 Vital Self Confidence Tricks

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I have found a great post titled 3 Vital Self Confidence Tricks. The author, Dean Hunt, focuses on building self confidence when suffering from anxiety – such as in a social situation. His third “trick” in particular I like as it’s something that’s easy to do, but easy to overlook. Speak to yourself as you would speak to a friend.

If we make a mistake our self talk can be quite damning, “you are such a stupid fool”. But would we be so hard on a friend? This technique transposes even better when lacking confidence in our ability to do something. If you were a friend of a person giving a presentation or speech what would you be saying to them? You wouldn’t be saying “you’re going to mess up”, “you’re going to forget what to say”, “you’ll lose your job after this”. So why say those things to yourself?! As Dean says – speak to yourself as you would to others.

Confidence – who puts you down?

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Does anyone keep putting you down? I will return to the issue of dealing with the negative messages we all get whilst growing up, but this is about the here and now. Unfortunately there are many people out there in relationships with, working with, or friends with people who consistently make negative remarks about them and undermine their self confidence.

Over the years I’ve come across many people in this situation. Often they simply absorb the criticisms they receive and believe what they’re hearing – ending up with ongoing low self confidence. Especially when close to the person, it doesn’t occur to challenge what is being said. The person doing the criticism may themselves be unaware how damaging their behavior is, or that they are actually doing it.

Be aware of who you spend your time with and what they say to you. If friends put you down – do you need to review this friendship? Within work, school or family situations, learning to challenge critical remarks or put downs isn’t easy if you’re confidence is already low. But it can be done and I’ll come back to learning assertiveness skills. In the short term, being aware that what is being said is just someone’s opinion, and choosing not to take it as fact is a big step forward to great self confidence.

Take the confidence check

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How confident are you? I’ve come across this simple, ten question, quiz that gives a confidence rating between 5 (rock bottom) and 50 (total confidence). Give it a go today. I’m going to start adding some exercises and other tools over the next few weeks, so you can see what improvements you’ve made. Click on CONFIDENCE CHECK.

Is there a difference between self esteem and self confidence?

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Self confidence and self esteem are linked but they’re not the same thing.  Sometimes the two do get confused. Your self esteem is how much you like yourself, how you see yourself.  What we see when we look in the mirror. Self esteem is somewhat passive and isn’t something others can observe in you.

By comparison, you can see how self confidently  somebody (or even a group such as a sports team) is acting.  Self confidence is more active, and describes our abilities and willingness to interact with the world around us.

Does having great self confidence go hand in hand with having great self esteem? Not necessarily. Someone can appear and act very confidently, but have low self esteem. You can be very self confident in you ability to do things, but be full of self loathing. Celebrities such as Princess Diana and Elton John have all fitted this category at times.

The initial focus of this blog was self confidence. Partly because as an Occupational Therapist rather than Psychologist I focus on “doing” and “function”, activity rather than talk and analysis. For most of us working on and building self confidence, our inner view of ourselves – our self respect – should improve as well.

However, there are times when I will specifically focus on self esteem issues, recognizing that is the direction some people are coming from. There are also different cultural interpretations and usages of the two phrases, so I won’t get too pedantic in separating them.

the wedding – part 2

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Kevin & SheilaReturning to the wedding we went to last week there were two scenarios played out that typified how confidence is “all in the mind”. The bridegroom’s son was his best man and, as tradition dictates was required to give the final speech. I don’t know the guy, but it was clear he was petrified! But he had clearly done preparation and knew his topic well, and it appeared knew a significant number of the guests to feel “amongst friends”.

He delivered a good speech well, despite lacking confidence in his ability. I am sure he would have enjoyed the event more, and delivered his speech even better, if he had tackled his anxieties to some degree with some positive reassurance, which I highlighted yesterday.

The other interesting thing at the wedding was the photographer. The couple had decided they didn’t want a professional photographer, but asked a friend to take some photographs for them. Having done this myself many years ago at my sisters wedding, I assumed the lady concerned would be as nervous as the best man. But despite (or because of?) only having a compact digital camera, and doing something I assume she had not done before, the lady concerned looked cool as a cucumber and looked to be enjoying the occasion.

I didn’t speak to her, but my impression was that she didn’t see herself stepping into the shoes of a professional photographer, but taking a few “snaps” for her friends – as she would do anyway as a guest. In her mind there was nothing to worry or get anxious about. She knew how to take photographs on her camera  and that was all she was expected to do! She tackled the task with confidence, as there was no reason for her to doubt her ability.