Written by: Florence Dambricourt, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
There is something quite fascinating about self-confidence. We keep talking about it. Early this week, my smartphone even prompted me to discover… 8 books to boost my self confidence. And again yesterday, a client of mine kept going, “I have so little self-confidence. I can tell you, it’s as visible as a nose in a middle of a face. I do not have an inch of self-confidence.” To which I could not help replying, “Interesting Ash*. Are you sure? Just now, you are demonstrating some very high self-confidence in… having no self-confidence.” Ash paused as if experiencing a hard brake action through his train of thoughts. And we both laughed.
There Are Three 3 Important Facts About Self-Confidence We Tend To Forget.
First: This is definitely the most important one. We all have 100% self-confidence.
Second: Self-confidence is not about success; it is about preparation, actions, and learning.
Third: Self-confidence is not about control; it is about embracing risks and creating opportunities.
Ok. I see you; the crease in your forehead, the doubt creeping in, with that thought floating around “Hmmm… Are you sure?”. Oh yes, I am. 100%.
1. We All Have 100% Self-Confidence
We could also write “We are all 100% confident in ourselves” or “We all have 100% confidence in ourselves”. Do play with the three sentences. By doing so, we play a neat little trick on our brain that we will explore with another article.
We are all 100% self-confident. The issue is not our self-confidence, the issue is what we apply our self-confidence to, in other words, our focus. Look at Ash above. Where is his focus? In searching for every example where the outcomes of his actions are not matching his expectations.
Let’s take another example. Let’s say I am worried about doing something. In my head I even see myself doing it poorly. Where is my focus here? In doing the tasks poorly. With that spontaneous visualisation, I am even building up my ability to succeed at doing that task poorly, or not being able to do it at all. I am kind of rehearsing the steps that would make me fail… Ouch… What if, instead, I shift my focus? What if, instead, I do see myself doing it well? What happens then? I am building my ability to succeed at doing it well. I am in fact rehearsing, doing it well. I may feel some tension in my body, when doing that visualisation. That’s good, these are information to take on board to prepare even more. These sensations could also be information that I am starting to feel excited about doing it. After all, I may be up to do something new.
Neat. Right? We are all 100% confidence in ourselves. What makes the difference is our focus.
Not convinced yet?
Ok. Then, think back to the time you learned to walk. Did you put your focus on “not walking” and “staying immobile on the floor”? Or did you put your focus on “standing up”, “copying others”, and “giving it a go at moving one leg after the other”? True. Most of us cannot remember exactly where our focus was, however, assessing that we do walk, we have a pretty good answer. Our focus was on “giving it a go”.
I love using this simple example “learning to walk”. We learned that as a toddler. And back then, rather than forecasting the output of our every move, we were very much in the now and here. Embracing our self-confidence is agreeing to be in the now and here. The fear, or anxiety, we may experience, is telling us two simple things: focus – prepare. This leads us straight to our second fact.
2. Self-Confidence Is About Preparation, Action And Learning
Let’s go back to that walking practice.
It is likely that, before moving one leg after the other, we prepared. We practiced standing up and then still staying at the same place, we practiced shifting our weight from one foot to the other. We likely observed a lot, especially our siblings if we had any, and that observation was a source of inspiration to act, to copy people around us. Without realizing, we probably completed some spontaneous “returns on experience”. This is a key element of our learning process. It means to pause and to note what worked and what did not work in the action taken. Thanks to our preparation, our actions and our return on experiences, here we are now, walking, and even running or jumping at times. Agree, when we acted, back in our toddler time, we may have had that nagging perception of fear, maybe as well a perception of excitement. In fact, both sensations are similar on how they can manifest in our body. That’s fine. These emotions were there to emphasize the messages: stay focus – stay on course – observe and learn.
Our last fact. And it’s another big one.
3. Self-Confidence Is About Embracing Risk And Creating Opportunities
It is likely you have never read that fact yet. We do not speak about it enough. Our society, from our education to some of our businesses, is not really helping us here. Our society has got into its head that risk zero is possible and therefore, being in full control is also possible, even a must. What about complementarity, balance, discovery, exploration, testing, innovation, two-way communication, and learning, to name a few?
Back to walking again.
You would have applied the risk zero approach back then, you would still be on the floor, immobile, waiting for life to happen to you. But you did not. You stood. You practiced. You discovered that sometimes the outcome could be “falling onto the ground”. Ouch. Likely, you cried. You may have sat for a while, performing a spontaneous return on experience, taken a breath and acted again, taking your chances that one outcome may be standing rather than falling onto the floor.
Here it is. Each time you take that chance, you create an opportunity; you expand your choices of possible. Beautiful. Right?
There are many more tips and changes of perspectives we work on when developing our self-leadership.
When you’re ready to explore fully how you could increase your self-leadership, get my book Swim Like a Fish, an easy guide to developing your self-leadership, or reach out to get information on the next program starting date. There is always a cohort around the corner waiting for you to join that you can learn how to swim like a fish through your life.
*Funny enough, you will soon notice that all my clients have the first name, Ash (Smile).
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Florence Dambricourt, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Passionate about human and their brain. Fanatic (nearly :-)) ultra-trail runner. Florence Dambricourt is an accomplished Speaker, Self-Leadership Coach, Team Coach and Company Culture Change Enabler. Her career, in zig-zag spans over 25 years, navigating through various corporate worlds and entrepreneurship experiences. Driven by curiosity and a very strong intention to “make a difference for the better”, Florence helps her clients finding clarity, so that they can shape their future. With two books published on Self-Leadership, “Swim Like a Fish” and “Speak Like a Fish”, Florence not only champions Self-Leadership, she provides a robust methodology, and with-it tools, to develop or strengthen it. She sees Self-Leadership as a must-have competency for everyone. Her mission? "Unleashing the power of Human Innovation thanks to Self-Leadership”.
