Written by: Marty Wightman, 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.
You Aren’t Born Confident, It is a Learnt Trait.
What exactly is Confidence?
Confidence is the perceived ability to have a positive outcome towards a given task or issue.
Your Perception: what mindset are you bringing to the situation, is it a fixed or growth mindset?
Your Ability: Do you have the correct team or skillsets to be able to perform the task or issue?
Your Feedforward: To quickly read the response and reaction of those on the receiving end.
Are you born with Confidence, or can you train yourself to be Confident?
A very common myth is you are born with Confidence, you are not. Confidence is not a personality trait, but rather it is learnt. We will go through 8 major secrets to improving your confidence.
Confidence Secret 1: Self-Defeating Assumptions
These are limiting beliefs and what Psychologists call Thinking Errors.
All or Nothing: Extreme thinking that is either black or white i.e. one wrong answer in an interview and you’ve ruined the entire interview opportunity.
Overgeneralisation: Drawing from one example to use for all conclusions i.e. you had a bad experience with a relationships, so you must be a terrible person to date.
Disqualifying the Positive: Disregarding the positive praise you have gained due to one negative comment you may have received.
Mind Reading: Jumping to conclusions and assume you know what others are thinking – without even asking.
Catastrophising: Thinking the worst of a future event, i.e. a public speaking gig will end in me losing my job because I got stage fright.
Fortune Telling: Similar to Catastrophising. Predicting the worst and telling yourself things will never get better.
Action: It’s one thing to act realistic, but another to act like you will lose when you don’t have the evidence to prove it. Find what is your limiting belief and take action against it.
Confidence Secret 2: Taking on Gigantic Goals
Goals that are too big or too distant can very quickly fade. The Motivational Upwards Spiral (Amabile & Kramer, 2011) describes this phenomenon as setting the bar low and clearing it daily. It works on a progress loops that releases small bite-size pieces of Dopamine.
By setting Goals that are too big, or you don’t get to see the return in your investment almost immediately, will see your motivation fade fast.
Action: By (ideally) turning our goals into daily or even morning or evening goals – we have an opportunity for daily success, which means daily Dopamine release. So setting the bar low enough to clear daily, will see you returning back the next day.
Confidence Secret 3: Overly Confidence
A very well documented ‘Confidence Trap’ that we will be avoiding is Overly Confidence. Have you ever declared victory too early? This is a dieter’s biggest mistake! First, they lose weight quickly when motivation is high, and the daily weigh-in check-ins are giving you proof points – so then you go into reward mode.
Guess what most dieter’s rewards are: Cheat Foods.
Action: So pre-decide your rewards for each goal achieved to stay on track.
Confidence Secret 4: Going Solo vs Going Together
A perfect secret sauce for Confidence is not just your own mindset, but of those that are in your circle of influence.
If you have a big meeting, a performance or a social event – then having a circle of influence who celebrate each others wins, baby steps and micro goals are there to help boost you with a positive mindset. And vice versa.
Even when set backs take place, your circle can help you through this with Contagious Confidence – the kind of confidence that rubs off on you.
Action: Boost your circle’s self-esteem and watch it come back to you in droves.
Confidence Secret 5: The Blame Game
A complex game to navigate and one that can suck the confidence out of you.
There is a tendency in human nature that when something goes wrong, then someone gets blamed.
To avoid the Blame Game, you must bring assertiveness to the table and a winning attitude.
Owning a mistake and moving on is fine. Yet, those that use mistakes as a constant reminder of blame create a blame culture that removes confidence in yourself, in your team, and also confidence from 3rd parties (such as suppliers).
Action: To win the Blame Game is to learn, move on and challenge Finger Pointers for not being team players and morale removers.
Confidence Secret 6: Never Apologies for Who You Are
Confidence begins in being your whole self with friends, family and with work colleagues. Forget the ‘should’ and the ‘norms’ that others may want to impose on you.
When will you decide that you will not be the puppet to someone else’s strings. Be that in work, or be that in personal life. You decide on what terms you have with your work/personal life and you can also at any time decide to change those terms.
Living to please others will do nothing but please someone else – so where does that leave you? To help you remember confidence is learnt, use this easy acronym FAST:
F – Fairness. Be fair to yourself and learn that your needs are just as important as someone else’s. A – Apologies. Don’t be overly apologetic. Have an opinion or disagree with others. S – Stick to your values. Your values make up what others see in you. Don’t compromise or abandon your values trying to please others or conform. T – Truthful, honest and don’t exaggerate.
Action: Take pride in your unique set of values, beliefs and where you are right now in life. Never apologise for who you are.
Confidence Secret 7: Not Preparing for Risks or Setbacks
Confidence and Arrogance and two completely different things. Arrogance comes with entitlement. Yet, Confidence comes with a healthy dose of reality.
Confidence comes from knowing that mis-steps, setbacks, and risks are all part of the game of life.
Confidence grows when you review and understand that things may not go in your favour and knowing a Plan B or C is an excellent way be adaptable. Arrogance on the other hand doesn’t come with a Plan B – just a plan to stamp their feet.
Action: Prepare yourself for what might happen – a healthy does of reality planning will see your confidence levels increase.
Confidence Secret 8: Practise Until You’re an Expert
If any secret to Confidence was to be selected as the go-to, it will always be practice.
Practise, preparational, rehearsal – these are all key aspects you require to come back to the definition of confidence:
“The expectation of a positive outcome to an event”
If you have a big meeting, an exam or a performance – practice, preparation and rehearsal will have you in a position to almost be on autopilot which will free up the rest of your mind to be able to think on the spot when any curve balls come your way.
It also keeps you on track for simple things like timing (covering all your slides in a meeting time slot) and not having to worry about what should be the next words to come out your mouth – because you have practised this to the very best of your ability.
Action: If you can show up, practised and expecting a positive outcome – then you will feel confidence when it is your time to shine.
Principles to Remember
DO
Be honest with yourself about what you know and what you still need to learn
Practise doing things you are unsure of
Embrace new opportunities to prove you can do difficult things
DON’T
Focus excessively on whether or not you have ability, think instead of the value you provide
Hesitate to ask for external validation
Focus on thinking errors such as false judgements – instead wait for critique that you can work with
Food for Thought … Low Confidence can Make You More Successful
This is going out to all the introverts out there especially.
Introverts deal with self-confidence and self-esteem differently than Extroverts. Firstly, just ‘Low-Enough Confidence’ creates a perfect environment to help you calibrate your goal/situation into being more realistic and actually attainable.
‘Low-Enough Confidence’ helps with 5 main areas:
Pay attention to Negative Feedback and be Self-Critical
Motivates you to work harder
Reduces the trap of being deluded
Reduces the chances of you coming across arrogant (60% of people hate their boss’ arrogance)
Increases the amount of times you admit your mistakes – removing the Blame Game
Conclusion: High confidence isn’t a blessing, and low confidence isn’t a curse. Take what works from this session and apply where it feels right. Never apologise for being you. You can learn more about ‘Creating a Betterr Future with Betterr’ at https://www.betterrcoach.com/life-coaching-offer/
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Marty Wightman, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Marty qualified as a coach in 2007 when he set up his practice in London, UK. He holds a Masters's degree in Psychology, and he graduated from the University of East London. In addition to his academic qualifications, he is a member of the Association for Coaching, a Senior Member of the ACCPH, and trained by Stanford University Professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans in Life Design. Marty takes a cognitive-behavioral, rational emotive behavior, and solution-focused approach to psychological coaching and its application to life/personal, health, performance, business, and executive coaching.
