Confidence - what it is and how to get it!

It is interesting, we are told all the time that we need more of it, but until we understand what it is, its going to be pretty hard to get our hands on. Confidence is something very personal to you. Somebody else’s version of it will not be the same as yours. Perhaps that’s why it can seem so hard to find!

The good news is that once we begin to work it out, most of us find that we have a fair bit of it already. If we have confidence in one area of our lives, it means that we already know how to do it, we simply need to allow it to flow through into other areas of our lives.

Here is an exercise to unearth that confident you!

Think for a moment about an area of your life, big or small, that you’d like to feel more confident in. Choose something where being confident will make a positive difference to you. Be as specific as you can about it.

Now decide, what does having confidence in this particular part of life mean to you? What will you be able to do once you have it? What is going to change for the better? How much easier or more successful will things be?

Now I’d like you to bring your mind to something that you already feel confident about. Something you are naturally very good at or think of a really positive period in your life. I’d like you to remember how it feels to be confident. How effortless it is. Think specifically about a time when you felt confident, happy and in control. For a few seconds now close your eyes and recall, what you were doing, how you were thinking and how good it felt.

Keeping that feeling in mind I’d like you to imagine being that confident you in the situation you chose just now, the one in which you want to be more confident. Play it through in your mind almost like a movie, being the confident version of you, imagining everything going well. Picturing yourself being effortlessly confident. The very best of yourself. Play this through, in your mind 2 or three times, in as much detail as possible. Make sure the colours are bright and each time you reach a positive conclusion.

Once you have done that notice what, in the situation, you are doing differently from before. The kinds of things you thought, said and felt. This is your blueprint to the confident you.

Next time you are doing something that would have made you feel unconfident in the past, take the confident you with you. Right from the very start, from when you are getting ready or choosing what to wear. At some point even allow the confident you to take over. You’ll be amazed at the difference once you just allow the confident you to shine through!