Published in the Press & Journal – Your Job Section
This week Karran Bonner discusses why a lack of confidence does not have to be a blocker in your life and how to tackle confidence issues.
In all the coaching work I do, confidence is a recurring reason why people are not going after their dreams. Our mind’s can be our biggest asset yet our worst enemy at times. So how can you overcome a crisis in confidence and empower yourself to lead a more successful and happy life.
Get to know yourself
To be able to identify what triggers your lack of confidence you need to get to know yourself better. By taking time to study who you are, how you do things and most importantly question you do things is crucial to being able to overcome your confidence issues. Essentially when you lack in confidence, your inner voice is acting as an enemy to self sabotage what you want to achieve. A great first step to doing this is starting a journal where you will record your thoughts both negative and positive. For the negative thoughts you write about yourself balance these with positive thoughts – what have you achieved, what gifts do you have, or something nice that has happened in your day. This won’t necessarily flow really easily at first but persevere and watch how by noting down your thoughts how your mindset starts to change and the negative thoughts will become fewer. Are the limitations real or are they just perceived barriers that you have imposed.
Put in the preparation
A lack of confidence often originates from the fear that we will make a fool of ourselves or cannot do something. If you prepare as much as you can for that preparation, interview, driving test then you will feel more confident within yourself. Putting in positive action steps to help you to achieve your goals will make you feel so much more confident. When you don’t act that is when fear sets in. Action is a great cure to a lack of confidence because essentially we are motivated when we are making progress. If no preparation or action is taken then you will find yourself doubting your abilities. By taking action your confidence will grow.
Seek out feedback
A lot of us wait for recognition of a job well done and for positive feedback to land on our lap to be successful you need to be proactive in all areas of your life. Sometimes to grow we need to seek out feedback to enable us to develop and grow. If you are doing a presentation or unveiling a new project it is crucial to ask for feedback from your audience and your clients. Sometimes someone will say something that will spark something that will help you in the future. Often by receiving feedback our confidence levels will increase as we are hearing positive and constructive feedback that will help us for the future.
Walt Disney summarised the importance of your confidence to achieving what you want in life:
Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable. – Walt Disney
Confidence is crucial to achieving your goals. If you would like to discuss how to strengthen your confidence please get in touch: info@brightsideinspiration.com