Everybody experiences a lack of confidence at some time in their life but with the right tools and techniques, you can overcome this. Follow the 7 tips below and watch your confidence grow:
1. Think about what confidence means to you and clarify it in writing. Then make a detailed list of all the characteristics you believe a confident person has.
2. Highlight any of the characteristics from the above list that you already possess then list the top 3 that you would like to have that you don’t currently possess and over the next few days try out these characteristics yourself. Persevere and have fun with it. Note down how you feel along with any responses you get from other people.
3. Create your own confidence role model. This may be one person that you know or you can take all the best characteristics of people you believe are very confident, including how they look, walk and talk, and use these to create your own unique confidence role model. These are essentially the characteristics of the person you would like to become.
4. When faced with a situation where you don’t feel confident, think about what you are focusing on. The chances are that they are very negative and energy sapping thoughts. This does not help your confidence! Instead you need to start thinking of things that fill you with energy. You have already created your own confidence role model so think about how they would act in this situation where you feel you lack confidence – you too can act in this way.
5. Think of your posture - stand tall and smile and your confidence levels will instantly rise. Also, think about the words you are using. Are they all negative sayings that have a negative impact on how you feel? If so re-think the words you use so that they are always positive. If you are telling yourself that you feel nervous then you will be.
6. Visualize. Start seeing yourself as the confident person you want to be. Before you do something that you feel you don’t have the confidence to do, run through in your head how your confidence role model would act in this situation. Then re-run it but instead of seeing your role model, you see yourself doing everything that your role model would do. If you do this regularly, you will become that confident person.
7. Put it into perspective and then just do it! What is the worst thing that could happen?
There is a great saying: "if you can believe it you can achieve it".
Anne Galloway is a careers coach and small business consultant who believes that work can and should be creative, meaningful and enjoyable. Her specialties include assisting clients find the 'right' career for them and showing them how to sell themselves confidently on a CV and at interviews, and taking an independent view of business systems and procedures and developing strategies to increase sales and revenue. Anne is regularly sought out as valuable sounding board due to her ability to highlight risk in order to take control and reduce it. Her first book, 'Your Future - A practical guide to action' was published in 2011.