6 – Lack of self-confidence

PART 6 OF A 10-PART SERIES TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

There’s a lack of self-confidence. I understand. It’s normal to feel that way about a new venture. If we were all totally confident we’d all be front-runners, record breakers, serial entrepreneurs, and athletically built champions. Confidence plays a huge part in the game, but it doesn’t always come natural to a person.

Actually, it does. Going back once more to when you were a toddler, did you have doubts about your ability to learn to walk? No, and the reason you felt able to just get up each time you fell over and start all over again was because you were sure you’d do it in the end. Doubt didn’t even creep into it. It never does, when you’re that young. Because at that stage you haven’t yet learned to lack confidence in yourself. And that’s what it is, a learned behaviour.

NEWS JUST IN +++ LIFE CAN BE TOUGH+++LIFE CAN BE CHALLENGING+++

Life has a way of treating us harshly. Our parents are caring and comforting, and they reassure us if and when things start to go wrong. When we fall over, they help us to get back up. And they tell us we’ll be okay. They never offer a harsh word, or a negative one (at least not usually – they’re only human, after all, and sometimes they get it wrong, but generally they’re totally supportive).

Your parents are an amazingly positive influence in your life, but as you get older the rest of the world seems harsh indeed in comparison. You make a slip up in school and suddenly you’re the butt of the other kids’ jokes and jibes. And it nibbles aways at your natural confidence, bit by bit. Before long, your dazzling self-confidence has been eroded and you’re left a hesitant shadow of your former self. Whereas before you just battled on regardless, now you’re reluctant to take a risk in case things go wrong. Or in case you make a fool of yourself. The risks, in terms of peer pressure, have become too great.

Confidence can be eroded bit by bit

That towering level of self-confidence that allowed you to competently take on the challenge of learning to walk is now all but forgotten. Now you’re more likely to sit at the back of the class, or hesitate to raise your hand. You’re even hesitant to involve yourself too much in conversation with the other kids – the nasty and hurtful remarks are just too painful to bear, so your decision is oftentimes to do … nothing. You have become a virtual recluse, in comparison to the outgoing, confident little kid you once were.

And so it goes on. As you get older, if you find yourself in negative situations that erode your self-confidence, it gets gradually weaker and weaker. And sometimes it gets so bad that you can’t ever remember being confident in the first place.

You can rebuild your self-confidence

The good news is that this isn’t the end of the story. You don’t have to go on being devoid of confidence. It can be built up again. You can take charge and make changes. You can take the decision that from now on you will be a little more confident each day. And you can remind yourself of that via written affirmations, or messages on a screensaver, or something of that kind.

You can write a list of positive affirmations and you can make a habit of reading it every morning. You can immerse yourself in it, stirring up warm positive emotions and feelings as you imagine yourself acting more positively and more decisively. And that’s the key to it – acting as if. Instead of just saying “I am a bit more confident every single day”, you can conjure up the positive emotions that arise from actually being confident simply by imagining yourself in certain situations and imagining yourself acting confidently.

The brain can’t tell the difference …

The amazing thing is that the brain, even though it’s astonishingly powerful and inventive, is incapable of distinguishing between a ‘real’ experience and one that’s vividly imagined. Literally incapable! So, if you start to mentally put yourself in certain situations and imagine handling them competently and confidently, you will be experiencing exactly the same emotions and feelings you’d have if you were actually in the real situation. And your brain won’t be able to tell the difference!

And because of that, it will add to your level of confidence, which, when you think about it, is just the product of how you react positively to certain situations. I mean, if you are in those real situations and you handle them with a deft touch, you’ll naturally feel more confident in future. And because the brain can’t tell the difference between a vividly imagined scene and a real one, if you imagine handling it really well, you’ll automatically start to be more confident in future!

So don’t waste any more time worrying about a lack of confidence. Being confident plays a huge part in success and achievement, but we can sort that out now – once you know the secret you can start to manufacture feelings of confidence almost at will. And if you do it regularly, your confidence will soar!

Take a tip from the top athletes – use mental rehearsal

Top athletes have known this for years, and they regularly put themselves through their paces before the real event … and while there mentally they perform at the absolute peak of their ability (which is easy enough, since it’s only in their imagination!). Remember though that it’s important to visualise yourself performing at your best, not the best possible in the whole world. It would be unrealistic, if you were a golfer, to see yourself sinking a hole-in-one while you’re visualising at every green, for example. That’s not going to happen, and your brain would just reject the idea. So keep it real!

So athletes immerse themselves totally in their ‘future history’, as Muhammad Ali used to call it, and they soak up the positive emotions that arise from performing well and being applauded for it. Then, and fuelled by a fresh boost of self-confidence, when they get on the track, or on the green, or in the ring, or on the pitch, or in the gym, they’re ready to be as outstanding in the real world as they’ve just been in their imaginary world.

Wow, isn’t it amazing that the techniques exist to overcome a lack of self-confidence! There’s nothing stopping you now, literally nothing. You’re headed for the top, and the only way you can make a mess of things is if you don’t even try. You’re practically guaranteed success! As they used to say about a certain Mr. Austin, “… we have the technology!”