Use Lindsay Taylor’s tips to raise your confidence when you need a boost
Let’s face it. We all have days where our confidence levels are lower than we’d like them to be. So, here are five things you can do to boost your confidence when you need that little pick-me-up.
1. Conduct a Sectional Personal SWOT
I’m an advocate of conducting a regular (full!) Personal SWOT analysis, and I encourage you to do this every 2-3 months. For a quick and effective interim confidence boost, you can answer one section of the Personal SWOT exercise, homing in on the strengths quadrant.
Grab a pen and some paper or your favourite notebook. Write down the answers to these prompts:
- What do you think are your strengths in terms of your personality?
- What do others say are your strengths in terms of your personality?
- What do you believe are your strengths in terms of your skillsets?
- What do others say are your skillset strengths?
- What achievements and successes do you have that you’re proud of?
- What qualities, behaviours, or skillsets have you had to draw on to make these things a success?
Finish the sentence “I’m really good at…”
Now read that (very impressive!) strengths collation sheet aloud (to yourself, to your dog, cat, partner, children). Pin your sheet up on your notice board, tape it to your bathroom mirror, or add it with a fridge magnet to your refrigerator. And smile.
2. Use “Towards Thinking” and “Towards Language”
Gain an awareness of what type of thinking you are doing. When your confidence is low, you may find yourself concentrating on the things that you “don’t want” or you “can’t do.” This type of thinking and resulting language is “Away From” – as its name suggests, we are moving away from any achievement of goals. You may use language like “problems” or “pitfalls” and identify situations as “hard” or “difficult.” By using these labels, you are attributing the negative connotations of these words. This can stop or limit us from moving forward with energy, motivation, and confidence.
Change your “hard” and “difficult” labels to “challenging” – we are all up for a challenge. Apply “Towards Thinking” whereby you concentrate on moving forward and towards achieving goals and outcomes using language such as “I want,” “I will,” “gain,” “get,” and “achieve.” This will add forward momentum, energy, and motivation, boosting your confidence.
If you believe you can or believe you cannot do something, either way, you are likely to be right.
Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company
3. The Power Pose
This is a term attributed to American social psychologist, author, and speaker Amy Cuddy. Cuddy’s 2010 research claims that adopting body postures associated with dominance and power (“power posing”) for as little as two minutes can boost your confidence. There is also a super TED Talk by Amy Cuddy on this.
If you act powerfully, you will begin to think powerfully.
David Brooks, Cultural Commentator
4. Step Into It!
Close your eyes. Think back to a time when you felt confident.
- See it – Where are you? What are you doing? Who is there? Build up a sensory image of this memory.
- Hear it – What sounds are going on around you? What are you saying? What are others saying?
- Feel it – Notice the feeling of confidence you are experiencing, and when that feeling is really strong, step forward and pinch your finger and thumb together to “anchor in” the feeling.
Now open your eyes and shake off your body.
Repeat the exercise (several times) until you’ve successfully “anchored in” your feeling of confidence and it can now be achieved by purely stepping forward and pinching your finger and thumb together.
5. THINK!
Have a word with yourself ensuring you use this framework for that self-talk and internal dialogue. This will stop any negative “wallowing” that’s likely to be fuelling your low confidence.
Give yourself a confidence boost by ensuring your words and sentiments are:
Truthful
Helpful
Inspiring
Necessary and Kind
