Why can't I be as confident as them?
When I ran. Oh when I ran….. I used to trot along the Thames, run over Tower Bridge and dodge the early commuters as I came back north of the river over London bridge.
Sometimes I’d imagine myself in a film, seeing myself as the audience did; strong, confident, ready to fight anything and anyone.
Then some idiot who didn’t understand the rules of walking in London would get in my way and pull me out of my moment. My moment of feeling completely and utterly confident.
Why can’t life be like it is in the movies?
Those movie moments of feeling confident are never going to be a permanent fixture in your life.
Not because you need fixing but because you are a human being. You’ve been sold the lie that true, unshakeable confidence (I borrowed this horrendous term from a coach on Linkedin) is a constant state that is attainable.
A lack of confidence is a perfectly normal human reaction to doing something a little bit risky – taking on a new job, challenge, speaking to a stranger across the room, wearing something you wouldn’t normally wear, going out with a group of people you don’t know that well or even just going out - cause it’s all new innit.
You can’t possibly know, for sure, whether it’s all going to work out. So that feeling of uncertainty arises to stop you from taking action, to keep you safe. Or it helps you to over prepare and over think to make sure it does turn out all right.
Now that queasiness in your stomach, the tightening in your chest, the outrageous thoughts of ‘I’m no good’ are crap. And so of course you want rid of them but unless you’re going to do the same thing each day with the same people in the same place they are going to pop up.
So you want to FEEL confident
A really capable client lacked confidence when interacting with a senior individual. Their chest tightened, they went over every single conversation convincing themselves that their colleague thought they were useless.
I asked her to retell the facts of the situation. What was she asked to do? How did she prepare? What questions did she answer? What had she missed? What more could she have done? What she realised is that despite not feeling confident she’d taken confident action.
Our work wasn’t focused on getting rid of those feelings and thoughts. Instead, she began to understand their function, accepting them as part of the human experience and not let them impact the confident actions she needed to take.
Once small thing that you can do
When you’re grabbed by a lack of confidence/self belief:
Get specific – What situation and/or individual is triggering the lack of confidence? Often people label themselves as ‘not confident’ but the reality is that particular circumstances trigger it rather than it being a character flaw.
Notice the form – How does your lack of confidence manifest? Where do you feel it in your body? What thoughts come up for you?
Accept – The thoughts and feelings for what they are; a normal reaction to doing something different/risky. Make room for them rather than fight them
Take confident action – What does the situation demand of you? What should you do next? List the actions you need to take and the support you need and start to work through them