We all experience knocks to our self-confidence from time to time. Next time you are feeling a little shaky and unsure of yourself, try these confidence boosting tricks:
Focus on your Strengths: When your confidence is low you tend to focus on your weaknesses and lacks. Take some time each day to remind yourself of the positive traits, talents and qualities that you have or of any positive thing that you did that day. Don’t just look for major things. Write down every positive thing that comes to mind – big or small.
Put Things in to Perspective: We often place too much importance on potential problems. Our mind jumps to the worst case scenario. Ask yourself two questions “is this really likely to happen?” then fast forward a few months in your mind and ask yourself “if the worst case scenario did happen would it really be that bad?”. In most cases you’ll find the chances of the worst happening are slim and even if it did, you’d handle it ok!
Visualise a Confident You: Close your eyes and relax, then vividly imagine yourself succeeding brilliantly at what you are going to be doing. Make it vivid by involving all 5 senses. The mind cannot tell the different between something vividly imagined and something real so when you do hit the real situation you won’t tend to feel so nervous.
Quieten your Inner Critic: Yep…you know the one I am talking about. That little nagging, negative voice in your head rarely gives you good advice so give it a day off. Better still send it on an extended holiday. Picture it with an off button and when it starts to feed you negative information turn it right off.
Enjoy your Humanness: Being human means that alongside your good qualities and positive traits, you also have flaws and vulnerabilities. You along with everyone else, are on a journey of ongoing learning and growth. It is good to set a high standard for yourself – something that inspires you to be your best but equally it is good realise that at times you will fall short – this is part of the journey. Go lightly on yourself. Allow yourself to make mistakes and to be a bit messy. Accept this as part of life, learn from it and move on!
Erica McKinney is a Counsellor, Psychotherapist, Healer and Life Coach with a private practice in Shankill, Co Dublin. www.ericamckinney.com
