I would be more confident if:

I had a better job

I had a more toned body

More attractive

Have you heard yourself say any of these?

Firstly confidence doesn’t come from being attractive. People love to be around confident people. 

Secondly, you don’t just wake up one day and boom you are confident. The good news is that confidence is a skill you can learn. It’s not based on experience or even talent. It’s based on your thoughts.

Confidence is just a feeling and we have to create our own feelings. Why do we seem to think this magic confidence dust happens by itself without our control or input. We seem to assume this confident thing is a mystery. Some have it, some don’t. Some have confidence in some situations some of the time and then all of a sudden, they don’t.

It’s time to gain control and have confidence whenever you need it.

First principle – you have to “do” all of your feelings. No one else is in charge and no one can make you feel anything. That customer didn’t make you angry, your partner didn’t make you frustrated, your friend didn’t hurt you. Feelings aren’t given, they are taken. And feelings don’t just appear, you create them through your thoughts. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” 

How do we create feelings that we want?

Have you ever heard anyone say you need to think confidently and/or positively? This is true and a good start but not the whole picture. Have you ever tried to be confident but the little voice inside your head tried to knock you down? Your internal voice is able to generate feelings by thinking about certain situations and how they might be. An important concept to understand is your brain doesn’t realise the difference between an imagined event or a real one. This is why we’re able to create really powerful feelings about something that will happen or has happened simply by using our internal dialogue. Once you manage to get your internal language right, you’ll find that those feelings that you want will come far more easily.

What do you need to say to yourself to generate confidence?

1. Don’t lie to yourself, that voice will come back and bite you. “I wonder how confident I’ll feel whilst giving that presentation at work?” What do you think your little guys on your shoulder would say to that? These types of questions/statements don’t work. Ask yourself better quality questions to train your brain to give better quality answers. How about asking yourself, “What small ways am I noticing my confidence increase?” The little guys on your shoulders should be much quieter to a statement like that. 

“I’m considering the possibility that I can be confident in this situation?” This is much more neutral than “I am confident in all situations.” The first statement is more believable and of course you can change this over time.

2. Physiology directly affects psychology and more importantly our neurology. There are many studies covering how physiology will directly affect how you feel to implement this is fast and very effective. How does a happy, confident and charismatic person stand? How does an anxious, worried or fearful person stand? Think back to school or uni days when you were really bored, how were you sitting? If you were really interested in the content how were you sitting?

This concept is highly overlooked, we could be feeling down because we are acting down and wishing and hoping that it wasn’t the case.

It is important to understand this isn’t just a way of generally superficial feelings, this is real! We have the science to back it up.

How can anyone see how great you are if you can’t see it yourself?