Confidence is driven by many different things. Most of them require gradual, continuous work over weeks, months or more. And once you get to the point where you need the confidence, it’s too late to change anything. Whatever level you’ve reached by then is what you’ve got to work from.
But there is one thing that you can use to boost your confidence right in the moment.
You can work with how you choose to talk to yourself.
Before we get into how to change things for the better, there’s an underlying skill that you need to develop: Awareness.
Many people are completely unaware of their self-talk (the chatter that’s going on inside our heads all the time). And that what they say to themselves is often incredibly damaging.
Luckily, the first step is simply setting out to be aware of your self-talk. Once you do that you’ll start to notice things. And the more you stick with the practice, the better this skill will get.
Once you’re aware of what you say to yourself then you can choose to change it for the better.
The key is that you need to make it positive… But also realistic and believable.
You’ll often hear people suggesting you tell yourself insanely positive and unrealistic statements.
That won’t work.
Your unconscious mind isn’t stupid. If you tell it something unbelievable then it simply won’t believe it. And that does you no good at all.
If you look carefully, though, you’ll discover there’s always a positive spin you can put on things that fits the bill.
So don’t tell yourself something like: “I’m invincible”, “I’m the best in the world”, or “I never make mistakes”. (Unless that happens to be literally true 😉 )
Instead, look back into your past and find the positive angles from things you have done. This might be something like: “I stick with it and I find a way to make things work”, or “When I focus, I can do this without mistakes”.
If you want to be able to do this quickly and effectively whenever required, then you’ve got to add one more step. Practice doing this in advance so it’s easily available in the moment.
Otherwise, you’ll find yourself struggling with what words to use. Or forgetting to change your self-talk at all.
So a simple step by step method would be:
- Get clear in advance about how you want to speak to yourself. (What are the things you say that give you the feeling you’re after?)
- Write them down (and check: do they really make me feel that way? Are they true and believable? Can I link them to a specific event or events in the past that back them up?)
- Practice saying them to yourself!