Boost your confidence
Personal trainer and motivation expert JAMES SMITH shares how to build up belief in yourself
Take this scenario: when you pass your driving test you’re only 40 minutes more experienced as a driver, but once you’ve got the nod and you’ve passed, you feel uplifted and more confident – you’re no longer a learner and your status has changed. You hit the road a new person. How can such a small shift in experience and a qualification in itself have such a profound impact?
FEEL & BELIEVE
It’s about belief: someone else believes in you and that is something powerful. The driving instructor is backing your ability in the form of passing you. But to me, it’s equally important that we believe in ourselves. Confidence isn’t just about what you say – it’s how you say it, your body language, your course of action and how you present or market yourself in every moment. It begins with self-belief and again, you can’t buy self-belief or top it up overnight – it comes from your identity and how you perceive yourself.
STRETCHING THE ‘FABRIC’
Imagine confidence as a fabric – you must stretch it or it will stay the same. It takes repetition, too: the more frequently you stretch the fabric, the more it will grow. There are no rules as to the elasticity of this fabric. The way it acts is not governed by physics and there is no fixed amount of strength required to pull on it. At every opportunity we should look to stretch the fabric, not too fast, but at the right rate.
PRACTISING CONFIDENCE
We’re exposed to and experience other people’s confidence and we think that they’re born with it (or that they’re great pretenders), but behind every skill set is repetition. The fabric of confidence is within our imagination and it plays to no rules. The rate at which you stretch it is governed by you and you alone. If you get nervous speaking in front of only a few people, I’m here to tell you that speaking in front of thousands would only be blocked by any feelings you choose to feel about it. You’re more than capable of doing it – you just need to tear down the self-imposed rules that you’ve created in your head to stop any stretching of the “fabric of confidence”. Without stretching the “give” of the fabric of confidence, it will stay the same. This is only up to you to do so you can upgrade how you act.