5 Tips to Weed Out Self Doubt and Cultivate Confidence

By Mel Sherwood

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Do you feel confident and positive all the time? If you are like most people, your confidence can wax and wane depending on the circumstances. However, lack of confidence and low self-esteem can impact on every area of our lives. When we start to doubt ourselves and our ability, we shut ourselves off from experiences, we impact our relationships and ultimately live an unfulfilling existence.

I was once the shy girl who didn’t speak up in class, who rarely made eye contact with anyone, who didn’t believe I was good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, outgoing enough. Over the years I’ve done a lot of personal development and learnt a number of tips to weed out self-doubt and cultivate my confidence. But even now in my forties I still have to make sure I keep my ‘inner meanie’ in check. Do you have an ‘inner meanie’ – the one who tells you you’re not good enough?

No matter what your background, no matter what your beliefs, if you don’t first believe in yourself you won’t be able to give your best to the world.

But where do you think that self-doubt and lack of confidence live? It all starts in our minds. So try thinking of your mind like a beautiful garden; for it to flourish it must be nurtured daily. You need to fertilise your garden well. Don’t poison your garden with negative thoughts; give it nourishment in the form of positive thoughts and experiences. Weed out those negative beliefs by replacing them with positive beliefs (if you say them enough you will believe them). Stand guard at the gateway to your garden; your ‘inner meanie’ is not welcome! Only allow thoughts that will help it to blossom and in turn this is how you will blossom with confidence and a healthy self-esteem.

In this post, I’m going to share my top tips for weeding out self-doubt and cultivating confidence.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world right in the eye ~ Helen Keller

The first step is to stand tall and breathe deeply which feeds your body and brain with oxygen helping you to feel alert, relaxed and centred. It also provides support for your voice which will ensure you are able to communicate with a strong, confident sound.

Imagine you have string attached to the crown of your head and it is pulling your head up so that it rests gently on your neck; the rest of your body is able to stand tall and relaxed underneath it. Put your shoulders back and down and take some deep breaths into your belly (imagine your tummy is filling up with air like a balloon) while trying not to raise your shoulders.

As you take a breath in, imagine you are breathing in confidence. As you breathe out, imagine you are breathing out doubt. After a few breaths you will have breathed out all of your doubt! Then you can breathe in confidence and exude confidence on your out breath. Take some time to walk about with your head held high, shoulders back and, in line with Helen Keller’s quote above, look the world right in the eye.

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line ~ Lucille Ball

The words we say to ourselves affect our self-image and our self-image determines what actions we take. For example if our self-image is one of a person who lacks confidence, we will only be able to take actions that are aligned with this trait. If our self-image is one of someone who worries, we are more likely to think negative thoughts and worry! Alternatively, if our self-image is one of a radiant and fearless individual, all our actions will correspond with this quality. Your self- image is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So if words affect our self-image, start to notice the words you say to yourself and ensure that they are loving, positive and supportive. Practice when looking in the mirror – try saying, “(Your name) I love you – you’re amazing and you have a great (fill in the blank with one of your positive qualities)”. This might feel strange at first and be difficult to believe but the more you do it the easier it will become and the more you will believe it.

Last year I introduced Weed Out Wednesday, a dedicated time once a week to notice any negative and unhelpful thoughts you might have been having and to replace them with positive affirmations. Each Wednesday I post a reminder on Twitter and Facebook for you to observe your thoughts, consider any limiting beliefs and substitute them with kind, loving messages for your soul. Think about that precious garden of your mind and don’t let your thoughts and words poison it.

See things as you would have them, instead of as they are ~ Robert Collier

Our thoughts create our reality; the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our thoughts and the mind works through pictures.

If you have a thought, either positive or negative, you’ll imagine it in your mind, run the movie in your head and visualise the scenario. Then you might start talking about it, and then you start feeling that it really might be true, and soon enough you’ll start believing it until you find that it actually happens.  So the first step of that process after the thought is how we visualise it. We should all spend some time every day visualising our desired outcome, mentally rehearsing the way we would like to be and feel (not what we don’t want to happen!)

Sex appeal is fifty percent what you’ve got and fifty percent what people think you’ve got ~ Sophia Loren

Think about people you know or famous people who exude confidence. What is it about them that makes them appear confident? If you think about Sophia Loren’s quote above, it is possible to give the illusion that you’re confident and in my experience if you choose to act confident, you eventually start to feel confident. Much the same as if you smile when you don’t feel like it, your mood can be improved simply by smiling. American social psychologist, Amy Cuddy, says you can feel more confident simply by changing your body language. Rather than fake it until you make it, Amy suggests that you can fake it until you become it. You can read more about Amy’s research and watch her TED talk here.

One isn’t born with courage. One develops it by doing small courageous things ~ Maya Angelou

I’m currently doing research for a book I’m writing about confidence and this week I interviewed Oli Norman who is a very successful Scottish entrepreneur. The reason I was interviewing him is that someone told me that Oli was the most confident person they had ever met. During the interview I asked him what advice he would he give someone who is lacking in confidence. He said that you just need to do the thing you’re not confident about; get outside your comfort zone and do it again and again, and soon enough you’ll be confident at doing it.

Stepping outside your comfort zone does take courage but using and strengthening your courage muscle will lead to improved confidence. I call it the Courage Muscle Crunch. And I don’t mean you have to do hundreds of crunches a day like you do to get flat abs; with the courage muscle crunch you simply do one small thing each day that takes you out of your comfort zone. By doing that you’ll get comfortable being uncomfortable and that is another key to building your confidence. Read more about the Courage Muscle Crunch here.

Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers ~ Veronica A. Shoffstall

Use these tips and whatever else you find works for you to ensure that you look after your mind garden, weed out self-doubt and cultivate your confidence. You deserve to blossom.

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12:00:00 - By Vincent 0

Comfort Zone challenge 15, work out with a stranger

Comfort Zone challenge 15, work out / push ups with a stranger

14:43:00 - By Vincent 0

My Blackberry Is Not Working! - Apple vs windows. A must see! Brilliant

Absolutley brilliant. almost 25 million views. I understand why. 

British humor at it's best. What do you think?

15:04:00 - By Vincent 0

Giving Kick-Ass Presentations In The Age Of Social Media

By DREW NEISSER

Seven (somewhat snarky) new rules for public speaking in the social media era.

It was painful to watch. Jon Bond, the former ad giant turned social media honcho, was actually getting heckled at the Pivot Conference. When faced with what was a feisty crowd to begin with, Bond admitting that he "didn’t like Twitter" was like throwing fresh meat at rabid dogs. But rather than raise their voices, they let their fingers do the shouting. So while Bond continued to speak, a steady stream of snarky tweets projected on the wall behind him, acting like foghorns and essentially drowning him out.

Being a great speaker was never easy, but now, with your audience likely to have a mobile device in hand and real-time access to multiple social channels, the challenges have gotten that much greater. To get a sense of the impact of social media on conference presentations, I interviewed a bunch of regulars on the social media circuit. In the process, they helped me identify these seven (somewhat snarky) new rules for public speaking in the social media era.

1. Don’t Panic if They Aren’t Looking at You

Sure, it's disconcerting when you gaze out at the audience and no one looks back. But whatever you do—don’t panic. Just because they are transfixed by their mobile devices, doesn’t mean they aren’t all ears. "I think the body language tells you if they’re paying attention—it’s far more distracting to see people whispering to each other than it is to see someone tapping on an iPad" said Jenny Dervin, VP of Corporate Communications at JetBlue, who received raves at a recent BDI event. 

2. Stifle the Temptation to Ask for a Device Moratorium

As tempting as it might be to ask your audience to shut down their devices, every speaker I talked to thought this would be a huge mistake. "I might get their undivided attention, but it would be mixed with their ire at being told how to watch my presentation," said former actor and speaker extraordinaire John C. Havens, who reminded me that in the old days, before digital devices, a lot of people would take notes on a pad of paper, which isn’t all that different than tapping out a tweet.

3. If You Aren’t Nervous, You Should Be Now

When I first learned public speaking, an experience advisor suggested that you "imagine the audience is naked," to quell the initial butterflies. Today, speakers are probably better off reminding themselves that they are the naked ones. If your facts are wrong, your audiences will Google then tweet the corrected data before you can say, "I’m just sayin’." And if that isn’t scary enough, as author and speaker Jeff Jarvis proclaimed last year at TED-NY, "the lecture, as a form, is bullshit," so you better ask yourself what you’re doing up there, anyway!

4. If You Don’t Speak Twitterese, It’s Time to Learn It

Let’s just imagine for the moment that your audience is absolutely riveted by your every word. Chances are some, if not many of them, will want to share your wisdom with their network, not tomorrow when they get back to the office, but right at that very moment. It is for this reason today’s effective speakers are not just sharing their Twitter handles upfront but also mixing in tweetable quotes. "Puns, sound bites and pithy phrases are [also] ways to aid in retention," Havens said. 

5. Congratulations! You May Be Speaking to Millions You Can’t SeeThe irony of speaking in the social media era is that audience in front of you may be far less significant than the collective reach of that particular group. "I’d much rather have the broader reach; it is one of the better measurements of speaking at events," said Frank Eliason, SVP of Social Media for Citibank. Havens adds that if his audience is glued to their devices, "odds are half of them are tweeting about my presentation and they’re helping market me!"

6. The Reviews Are In—In Real Time

Rather than waiting to ask a friend after the fact how you did, today’s skilled presenters welcome this feedback in real time. "It’s fun to respond to a tweet when I am on stage, and it personalizes the interaction with the audience," said Eliason. JetBlue’s Dervin finds these tweets helpful as well. "I go back in the stream to see what landed, based on how many people tweeted the same quoted," he said. "It’s an instant evaluation of my key messages."

7. When All Else Fails, Surprise the Audience with HonestyBringing this article back full circle, Jon Bond perplexed the Pivot crowd with his admission of not liking Twitter. While this honesty may have cost him some street cred with a Twitter-loving crowd, I recently saw another speaker use honesty to extraordinary advantage. Ray Kerins, VP of Corporate Communications at Pfizer, transfixed a BDI crowd with tales of a crisis that had befallen ChapStick on Facebook the day before. By admitting that Pfizer’s social media activities were a "work in progress," Kerins earned credibility that reverberated through the Twitterverse.

Final Note

All of the people we spoke to for this piece are very effective speakers, and though each has their own distinctive style, there are a few other commonalities I’d like to point out. First, none of them depend on word-laden PowerPoint presentations. Second, most are good storytellers and use humor, often self-deprecating, to connect with their audiences. Finally, each of them manages to keep their presentations short enough to allow time for a healthy Q&A. Speaking of Q&A’s, you can find my complete interviews with Dervin, Havens, Eliason, and Jarvis onTheDrewBlog.com.

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16:30:00 - By Vincent 0

The Shy Person’s Guide to Talking to Strangers

By JOHN WESLEY

One of the easiest ways to improve your networking ability and invigorate your social life is to develop the skill of talking to strangers.

We’re trained as children to fear strangers (which is good for safety reasons) but most people carry this fear into adulthood where it does more harm than good. It becomes a constraint on the number of people you can meet and interact with. You get stuck in a box, only open to creating new relationships through people you already know.

If you already know a lot of people, this can work all right, but it limits you to meeting people who are generally like you. If you are new to an area and don’t have many friends, the fear of talking to strangers is absolutely crippling.

Fortunately, developing the skill of talking to strangers is easy. Once you get started the immense benefits and excitement it brings will encourage you to keep going.

It comes down to three things:

1. Understanding the benefits of talking to strangers.
2. Knowing how to deal with the occasional rejection or unpleasant encounter.
3. Breaking down your fear through practice.

Everyone is a Learning Experience

To get an idea of the benefits of talking to strangers, you need to change your mentality. As tribal creatures, we’re naturally inclined to fear, nay hate, people we don’t know. We instinctually perceive them as dangerous outsiders, seeking to pillage our village and make off with our women and children!

In modern society this simply isn’t true. Most people are friendly and perfectly open to conversing with you. It just takes a little effort to cross the stranger barrier. Each person is an incredible learning opportunity. What they tell you about themselves. How they live and interact with the world. There is a wealth information waiting to be tapped.

Strangers also tell you a tremendous amount about yourself by the way they react to you. As you gain experience and learn to read body language, these reactions are essential to developing your social skills. Of course, there are also the priceless relationships you’ll have the chance to form:

• Business contacts – Who you know (and what they think of you) is often more important than what’s on your resume.
• Friendships
• Mentors and teachers
• Romantic relationships

I think the last point is extremely important. We all dream of meeting our ideal mate, but when we see someone we’re extremely attracted to, we’re usually too intimidated to approach them. How can you expect to find love with that mentality?

Dealing with Rudeness and Rejection

Now that you’re sold on the benefits of talking to strangers, the only other skill you’ll need is the ability to let rejection roll off your back. The key to this is not taking it personally.

At least 95% of the time when a person reacts negatively to you it has absolutely nothing to do with you personally. Most likely they’re having a bad day or you caught them at the wrong moment. Maybe they’ve been harassed by people before and assume you have bad intentions. Or maybe they’re just not that cool and you wouldn’t gain much from knowing them anyways.

Instead of reliving the incident in your mind and dwelling on your insecurities, imagine reasons for their behavior that don’t depend on you. In the 5% of cases where you actually caused the negative reaction, treat it as a learning experience. The problem isn’t you, it’s your behavior, so examine what you could have done better. Did you come off pushy? Could your personal appearance be better? Thinking about these things will go a long way towards improving yourself.

How to Get Started

That hardest part of talking to strangers is getting started. Before you have experience striking up conversations it can make you nervous and awkward, but the more you do it the smoother and more likeable you’ll become.

Start Small – If you’re a naturally reserved person, you’ll probably want to warm up a bit. Start with making eye contact with people you might like to talk to, smiling at them, or saying Hi out of the blue. Think of possible conversation starters you could say.

Comment on Something – If you see something remarkable, make a comment. Even if it’s not at anyone directly, chances are people will hear and react to you. If you see someone doing or wearing something interesting, tell them what you think. Keep it positive and most likely they will be happy to chat.

Make a Joke – If a decent joke pops into your head, just come out and say it. If someone laughs, that’s the perfect conversation starter. This is great for opening dialogue with attractive people of the opposite sex.

That’s really all there is to it. Good luck and don’t get discouraged. You have nothing to lose but your shyness!

Confidence is the key to EVERYTHING. Ever wondered exactly how self confident you actually are?

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10:08:00 - By Vincent 0