Kicking the blocker to your confidence

Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it - Bruce Lee

In our journey to try and improve ourselves, we've all heard the same phrases over and over again. "Don't worry about what other people think" or "Crush it" or "Believe in yourself" or iterations of the same phrases. We've probably even used these phrases in our own heads when we're preparing to go into a high stakes meetings, are about to give a speech to a lot of strangers, or just simply trying to gain some self confidence.

But in all seriousness, how many times have these often used (and one might argue now cliched) phrases been effective in allowing you to feel more confident, project confidence, or even instil a level of fake confidence in yourself? I'm willing to bet that these phrases rarely worked and they often sound great when you're thinking about using them but once the time comes to use them to pep yourself up, they most likely had little effect (if you even remembered to use them).

It's not that these phrases are not true? They are! A key factor to elevating your level of self confidence is to ignore what other people think. This is scientifically proven. In fact, Time Magazine has an article on five researched back techniques that are guaranteed to improve your self confidence. You can read the article here: "How to Be More Confident".

But it doesn't matter which phrases you use or which of the five research backed techniques you adopt, you will struggle with elevating self confidence until you realise one thing. Don't feel bad about how simple the realisation is because it's taken me a long time to realise this too. It was only when a YouTube vlogger put it into a simple phrase did it strike me:

"Self confidence isn't not caring about what other people think. Self confidence is caring about what you think."

Repeat that phrase again and again in your head. Particularly the last phrase: self confidence is caring about what you think. Read that phrase slowly and just understand how profound the sentence is.

It is for this reason that no self assertive phrases, self confidence activities will work.

Until you believe in your own thinking, until YOU believe that your own opinions are valuable and what you have to say is valuable, then nothing else that you do is going to make a difference.

Ever since I started MyCorporateDiary, I've become more vigilant at observing actions and behaviours. Mostly of my own but also of other people. I reflect more rather than react. And this realisation that self confidence is caring about what you think make so much sense. I even touched on it in my blog post about how my own mother rejects herself, and in her mind constantly thinks that she's not deserving of the good things that happen in her life.

So what's the action here? Changing your mindset to believing in the value of your own opinions is not going to happen overnight. But with this realisation, you now have another introvert blocker you can work on removing. If you've spent a lot of time, money, and effort in improving your self confidence but they've not resulted in the outcome you wanted, perhaps the root cause is because you didn't care enough about your own opinions. If you don't care enough about your own opinions, why should anyone else care about hem?

Blog photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash.

Further Reading

How to easily command respect in a group

Commanding genuine respect, one that doesn’t rely on your position power is one of the hardest things to do for an introvert. There are five simple actions we can adopt straight away that can help us to establish our presence in the room and command the attention and focus on what we have to say.

How to be Value-Adding

Being seen as value-adding is one of the biggest planks in the foundation of your career success. Here are four simple steps you can take, which if you do consistently, will guarantee that you seen to be contributing meaningfully at work and maximise your chances of promotion and success.

Looking confident while working remotely

It’s hard to project confidence while on video calls. It acts like a barrier that stops us from achieving the best version of ourselves. Be it the sound quality or just trying to get your message across amongst the traffic of voices all trying to chime in at the same time. Here are six simple things to do that will give you the best chance at projecting the best version of yourself on a video call.

How to overcome Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is the single biggest blocker to introverts recognising the best version of themselves. The rapid heart beat, sweat, and mind blanks cause us to lose our perfectly thought through logic. Instead, a jumbled mass of words and ideas come out. The solution isn’t to stop feeling anxious. It is to recognise it and then start focus on the people you are speaking to.

Confrontations - Doing it the right way

Confrontations need not be daunting and one sided. The traditional leadership theories that focus on feelings and behaviours aren’t wrong. But they are missing a core component that make a massive difference. There is a simple framework from Simon Sinek that ties it all together.

STOP your nice guy / girl behaviours

Stop saying yes when you want to say no, and learn to prioritise your needs first. Nobody else is going to make your career goals come true except you. There are simple steps you can take now to stop sabotaging yourself through your nice guy / girl behaviours.

Being the best version of yourself while Working From Home

Don’t let the pandemic cause you to regress on your self improvement journey and fall into the comfort trap while working from home. Take charge of your new routine and refocus on these six foundation steps to get back on your self-improvement journey and use this opportunity to become the best version of yourself.

The key to demonstrating confidence

Your ability to demonstrate confidence is key to your career success, progression, and getting what you want. If you understand frame and can hold it in any interaction, then you will come across as confident. Here are some simple but highly impactful techniques you can use to project confidence.

The key to promotion for introverts

The key to promotion for introverts is to unleash our deep thinking and put them into practice. The mindset shift is to realise, you have to demonstrate you are operating at the next level before you actually get promoted. There is a simple way to demonstrate this by changing what you say and do when you encounter an issue. Use this principle to change your mindset and you will find success.

How to be charming as an introvert

There are a few simple actions you can take, to be as charming as Keanu Reeves, who is a stand-out as an introvert in a very extrovert dominated industry. It doesn’t require you to pretend to be someone you are not, but these five simple actions, give you the tools to embrace your introversion and use them to genuinely connect and interact in the most value-adding way. You will be both charming and unforgettable.