The deafening sound of Quite Confidence...

The word confidence conjures up different things for different people. It’s a clichéd view shared by many that if you’re not thrusting your chest out, standing tall and being the life and sole of every party then you’re not confident. I'm sure it’s true for some people but a lot of the time it can actually be the opposite...

I find it’s the people who genuinely don’t ‘feel the need’ to be the centre of attention all the time that are usually the ones that are the most confident. They probably could be if they wanted but they don’t constantly require the need for social validation. It’s nice when they get it but they don’t need it to ‘just be okay’...

Confidence obviously comes in many shapes and forms and there are, of course, people who are loud and gregarious and are also very confident...But if you’re not one of those ‘extrovert’ types then that doesn't mean you’re not or can’t be confident.

It just means you can have your own special type of confidence.

We even have a name for this...It’s called ‘Quiet confidence’...

Quite confidence is a wonderful thing to develop. It’s a deep internal sense of worth and certainty that emanates outwards. It doesn't require much (if any) validation from the outside world. It’s the deep acknowledgement of how worthwhile and valuable your personality is and it’s one of the most important things you can cultivate through time.

In fact, I'm often more than a little suspicious of someone who seems to be trying just too hard to impress. I know a lot of people buy into it but I've often found that their putting so much effort in because they crave the social validation...they need it!

Whereas when you deeply recognise your achievements, your qualities (even the small ones) and start to explore all the reasons why you’re amazing irrespective of what other people think then you don’t need anywhere near as much validation and you don’t have to ‘try and be confident’.

There’s a phrase that’s often banded about in self help books that says you have to ‘Fake it until you make it’. Where you pretend to be confident or happy or relaxed and then eventually you’ll develop the neural pathways and start to be that way.

That’s certainly one way of building confidence but personally I think its closer to the truth that you ‘Fake it until you suddenly realise that you had it all a long’

It’s like the in the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Dorothy travels to the Emerald city with her three new friends (the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man) to find the fabled Wizard of Oz so she can return to Kansas. On her travels each of her new friends reveals a ‘personality deficit’ that they believe they have. The tin man believes he doesn't have a heart, the scarecrow a brain and the lion thinks he is missing courage.

On their way to Oz, though, they all start to demonstrate the qualities they mistakenly think they do not have. The Scarecrow comes up with several good ideas, the Tin Man is kind and sympathetic, and the Lion, though terrified, is ready to face danger.

It’s not that they lacked those qualities...it’s that they had just temporarily forgot and needed re-convincing.

Personally, i believe the same is true for confidence. You can always become more confident but you’re doing yourself an injustice to say you’re not.

In Psychotherapy there’s something called a repressed memory. A concept used to describe a memory or collection of memories that have become unavailable for recall, for whatever reason...

Well I believe in repressed confidence. Everyone has enough things in their past and present to make them realise they are confident. It’s just they've been ignoring them up until now.

I mean think about it...If you were to sort through the last ten years of your past and write down every success you've had (no matter how small) you’d be writing for a long time. The fact you've made it this point in life is a huge success in itself. You learned to speak, to walk, to talk, to go to school amongst the many other successful experiences you've had.

We've all had many successful experiences...the problem is we often don’t give ourselves credit for them enough...And by giving credit i don’t mean boasting to everyone you meet...I mean going inside and re-living them...re-experiencing them and feeling the feelings you felt at the time and how successful and valuable that makes you feel.

I call this process ‘The Personal Trophy room’ and it ‘something i recommend my clients do and I regularly do it myself.

Here’s a quick condensed version for you to play about with...When done often it can make a profound impact on your levels of happiness, your success and most of all start to raise the volume of your ‘Quite Confidence’...

The Personal Trophy Room (takes about 20 minutes)

1. Go back inside your mind and think of the first success you remember having. It could be pre-school, during or after.
2. Write this success down on a piece of paper or a journal.
3. Now think of the next success chronologically you had following that. Write this down as well.
4. Continue to write down all your successes (even the small ones) in chronological order up to the present day.
5. Once you have your list close your eyes and re-live each of the successes one after the other as if each one is happening after the last.
6. Once you have re-experienced them all imagine being in your future with this new found sense of confidence.
7. Enjoy for as long as you like.

All the best

Steven Burns

NLP Trainer & coach

The Scottish Centre of NLP

www.scottishcentreofnlp.com

info@scottishcentreofnlp.com

When did you decide you weren't 'good enough'?!

Through working with a lot of people and doing and absolute shed load of work on myself there's an interesting theme that seems to pop up time and time again...The theme of 'self worth'

It masquerades itself in many shapes and forms but the amount of times (usually after a fair amount of probing) it rears it's head is uncanny...

One of my favourite NLP researchers Robert Dilts says that, no matter what your problem or issue is, it will eventually boil down to one of three things:

1. Problems of Helplessness -Believing a goal can be achieved by some people just not you.
2. Problems of Hopelessness - Believing that a goal cannot be achieved at all.
3. Problems of Worthiness - Believing that you are not worthy, not good enough or do not deserve the goal.

For me the last of the three seems to pop up time and time again...The amount of times i've had a client eventually say 'Well I just don't think i'm good enough!" or some kind of derivative is pretty staggering.

Now here's the thing...In my opinion deep down everyone has some kind of 'worthiness issue'. It may be buried deep, hidden beneath layer upon layer of story and only appear in situations that are outside our comfort zone but it's there...and the thing is, knowing this, is actually very good news...because as you start to resolve your worthiness issues you start to tap into an immense amount of self love, confidence and energy...

Now I don't mean, by the way, that deep down everyone believes they are worthless human beings, a waste of space and don't deserve to breathe the Oxygen in the room! 

Humans, as I'm sure you're aware, are a little bit more complex than that. 

It's more a case that we have a part of us that has somehow decided we don't or won't measure up. Logically we know it's not true and there will be lots of other parts of us that contradict it but there's still a little 'something' gnawing away in the background telling us we're not. Then, in times of crisis, adversity and challenge it pops it's head up and says: "See I told you so!" 

Also, there's a difference between 'not having the required knowledge and skill' to achieve something and believing you are 'inherently not good enough' to achieve it. 

This first is something you can work on physically, the second is a strange limiting concept you've bought into about yourself.

So where do these worthiness issues come from?

Well, they usually (but not always) start in early childhood (it's okay I'm not going all Sigmund Freud on you).

When you gaze back on the collage of memories that is your past you'll come across a time when you decided, for whatever reason that you weren't good enough or in some way weren't worthy. Most of us jump to these inaccurate, incomplete conclusions when we are very young, with very little world experience and then do a kind of 'peter pan syndrome' thing on them. 

We freeze them in time and, even though we grow up, the problem remains faithful to that early experience and decision. That's why we often know logically that a problem shouldn't exist but we act as if it does.

Well, i'm here to tell you that you've been living that lie for too long...

It's time to go through one of the most important re-evaluation processes you'll ever go through...It's literally time to grow up!...to grow up that old decision you made about whether you were good enough or not. 

So stop for a minute and reflect on the following questions...The key is to not necessarily answer them logically, just allow your mind to go to the place the questions naturally take you. Also revisit them from time to time. As a massage therapist once told me "you can massage the same place during several different sessions but each time you'll go that little bit deeper than you did before":

Re-evaluating Self Worth - (think of some challenge that, if you were to attempt it would scare the wits out of you. That's usually a good way to start bringing your worthiness/being good enough issues to the forefront)

1. As you gaze back in your past, when did you decide that you weren't good enough?
2. What age were you?
3. Who did you learn it from and when?
4. What lie or incomplete conclusion is this decision based on?
5. When you look back now, through older & wiser eyes, how does this now change things?
6. As you look back what were you really meant to learn?
7. How does making these re-evaluations change things for you right now! and into the future?

Happy exploring

Steve

Training NLP in Scotland

The Scottish Centre of NLP

info@scottishcentreofnlp.com 

  

The Social Chameleon inside of us...

Are you a Social Chameleon?

I know I was...and there’s still a bit inside of me that still is. It’s not a problem for me now but it certainly used to be.

The Social Chameleon exists in most if not all of us...The Social Chameleon is a master at self change in the eyes of others. When faced with a social situation the primary drive of a ‘Social Chameleon’ is to change themselves just to ‘fit in with the crowd’ so that they can be ‘deemed worthy of acceptance’. The Social Chameleon doesn’t appear to have any of their own beliefs and values, they just adopt those of the people around them. The Social Chameleon can appear very friendly and you can warm to them quickly because they are matching and mirroring your behaviour and sometimes even your identity.

You think…wow! I like this person because they are just like me.

As time goes on though, and the relationship develops, you begin to notice that the Social Chameleon doesn’t just change themselves around you…They do it with nearly everyone!

Bit by bit you begin to suspect that they are ‘just saying those nice things’ to get on with you, not because they actually mean them. As you start to see more and more examples of how they constantly change the very essence of their identity depending on who they are with you doubt more and more the validity and truth in what they are saying…In essence it’s like the door to door salesmen who looks at your living room and says “wow, this is the nicest living room I’ve ever seen!” Deep down you don’t really believe that he isn’t saying it just to aid the sale…

Of course, I’m painting an extreme picture here. The reality is there are many shades of grey when it comes to the Social Chameleon. In a nutshell the Social Chameleon inside of us arises when we feel ‘the need’ to change aspects of ourselves (beliefs, attitudes, values, world views) just to fit in with the crowd and be okay…

This is, of course, not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s useful (and often essential) to play a bit of a Social Chameleon role to succeed at some of the many games of life. The problem occurs when we forget we’re playing a game and do it to seek constant social validation.

Being able to match and mirror a person’s communication style is obviously very important and essential for getting on in life but when we are doing it to the detriment of our own values, beliefs & personality we lose the power of being unique.

The key is balance...Being able to present your unique and special way of being and looking at the world while still maintaining a strong base of familiarity...It's about being able to blend your way of looking at the world with those around you.

It can be tricky for sure...and the urge is often there to change fundamental aspects of our personality just to fit in especially in situations that are new or challenging...

Just remember, though, it’s our uniqueness and difference that stands us apart from others...The world needs you as you are and how you contribute in a way that no-one else can and one of the best gifts you can give yourself is to allow that to breathe...

Steven Burns
The Scottish Centre of NLP
Training NLP in Scotland