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5 Simple Tips to Build Unshakable Confidence

I can confess that on many occasions I’ve missed out on fantastic opportunities for fear of failure or rejection. Low confidence can hold us back from achieving our goals and living our dreams. Confidence is not an easy thing to build. Sometimes, depending on the circumstance, our confidence can fluctuate. In today’s world, we’re often comparing ourselves to others which leads us to focus on the things we don’t have.

Today’s article shares 5 simple tips based on research, which may help you to build your confidence and to smash your goals!

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Tip 1#: Change your body language

Our body language plays a powerful role in how we feel. Have you ever noticed that when you’re feeling nervous or shy, that your posture changes…we may hunch our shoulders, fold our arms or fidget..we might look at our phones in an effort to appear busy…. We may even talk faster or more quietly. Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy states that powerful people are more assertive and more confident – powerful people use more open and expansive postures, they make themselves bigger through taking up more space, and may take up more time by speaking slowly and clearly.

Amy Cuddy offers an easy life hack to change your confidence, simply by changing your posture for just two minutes. She calls this Power Posing. Power posing involves spending two minutes holding a powerful postural pose – such as the classic Wonder Woman pose. Cuddy’s research has demonstrated that when people hold power poses for two minutes, they feel more confident. Before you go into a stressful situation, such as a job interview or difficult conversation, sneak into a private space and spend two minutes holding a power pose.

When you enter the situation, you don’t need to hold the power pose by any means, but be mindful of your body language– focus on keeping your shoulders back and chest forward, making eye contact, use open gestures and avoid collapsing your arms or wringing your hands. You can even try using props to keep your arms from collapsing in – for example, holding an object, or placing your hand on the desk to force yourself to stretch out, rather than collapse in. Speak slowly and clearly and avoid rushing through what you’re saying.

Cuddy states “Don’t fake it til you make it…fake it until you become it!”

Tip #2: Stay present in the moment

Often when we feel less confident, our focus drifts away from the situation itself, and turns inwards. Rather than being present in a conversation, you may be busy thinking about what you’re going to say next, or whether you have anything interesting to contribute to the conversation. However, when this happens, we appear less present and distracted, and others may perceive that we’re not interested in talking to them. Practice using active listening skills, and genuinely listening to what the other person has to say. When we listen and engage we appear more present, and confident. Maintain good eye contact, show the person you are listening but acknowledging what they’re saying, and ask them questions about their experience to show you are engaged. If we’re nervous in a social setting, we may reach for our phones in an attempt to look busy, but this may make others perceive you as uninterested in the situation, so avoid the temptation to look at your phone!

Don’t underestimate the power of distraction – feeling like you’re drifting off into your own thoughts or insecurities? An easy way to get present is to spend a few minutes to use your senses – notice 5 things you can see in the room, 5 sounds you can hear, and 5 things you can touch or feel.

Tip #3: Make self-care a priority

Increase your positive health behaviours – exercising on a daily basis and eating a nutritious diet can help us to feel more confident. When we feel at our best physically, we feel more confident. When we exercise regularly, it increases levels of feel good chemicals including serotonin and endorphins and also helps us to reduce stress levels.

A 2016 study published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment showed that there is a direct link between physical exercise and self-esteem. The study also showed that participants who regularly engage in physical activity, not only have higher self-esteem, but have a better sense of body image, through the opportunity to increase strength and muscle tone and to improve flexibility, strength and balance.

Don’t forget to get adequate sleep and to nourish your body with healthy food!

Tip #4: Stop comparing yourself to others

Do you compare you compare yourself to others? Many of us compare our looks, our possessions, our jobs and salaries with those around us. This can lead us to feel like we’re not good enough and reduce our confidence. When we compare ourselves to others, we often experience envy.

A 2018 study published in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences showed that envy is associated with self-esteem instability and that the more envy we experience, the worse we feel about ourselves!

Next time you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, or experiencing envy, remember that self-comparison reduces our confidence and leads us to focus on what we don’t have…not what we do have. Stop and reflect on your own strengths and achievements. A simple tool you can try to improve this is to create a list of your strengths, achievements and the things you are grateful for. Try and add to your list regularly and keep is somewhere where you can easily read it.

Tip #5: Practice having self-compassion

Remember that we all make mistakes, and as humans, all of us have had experience in saying the wrong thing, making mistakes…none of us are perfect but in today’s world, many of us develop unrealistic or perfectionistic standards for ourselves. When we hold incredibly high standards for ourselves, often we can be our own worst critics if we make a mistake or fail sometimes. For perfectionists, even when a task is completed, they may focus on the things they don’t think they did well.

Psychologist Kristen Neff suggests practicing self-compassion as an alternative to chasing self-esteem. Our self-esteem can fluctuate based on what’s happening in our lives, or comparisons to others, which can lead us to feel inadequate.

Self-compassion “is a way to feel good about ourselves which isn’t contingent on others and doesn’t require us to be perfect”. “Treat yourself like you would treat a close friend who was struggling”. – Kristen Neff.

A 2008 study published in the journal of Personality showed that “self‐compassion predicted more stable feelings of self‐worth than self‐esteem and was less contingent on particular outcomes. Self‐compassion also had a stronger negative association with social comparison, public self‐consciousness, self‐rumination, anger, and need for cognitive closure.”

Here are some simple techniques you can try to cultivate self-compassion:

Notice when you’re using negative self-talk, and reframe with compassionate self talk which acknowledges that all humans struggle sometimes. Try maintaining a focus on the things you have achieved or done well, rather than the things you haven’t.
In her book “Self-Compassion”, Kristen Neff suggests this simple exercise when you’re experiencing negative emotion. This could be something you try after experiencing a failure or setback:
- It’s hard to feel (XXX) right now)
- Feeling (XYZ) is a part of the human experience
- What can I do to make myself happier in this moment?

Remember that building your confidence doesn’t happen over night, and is a holistic process that you can approach from many angles. I hope these tips help you to boost your confidence (and to be kinder and more compassionate to yourself when setbacks come along!) Don’t forget most importantly to be yourself, own it and make no apologies for who you are!!

References

Journal Articles

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00537.x

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886917306499?via%3Dihub

https://www.dovepress.com/physical-activity-and-self-esteem-testing-direct-and-indirect-relation-peer-reviewed-article-NDT

Web Articles

https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-boost-your-self-confidence-4163098

Books

Cuddy, A. (2016). Presence. Orion Books: United Kingdom

Neff, K (2011) Self Compassion. Harper Collins: New York

TED Talks

5 Simple Ways to Reduce Procrastination and Improve Time Management

Are you guilty of procrastinating? Do you spend more time engaging in morning banter by the water-cooler than you do at your desk? Are you working hard, or are you #hardlyworking!? We’ve all been there!

Getting focused and achieving the things we need to do can be tough. In turn, when we procrastinate, this can stop us from achieving key goals. If procrastinating is so disruptive, why do we do it!?

Many of us blame laziness or lack of care as reasons for procrastination, but often this is far from the case!!

A simple reason as to why we procrastinate, is often because we’re experiencing uncomfortable feelings of stress or anxiety about the task we are avoiding. We could be worried that the task is difficult, or more importantly, we may be worrying about whether there is a chance we could actually fail at the task.

Often when we feel threatened, it feels easier to avoid (by procrastinating!) than to face the difficult task itself. Procrastination may even serve as a form of self-sabotage if it starts to interfere with important life goals. Research shows that self-sabotage is a strategy we use to protect ourselves from the painful feelings of potential failure. It’s easy to blame procrastination or “not having enough time” than it is to admit that we genuinely struggled with a task.

Unfortunately, procrastination or avoidance might help us get a feeling of relief in the short term, because we don’t have to face the dreaded task we’re worried about….but in the longer term, our feelings of stress and anxiety often increase when we procrastinate, and we may even start to experience emotions such as guilt and shame if we haven’t achieved the goal we set about to achieve.

So how can we reduce procrastination? Here are my top five tips to help beat procrastination and get down to business!

Reflect on your triggers for procrastination. Do you have a difficult task such as calling difficult customers, having a tough conversation with a colleague or working on a challenging report that you always try and avoid? Recognising the tasks that cause your anxiety to increase can help you to better manage those tasks. If you know you have a difficult call scheduled, plan to allow yourself time to prepare, and to take a coffee break after to de-stress and relax before your next task.
Get the most difficult task out of the way first. Many of us leave the tasks we are dreading until the end of the day…but often when we know we have something really difficult to work on, our anxiety can increase, and we may find excuses simple not to get to the tough task. Getting a difficult task out of the way quickly will help relieve your anxiety and give you feelings of accomplishment. You’ll feel better for the rest of the day knowing that it’s out of the way.
Try the Pomodoro Technique. This technique involves setting a timer for 25 minutes, and focusing on a single task during this time. Ensure you remain distraction free during this time. After 25 minutes, you can take a 5 minute break to relax. See how many Pomodoro’s you can get done in a day!
Write a list of your three most important tasks to complete for the day: To-do lists can be overwhelming, and often leave us feeling unsure of where to start. At the beginning of the day reflect on three things that are essential to achieve in the day. Focus on those three critical things and create a plan for how to best use your time.
Disconnect to minimise distractions: When attempting to work, we’re often also receiving text messages, emails, Facebook Messages, Whatsapp messages, news blasts, newsletters and all kinds of other alerts. When working on an important task, try closing your email down for an hour, and turn your phone onto flight mood. This will allow you to keep your attention where it most needs to be.

Would you try these tips? What are your most common ways to procrastinate? Water-cooler banter? Coffee and cake breaks? Coming up with pointless busywork to do instead of the actual important work? I’d love to hear about your favourite procrastination methods!!!

How to Create Positive Emotional Spaces

Positivity continues to be buzz word at the moment, but how important is the expression of positivity by individuals in creating positive systems?. “Being positive” has been touted as the solution for almost every life dilemma/ailment/the cat rang away from home situation you can think of, but is simply expressing positivity like Ed Sheeran releases singles really the answer to creating happiness? Can the actions of one individual change the dynamics of a relationship, group or workplace environment?

Expression of positivity gained attention through the research of renowned psychologist, John Gottman. In the 1970s, Gottman began to conduct longitudinal studies examining the differences between happy and unhappy couples. The researchers asked couples to solve a problem in their relationship in just 15 minutes. The interactions were filmed and analysed, and amazingly, the researches were able to identify one factor which would predict with a 90% degree of accuracy if the couples stayed together or divorced.

The researchers identified that the key factor which differentiated happy and unhappy couples, was the balance of positive vs negative interactions during conflict. The magic ratio they identified was 5:1. For every negative interaction, a happy and stable relationship would also have five positive interactions. Couples with only a 1:1 ratio, or less, would indicate an unhealthy relationship.

So does this mean that there is a magic number of positive interactions we should have on a daily basis to help our relationships (and ourselves) to flourish?

Research into the “magic positivity number” continued, through the work of Social Psychologist Marcial Losada, who began to look at the role of positive and negative interactions on team performance. Through his research, Losada discovered that high performing teams have significantly higher positivity to negativity ratios than low performance teams. He calculated the “Losado Ratio” which is calculated by dividing the sum of positive interactions (“I agree with that,” “great idea!!” etc) in a system by the sum of negative interactions (“I don’t agree with you,” “we shouldn’t even consider that!!” etc). A ratio of between 3 and 6 was highly correlated with high performance. In Losada’s study, the highest performing teams showed nearly 6 positive comments for every negative comment that was made.

Do does this mean we should ditch negativity and start praising the crap out of our colleagues/loved ones/strangers in the street!? “Hello there, your hair looks so shiny today” etc?

Providing negative feedback has an important role in workplaces and relationships, guarding against factors like Groupthink (when a desire for group harmony results in poor decision making) and also complacency or poor performance. We sometimes need to hear negative feedback to enhance our performance and make positive changes. Also, if we don’t express our feelings to others, we can run the risk of becoming passive aggressive, or expressing our frustration in maladaptive ways.

The good news is…negative feedback can be given in constructive ways that maintain positive emotional spaces. Here are a few tips to maintain positivity, whilst also being open and honest about negative feedback:

Identifying mutual goals or areas of common ground when delivering negative feedback can help maintain a sense that you’re both on the same page. Finding opportunities for agreement even in the midst of a conflict can help buffer the stress of a difficult workplace conversation or an argument with a friend or partner.
Listen to and acknowledge the other person’s perspective. Just because you don’t agree with someone else’s perspective, doesn’t mean that you can’t show that you’ve heard and acknowledged where the other person is coming from. Validating or summarising the perspective of the other party will help them to feel heard and understood (i.e, “that makes sense to me, I can see why that was useful for you” etc).
Provide positive feedback about what the person is doing well. Positive feedback reinforces us to repeat a behaviour. Acknowledging and praising the things someone is good at is a great way to encourage them to repeat and build on that behaviour.
Use positive emotion to buffer a difficult conversation. Take opportunities to provide praise or encouragement, or if appropriate, using humour or playfulness (in a respectful manner) can help receive the tension that comes with a difficult conversation.
When expressing negative comments, avoid falling into the traps that can lead relationships to deteriorate (showing contempt, defensiveness or criticism, or using tactics like stonewalling or dismissing the other person.

Can you take notice of your style of communication in the office? At home? With your friends? Do you take time to express positive emotions? Like any behaviour change, change starts at an individual level, and reflecting on our own behaviours if the first step in creating change.

If you could use a higher dose of positivity, practice expressing more positive emotion in your workplace (such as paying compliments, giving praise, using humour, listening to others and acknowledging their perspective or validating others). Set yourself a goal of having 6 positive interactions with your team, and notice if the dynamics of the team change over the course of the day.