4 Confidence Boosting Lessons

I like to think of myself as a fairly confident business woman these days. However, change the context and it is amazing how that confidence can eek away! It happened to me when I began horse riding again. You may have faced this when having to do a new a new job or a difficult task such as networking, public speaking etc.

So how do you overcome that? How can you encourage more confidence in order to improve your performance? I’m going to use my horse riding example to demonstrate the theory.

Lesson 1: Notice when you get unconfident feelings and check your physiology.

When I was 11 years old we moved to the Lake District which meant changing schools. As a child I was painfully shy and would find it very difficult to instigate conversation.

At the time my mum was working for an Arabian stud farm owner and they said I could help out in exchange for some lessons. The thought of approaching people I didn\’t know and asking for a job was really scary.

Fast forward 30 years and I\’m stood in the yard at the riding school, with my newly acquired jodhpurs on, feeling very self-conscious and like I was 11 years old again! I was taken aback by those old feelings.

When I recognised that my physiology was hunched and communicated, ‘I lack confidence’, I made adjustments, which also made me feel more confident. This guy demonstrates how you can convey a more confident posture.

If the feeling really won’t go away, Haven it away…or come and see me for a free sample session.

Lesson 2: Stop over-thinking the activity. Be in your body, not your head. Adopt a happy-go-lucky attitude. Choose to enjoy the learning; let it wash over you.

So, I have my ‘assessment’ and stand back in amazement, my body knew how to ride a horse! The instructor said I was ‘a natural’. This was good for confidence.

As the lessons progressed I got really interested. I began watching YouTube videos and got obsessed with my foot position on the stirrups! I started to realise how much I didn\’t know, which is described as ‘conscious incompetence’ on the learning curve

What all of this actually did was cause my performance to decline, which was no good for confidence! My instructor pointed out that I was over thinking it – I needed to be in my body, not my head. What also helped was choosing to re-adopt my happy-go-lucky attitude and enjoy the learning process.

Lesson 3: Stop thinking about things going wrong. Feed yourself positive messages and instruction. Become your own cheerleader.

In my thirst for knowledge, I spoke to lots of other riders, and I was told a few horror stories about falling off. Up until that point, I hadn’t even thought about things going wrong; I normally felt really calm on a horse. £150 later, protective vest purchased.

Like any good teacher my instructor notched things up a level and put me on what can only be described as a massive horse, (I am exaggerating a little). I’d gone from a 1 litre to a 2 litre. I was scared. My coach spots this and tells me to, ‘breath’ and ‘be relaxed in the leg’. These were good instructions as they were positively stated. The mind finds it hard to negate: don’t think about nails scratching down a blackboard! (Sorry).

A few lessons down the line and I’d cracked talking to myself in a more positive manner. When I was asked to go over a jump, instead of saying, ‘Oh crap’, I said, ‘Go on, you can do it. You can do it!’…and a I did!

If you struggle to talk to yourself positively in the moment, do it in advance of the situation. This short video shows you how.

Lesson 4: Don’t wait around for that confident moment.

This is one of the things I regularly say to my clients. I procrastinated for months about taking up riding again; I was waiting for that confident moment. We forget that we gain confidence through doing. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and get on with it. Push through those feelings, because what’s waiting on the other side of that experience is potential elation.

Again if you really struggle with this advice, cheat. Here’s an NLP technique, which shows you how to generate feelings of confidence.

Personal Effectiveness Programme

Our Personal Effectiveness Programme is targeted at middle-management / up and coming talent and is designed to enhance employee performance by:

Reducing stress and getting them to take responsibility for their wellbeing, because too much stress slows down productivity.
Enhancing confidence and self-esteem so that they dare to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do in the workplace, that will advance their career.
Improving their emotional intelligence so that they better influence their own state of mind, but also the states of those they work with, resulting in much more harmonious relations.
Making them more efficient by being better organised and focussed on the most important aspects of their role.
Getting them to assert themselves at work, so that they don’t get drawn into unnecessary tasks and are able to delegate.
Challenging them to think more commercially about their role and to identify opportunities for business development.
Teaching them how to present their ideas / products / services in an interesting and commanding way.
Holding them to account each month to a series of challenges and actions so that they apply the learning to the workplace.