Confidence ebbs & flows

I have discussed previously that I believe confidence is a belief that means you trust yourself and your ability to make choices and decisions.
Confidence naturally flows more easily when you feel life is going well & confidence starts to ebb away when we face major challenges or life changes.
This is natural, it reflects your honest assessments about what is happening in your life.
The trick is when you feel your confidence is ebbing not to judge yourself as “unconfident” or “lacking in confidence”.  In challenging times, especially at work, I always rated my co-workers confidence to be high – which made me feel worse.  Its also, worth saying that you don’t know how confident some feels or how much they believe in themselves.
What I have found helped me was to remind myself of my own successes.

Related Posts

  • Power Poses

    Like most people I am interested in body language.  Like most people I noticed awkward social interactions in day to day life.  Until recently I considered that body language is about

    • what you are communicating others
    • what they are communicating to you
    I always viewed body language as a tool people use to help them understand how other people think & feel.  What I never considered is the impact my body language had on me.  The influence my body language hand on my thoughts, feelings and physiology. We all have situations in our life when we would like to feel more optimistic and confident basically more powerful.  Social science has show that powerful leaders have low levels of cortisol (i.e. low levels of the stress hormone) and high levels of testosterone (i.e. high levels of the dominance hormone).  So what if we could use our body language to make ourselves feel more powerful in challenging situations, it turns out we can by adopting the wonder woman pose. wonderwomanBy adopting the Wonder Woman pose for 2 minutes, social scientists have proven that it will increase your confidence, assertiveness and help you feel more comfortable in a situation.  This is due to the impact holding this "high power" pose for two minutes has on your body, its reduces your cortisol levels and increases your testosterone levels.  Meaning you are less reactive to stressful situations. So can you apply this in real life.  Last weekend I was on my sports massage course and each weekend we have a written test we need to pass.  For some reason I had misunderstood what the test was on and forgot to review the whole subject.  I discovered this about 30 minutes before the test.  So I was in a highly stressful situation.  So I decided to give this power pose a try and did it during the next 30 minutes while revising.  The science says 2 minutes but I felt I needed all the help I could get.  It turns out that I passed.  While this isn't irrevocable proof, I would recommend people try it. As Amy Cuddy says "our body's change our minds, our minds change our behavior and our behavior changes our outcomes."  For a more detailed understanding of power poses, the science behind them, watch Amy Cuddy's Your body language shapes who you are.  
  • Are you an eMail Junkie?

    Most people now have at least one smartphone, normally a work phone, a blackberry and a personal phone.  With our professional and personal inbox's bulging, is constantly checking our email turning us all into unproductive email junkies?  An article in this Thursday's Evening Standard called "Supertask me", made me think.  Now that we live in a world where we only are without email on a flight (a blissful respite that I am sure we will loose soon) are we all email junkies? Checking your email is a double edged sword.  On the one hand if you check it too often then it becomes too frequent an interruption, you feel very busy but checking it too often will adversely impact your productivity.  On the other hand we’ve constantly got to be checking it, or risk the wrath of the bosses and co-workers that are trying to communicate with us. If we don’t respond to an email within 5 minutes, we’re seen as lazy or unproductive. As calling a co-worker when you want an urgent response has been replaced by email, the temptation is to constantly check your emails to demonstrate you are at the top of your game. With the amount of email we receive now and need to respond to now, its very easy to feel overwhelmed.  In today's world we are all adept at multi-tasking but really this means we are great at switching from one task to another.  So how often so you switch from your real work to checking our email?  This constant switching requires more mental effort than our actual work.  Remember there’s a huge difference between being busy and being productive. So how often should you check your email?  There is no accepted norm, and you know your job better than any expert,  so take the time to reflect on what will work best for you.  Some experts suggest that you don't check your email first thing in a morning or you only check your email first thing in a morning.  Personally I think these strategies only work if you are very high up on the food chain.  Rod Kurtz of Business Week argues that you ought to be checking your work email five times per day.  “Check your inbox only five times daily–first thing in the morning, mid-morning, after lunch, mid-afternoon, and end of day. Or even less if you are capable. This works when you turn off the automatic send/receive function, allowing you up to two hours to focus on your work, rather than to be continually interrupted. It works when you group the sorting of your e-mail, making you more productive and efficient in dealing with it.” With regards to dealing with email, every time you open a new email, ask yourself 3 basic questions: 1. Is this relevant? 2. Can I solve this? 3. Will it take less than 2 minutes of my time to deal with this? - If so deal with it straight away. Make sure that you schedule your email time in such a way that you avoid confusing the being busy with email and real work. If you approach your email with the correct attitude, you can boost your productivity by leaps and bounds and you free yourself from being an email junkie.

  • Am I stressed?

    If you ask people are they stressed, most people will say no.  The reality is that people rarely feel stressed out.  So I wanted to publish a guide to helping you becoming more aware of when your stress goes to high. Psychologist Connie Lillas uses a driving analogy to describe the three most common ways people respond when they’re overwhelmed by stress:

    • Foot on the gas – An angry, agitated, or “fight” stress response. You’re heated, keyed up, overly emotional, and unable to sit still.
    • Foot on the brake – A withdrawn, depressed, or “flight” stress response. You shut down, pull away, space out, and show very little energy or emotion.
    • Foot on both – A tense or “freeze” stress response. You become frozen under pressure and can’t do anything. You look paralyzed, but under the surface you’re extremely agitated.
    Signs and Symptoms of Stress Overload The following table lists some of the common warning signs and symptoms of stress. The more signs and symptoms you notice in yourself, the closer you may be to stress overload.
    Cognitive Symptoms Emotional Symptoms
    • Memory problems
    • Inability to concentrate
    • Poor judgment
    • Seeing only the negative
    • Anxious or racing thoughts
    • Constant worrying
    • Moodiness
    • Irritability or short temper
    • Agitation, inability to relax
    • Feeling overwhelmed
    • Sense of loneliness and isolation
    • Depression or general unhappiness
    Physical Symptoms Behavioral Symptoms
    • Aches and pains
    • Diarrhea or constipation
    • Nausea, dizziness
    • Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
    • Loss of sex drive
    • Frequent colds
    • Eating more or less
    • Sleeping too much or too little
    • Isolating yourself from others
    • Procrastinating or neglecting responsibilities
    • Using alcohol, cigarettes, or drugs to relax
    • Nervous habits (e.g. nail biting, pacing)