Confidence

Confidence is a curious beast.

We tend to think of some people as confident and some people as not. But when you look closer, you realise that actually everyone is confident at something and nobody is confident at everything. The trick is to think about all the things in your life that you are confident about and analyse how you got to be confident at them. And then apply what you know to the area you want to be more confident in.

Let’s imagine you would like to be a confident public speaker. At the moment – even thinking about it makes you sweat. You look at your life and think – I am pretty confident at walking. I am so confident at walking, I don’t even think about it anymore. I get up and I walk. But that was not always the case. Have you ever seen babies learning to walk? First they crawl, then they hold on to things, then they start walking by themselves on very wobbly legs. There are falls and cries before they master the art of walking and get confident at it.

So going back to your wish to be a confident public speaker. If you would like to just be confident without the crawling, holding on to things, wobbly legs, falls and cries, I have bad news for you, it’s not going to happen. Just wanting it very, very much is not enough. Ask yourself, what is the first tiny little step I could take? Something that will make me feel uncomfortable but won’t cause a heart attack? Talking out loud? Recording a talk and listening to it? Asking a friend to listen? Or maybe imagining yourself on a stage? Just because the end goal is terrifying, doesn’t mean you won’t get there. Think small steps, consistency and practice. You’ve got this. You’ve done it before.