The Personal Confidence Trick

If there are times when your confidence deserts you, this simple trick or technique could make all the difference.

Before I tell you how to do it let me give you the opportunity to quickly prove it will work for you first.

Sit as you would if you were on your own and feeling really fed up. Yes that’s right, imagine you are fed up now, and sit or stand as you would if your were fed up now.

Maintain that position for 15 to 20 seconds. No more!

OK, now sit or stand as you do when you are with people you like and are feeling really happy. You can choose how happy you want to imagine you are right now but move into the position you associate with feeling that happy and hold it for 15 seconds, or for as long as you now want to feel happy now.

So what have you noticed? Have you noticed that you adopted different positions and that you did it without having to think about it very much, if at all?

Did you also notice that as you assumed each of the positions you also began to feel a bit fed up, or happy to some degree? Yes?

The simple explanation for this is that over time, as you have experienced different emotions and moods, your body has taken on different shapes that you now unconsciously and habitually associate with them.

The interesting and useful consequence is that when you adopt the position you associate with a particular mood you also begin to ‘feel as if’ you are in that mood too. It’s all to do with the way we are wired up which there isn’t time to go into more in this article.

So to feel confident when you need to but don’t, you simply have to adopt the
position you do when you feel naturally confident.

So how are you going to do that?

Remember times in the past when you have felt supremely confident.

Choose one of those times that you can recall and relive in some detail now.

See yourself back there then and remember where you are and what is going on around you.

Recall what you see.

Hear the sounds around you.

Perhaps you even now remember the smells.

As you do this recall how you were standing or sitting and now begin to take
on that shape and experiment with how that feels.

Notice the muscle tension you associate with feeling this way, perhaps in your
face, your neck, shoulders, chest, abdomen and legs.

Recall how you are breathing. Where in your diaphragm, high up in your chest
or deeper in the belly?  Fast and tense or slow and relaxed?

Experiment, and as you do notice what your body naturally does when you do
‘feeling confident’ now?

And, in the days ahead when you naturally feel confident notice again what it is you do and keep stacking these experiences so you become more consciously aware of what you do unconsciously when you are feeling that way.

You will probably notice one or two of the movements and sensations are
particularly effective in helping you feel more confident naturally. Make a particular note of these and reproduce them first because when you do you will discover they have a domino effect and trigger of all sorts of other changes in you naturally that are all very helpful.

My clients typically notice relaxing their shoulders and breathing more deeply is particularly effective. You may find it is something else however.

Now when you feel less confident than you want to, arrange your body in the ways you have discovered you associate with feeling more confident and enjoy the results.

The extra bonus: When you act as if you are confident you will not only feel it you will appear it to the world around you and you are likely to find this magnifies how you feel in yourself.

Wishing you an outstandingly successful life.

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Alistair Nee specialises in coaching executives, leadership teams and high potentials that want to resolve contemporary business issues and generate sustainable corporate and personal growth.

His client centred approach is solution focused, supportively challenging, incisive, and centred on the client achieving their goals swiftly and easily.

Alistair is an accredited coach, Master Hypnotherapist, certified NLP Master
Practitioner, member of the International Coach Federation and founder of creating the edge ltd. More details at http://www.executive-coaching-and-personal-development-coach.com

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