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Friday 25 October 2013

Public Speaking: How To Gain Confidence

By Antonio G. Clerk


Gaining self confidence is a very hard task, but it can be very achievable if you have patience, determination, and to truly believe that you are going to make it. The following are some of the ways through which you can gain self confidence:Learn your insecurities - In order to gain self confidence you have to locate those issues that make you uncomfortable. It can be a result of past experience, friends or general appearance. You can even write them down on a paper and tear it later to make you feel better.

Overcome Fear.One reason you may not belief in yourself is your fear. It could be fear of failure, that if you fail you will lose even more confidence and be an embarrassment. Nothing ventured nothing gain, give yourself the freedom to fail. You do not really fail unless you give up. So long as you continue to do what it takes for you to gain confidence then there is nothing to fear. The beauty is that the more you do the more confident you become. Think about a nine to 12 month old baby who's learning to walk, how the baby eventually has full confidence and enjoys the new found freedom. The more the baby walks the more confident the baby gets.

Identify your successes - Get to know the good things and the talents you have and appreciate them. By this you can find inner peace that will help you gain self-confidence in some areas of your life.Do not care too much about what other people think - Other people tend to care more about themselves than you. You cannot please everybody in the world, so do what you think is right and pleases you. For example, when you are speaking in a public gathering, do not care about how people think about you, just believe in yourself. This will help you appreciate yourself, which builds your self-confidence

Avoid Toxic People.It's very important to avoid people who are cynical about your attempts at anything. Get away from critics who are just out to bring you down regardless of how hard you did something. For some reason or another, they savor the opportunity to see people achieve less or achieve nothing at all. As if that will make them look better.Gain Support.Just as important to avoid toxic people is to gain support for whatever you are doing. Surround yourself with good encouraging friends. Good friends are like sunshine, soil, fertilizers and water to the confidence seed you are growing.Make A To Do List.Commit to a few things you will do. There is no use reading an article on how to gain confidence if you do not have a plan and commit to it. Commit to gaining confidence. Have a few things you feel doable in the short term and be sure to do them. You want to create a "things you have done well" list. It acts as a confidence builder. They need not be super-duper goals. Just goals you feel good about. Then increase the next goal to be a little more challenging. As you do, achieving goals will become a habit and hence build confidence.Another way that has worked for me is to read motivating materials. It is my way of feeding my mind with positive things and also to know that I am not alone in my quest. Sometimes, no matter how you try to avoid toxic people, no matter how discipline, committed you are, some things will beat you down. Reading or listening to motivating material is like fuel for your quest to gain confidence.

The economy might be in a better shape than one year ago but the job market has remained tough. The competition is fierce even with many candidates raising their qualifications, expanding their network and working on their skill set. It has become necessary to change the logistics of the search for a new job; success can be reached by applying all of yourself to your quest.A positive attitude is hard to accomplish when the general outlook is grim yet it is crucial if you want to be effective and gain professional achievements. Affirmative and forward-looking approach will not only advance your career, it may also improve other areas of your life. This is a great time to start building your confidence and focus on your attitude.

While some people revert to eating, shopping, crying, screaming or even, hibernating from everyone, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that these reactions don't help the situation or your self-confidence very much. Instead of running that "spit the dummy" routine when you are feeling like a failure, let's transfer your focus and energy on something that may help your cause, instead of magnifying it.The quickest way to do this is turning to your supporters. Firstly you need to know,Who are your supporters? Who can help pull you out of this emotional downtime? Who can give you that confidence boost?I call this emotional downtime, because, while you feel like a loser with no confidence, it's only your emotions which are responsible for your results. Your actual knowledge and skills are good enough to succeed, but it's your pessimistic focus that drives your negative emotions which in turn give you the disappointing results that you produce when in this state resulting in no confidence. When you are in such an emotional downtime, it's virtually impossible to turn yourself around by yourself.

All you need to do is alter your thoughts and views which in turn will turn your emotions and results around 180 degrees. But it's very difficult to do by yourself.You have been to five job interviews and failed to get the job on all occasions. Of course now you have a lack of self confidence and are starting to think negatively about the next job interview. You may start saying things like, "I'm a loser", "I'll never get a job", "I'm not good enough" and so on.Now it will be almost impossible for you to walk into the next job interview with optimistic expectations and be upbeat. Instead you will be thinking "why bother".Reading this now, I'm sure you will agree that it is all so obvious. But take yourself back to some similar situations that you have been in and remember that you too reacted in such a no hope attitude, shutting off the possibility of a positive outcome. It's very hard to turn it around by yourself!

But with the help of others, this can be done quickly and easily.Just like any business person or athlete, whenever they question their ability to produce the necessary results, they turn to their coach to pull them out rather than trying to do it themselves because they know that at the time,They are emotionally charged negatively to the situation, limiting possible outcomes and perceptions.Their coach/supporter is not emotionally connected to the situation, and therefore can think logically.Who is or can be your personal coach to pull you out of situations when you are feeling down with no confidence? Think carefully here, you don't want to choose the wrong coach.Think of all your family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors, members of any clubs you belong to, shop owners etc. you have gotten to know.Now all you have to do is contact them.

Choose who you spend time with wisely.Happiness is contagious, surround yourself with genuine and constructive people and some of their attitude will rub off on you and influence you in a positive way. You may want to spend more time with family; you need each other's support and faith. Give yourself small breaks and do something that makes you happy: meet with friends, take a walk in the park, go to cinema or treat yourself to a small gift.

So all you have to do once they accept to help is,Make sure you are willing to listen, learn and change your points of view. All you want to achieve out of this is a snap out of your negative thoughts to alter your feeling as a confidence builder. It doesn't matter so much if they are right or not with whatever they say, just be open and willing to accept a fresh point of view to make this transition successful. It won't help at all if you are in denial and every time they say something that goes against your beliefs, you snap back at them saying they are wrong. Right and wrong does not matter right now. Getting you out of your emotional downtime is the only issue. Praise them like mad, but be genuine. That way, they will feel good, knowing that you really respect their time and words of advice and will be very willing to help you again should you fall into the same emotional downtime again.Don't forget, you are NOT alone when you feel the world is against you and you have no confidence. Go to your "coaches" and use them to pull you out of the emotional downtime and move on confidently.




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