As a personal coach I’m often asked by my clients how they can build their confidence. This request used to bother me. Partly this was because although it was clear to me what people wanted - at the same time the concept is so intangible. It was only after years of helping and supporting people that I realised what this request was really about.

Today there are numerous powerful techniques to help people build confidence. Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) has produced a huge variety of tools, most of which are about helping people to feel unstoppable, energised and invincible.

There are times when these feelings are certainly the right ones to have. There are other times when this is not the right sort of confidence you need. Let’s say a loved one needs emergency brain surgery. When you meet the surgeon they’re bouncing off the walls with energy and come across as 100% confident, yet you also knew they’re only a junior doctor. How would you feel about trusting the life of a loved one to such a person?

In this article I invite you to explore a little further what being confident means to you.

Let me start by asking some simple questions. Do you feel confident that you can clean your teeth? Do you need to use techniques to feel unstoppable before picking up your toothbrush and toothpaste? May I suggest that you just go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, not giving it a second thought? I think it’s probably fair to say that you’re confident you can clean your teeth.

Now what about switching the light on in your living room, or getting dressed in the morning, or even driving to work? I’d like to suggest that those things that you know you can do are things that you feel confident about - right?

Perhaps you’ve noticed how people talk about confidence. People will commonly say “I’m confident I can do this, or that.” Interestingly though, the majority of times people use the word confidence it’s in connection with a lack of it! People say “I don’t feel confident in job interviews.” “I wish I felt more confident when talking with people of the opposite sex.” “I can’t speak in public because I’m not confident.”

We’re now getting closer to the realisation I had about what confidence is, and what it’s not.

The things you know you can do (such as cleaning your teeth) have no feeling associated with them. These are things you just do. The feeling is only there when you have a lack of confidence.

Lack of confidence is the thing we have to deal with - not confidence. Lack of confidence is no more than a different way of saying we’re afraid, or at least concerned. Just try this for a moment: think of something you feel unconfident about. Do you fear that you might not be able to do that thing? What you feel fearful of is what the outcome might be.

You’re probably aware of the principle that ”When you’ve finally defined what the problem is, you’re most of the way to solving it!” People who are looking for confidence are actually looking for something that probably doesn’t exist. For most people the word confidence just means a lack of fear.

This now makes things much easier to deal with.

These days when I work with people to help them build their confidence, all I need to do is to get them to identify the precise fears or concerns they have. With each individual client those fears or concerns will be different. Sometimes they’re just made up, other times it’s about a lack of knowledge, and often it’s because they don’t have the skills to do things yet.

Let me give you an example. A fairly typical client may want to gain confidence in talking with people of the opposite sex. When they first approach me, what’s probably going on inside their head is some combination of fear of rejection, fear of being laughed at, fear of failure and so on.

Now just imagine the same person if they’d had thousands of conversations with people of the opposite sex so they had the experience of being flexible and relaxed in conversations. How would they feel then? Is it likely they’d have the confidence they’re looking for?

Now apply the same principle to things that you may feel a lack of confidence about. What are your concerns and what are your fears? What skills or abilities, if you had them, would mean that most of these fears and concerns would go away? If you had a great amount of experience in this type of situation how would you feel then?

Perhaps the way for you to get the confidence you’re looking for is to find ways to develop those skills and gain that knowledge.

[tags]build confidence, Confidence, article, problem, personal coach, neuro linguistic programming, supporting people, feelings, living room, nlp, helping people, fear, energy, NLP, feeling, Linguistic, unconfident, connection[tags]