‘Skill Focus: Self Confidence & Fulfilling your Potential’ Sonia Bate, Director & Executive Coach, Edit Development

Self Confidence and Fulfilling your Potential

Objectives You want to be confident and feel confident, but what if your confidence levels vary and sometimes you find yourself feeling short of confidence in certain situations? How do you get from Point A to Point B? True self-confidence isn't an overnight acquisition. It is about building self-awareness, exploring techniques to grow your self-belief and developing a clear route map to maximise your full potential. This session will focus on supporting you achieving these goals

What is Confidence?

Is it the feeling of being better than others? Is it not being easily influenced by others? Is it not caring about what others think about you? According to confidence is ‘the belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities.’ So if belief is so important what does belief mean? Belief is basically a strong feeling of certainty you have about something. So having belief in your ability to succeed means you feel quite certain that you can achieve success. It doesn’t say DEFINITE or WILL or ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN!

What is Confidence? From this we can understand that confidence is actually all about perception. Confidence is not based solely on actual facts, rather it is based more on opinion. Some people need more references (i.e. indicators of success) for them to have a feeling of certainty about achieving success, while others may feel certain of success despite having very little, if any references to back them up. The things that make one person feel confident may not matter at all to another person.

The Ladder of Inference Action or Event Judgment – I evaluate Emotions – I have a feeling response Interpretation – I add meaning Perception – I notice Event – Something happens Our beliefs affect what data we select

What is Bias? A tendency or preference towards a particular perspective This tendency interferes with our ability to be impartial, objective or unprejudiced Bias is generally seen as a 'one-sided' perspective Cognitive bias is based on factors relating to way the brain processes information. These biases include: Self confirmation bias Blind spot of our abilities Stereotyping of others views The Halo Effect

In Summary The difference between a person who has confidence and a person who doesn’t have confidence may only boil down to their individual perception. Two persons may have the same level of skill, experience, knowledge, ability, training etc. but one may feel more confident than the other because she perceives that her current level of ability is sufficient to achieve success while the other person believes it isn’t sufficient. Both will never know for sure whether their current capabilities are adequate until they actually attempt it for real. Never let the perception of your confidence level stop you from attempting anything. Let us look closer at ourselves to make sure we develop a plan which means we don’t do the above.

Finding Your Balance

The Big Questions

Putting Yourself Out There

Self Talk Change the voice and turn the volume down Take a reality check – is it going to matter in 5, 5 and 5 Use your affirmation anchors to make you remember how amazing you are Give compliments and positive feedback to others Seek feedback and say thank you when you are complimented Say out loud the value you made today at work and at home

Fear of being Exposed! Reality check – Are you being your hardest critic? Reality check – What is the worst that can happen if you take a chance? Reality check – Preparation is important, but do you need to know more than you know right now? If so TAKE ACTION! If you don’t try then how will you know? FAILURE does not exist, you either WIN, you LEARN and then you do take different actions next time

Other People Choose to walk away – you don’t need to surround yourself with mood hoovers, it takes one bad apple to turn a barrel! If you have been criticised remember feedback is a gift – you can keep it wrapped or unwrap the message. Remember not all feedback is valuable, unless it is fact based it is someone’s opinion. Do you value their opinion? Who are you viewing yourself from; Other people’s eyes or your own? Surround yourself with mood radiators to help your energy Laugh……….

Self Esteem My Achievements / Affirmations: My Personal Affirmations:

Every Thought and Creation ……is marked by eight stages: 1. Excitement 2. Possibility 3. Fear 4. Belief 5. Faith 6. Action 7. Commitment 8. Result

From Thought to Action

Some Words to Remember “It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not. Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent” Eleanor Roosevelt