Embodying confidence
Do you feel confident all of the time? You would be a pretty rare person if you did! Most of us have situations where we embody confidence more often than others, whether that’s at work or in a personal context.
Yes but it’s scary!
The fear of the unknown, whether that’s at a new client meeting, an interview, having a difficult conversation with a colleague or client, is scary. As are areas where you feel your skills are not quite up to scratch. These are all common and perfectly understandable scenarios where your confidence can be tested. But given that you presumably want to present the best version of yourself, how do you overcome your confidence wobblies in these circumstances? Do you ‘fake it til you make it’ or scurry into a corner and hide?
How would your confident best self act?
Rather than trying to ‘force’ yourself to be confident or pretending to be something that you really feel you are not, look at being confident in a new way. Go back to basics and think about what qualities your best self would like to embody as a more confident you. How would your confident, authentic self act in these challenging situations? Here are some tips that might help start the process and improve overall self-esteem…
Smile and make eye contact
Looking people in the eye and smiling really helps with building rapport and confidence. Try to avoid looking down. Look up and make eye-contact and notice what a more positive reaction you receive.
Consider your body language
Some really simple tweaks to how you hold your body really help improve your confidence. Standing ‘taller’, moving with more purpose, consciously dropping your shoulders, relaxing your hands. There is a great deal of confidence ‘leverage’ in the way we use our body language. It really speaks volumes as to how confident you look and ultimately how confident you will feel.
How about your tone of voice?
In stressful situations, we naturally tend to speak quickly, more quietly or not at all. Consciously slow down and take a breath if you need to when speaking. Confidence is created with a relaxed tone of voice, which may not come naturally to you. Practice, practice and practice some more. Record your voice and play it back if this helps. The more feedback you give yourself the better equipped you will be to adjust and improve your confident tone of voice.
Think in a better way
Get rid of that negative, critical voice in your head that questions your ability and encourages self-doubt. You become your behaviours – so frame things in a more positive light and question your negative thinking about how confident you appear.
Need more help with embodying confidence?
Confidence is a fragile and complex quality that can be very challenging to attain and hold onto. It’s also recognised as a major component of most business models of superior performance.
“My presence speaks volumes before I say a word.”
Mos Def
Thankfully, like a great many things, the skills involved in how to embody confidence can be easily learned. And we can show you how…
Embody confidence and positivity
If you would like to improve in this area and are stuck on where to start we can help you. Our module Embody Confidence and Positivity will show you how and give you the confidence to use these techniques in all your business communications.
This module reveals the techniques actors use to exude confidence even under the pressure of live performance. You’ll discover simple, replicable skills that will help you to instantly project confidence and positivity, feel more empowered in any challenging business situation and increase success and happiness at work.
Participants will be able to:
- Increase confidence in challenging situations
- Display self-assurance and confidence to all levels in the business
- Project positivity and drive – even on a bad day
- Show confidence in your own judgement or ability
- Remain calm and control in difficult, confrontational or stressful situations
- Communicate more easily with others
If you’d like further information on how we can help you or your leaders please contact us here.
