Building Confidence in your Conversations
We all experience a lack of confidence at some point in our lives. A lack of confidence is a lack of trust and belief in ourselves, and while some of us might embody more confidence than others, none of us is perfect. We all have our share of insecurities, self doubts and limiting beliefs. So I promise you, you are NOT alone. In fact, lacking confidence in communication especially in the business setting is quite common. In this blog we’ll explore where the lack of self confidence stems from, and what you can do to start improving your confidence today
Why do we lack confidence?
There are many factors that could be contributing to a lack of self confidence. This can be anything from our childhood experiences, our environment, our cultural backgrounds, challenging or traumatic life events, etc. These experiences or circumstances shape the negative thoughts we have and trigger limiting beliefs. Over time, our beliefs impact the way we see the world around us, as if we begin to view ourselves and our lives through the filter of that belief. We begin looking for validation to confirm that this belief is true, because we have decided in our mind that it is. And, of course, what we are intentionally looking for, we certainly will find, and that ‘evidence’ will further confirm that what we think is true, perpetuating the pattern of this negative thinking.
What can we do about it?
So it’s understandable why it becomes so challenging for us to see beyond our limiting beliefs. But,The GOOD news is, we CAN change them. There’s plenty of research that has been done around reprogramming limiting beliefs, reframing negative thoughts, etc. So this idea is nothing new, and the changes are you have heard it before. But in any case, here are 3 steps you can take to practice reframing your negative thoughts.
Step 1: Identify the Limiting Belief. The first step is becoming aware. You have to recognize and acknowledge that there is a thought pattern or belief that is holding you back.
Step 2: Choose differently. Choose to no longer engage in the limiting belief, and then choose to reframe that belief into a more empowering one. Put the new thought/belief on a sticky note somewhere you can see it regularly and each time you catch yourself thinking the old disempowering belief, choose again.
Step 3: Support your new belief with an action. This helps you move from simply thinking to actually embodying this new belief.
So let’s look at how this applies to your communication. There are several common limiting beliefs around communication especially as women in business. Below I’ve listed a few examples, see if any of these resonate with you:
I hate public speaking
My ideas are not good enough
I don’t feel like I’m an expert
I don’t want to sound sales-y
I don’t want to be pushy
Putting it into Practice:
Think of a limiting belief that comes to mind for you around your communication. To walk you through an example, I’ll use the most common limiting belief I used to struggle with, and that is:
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY.
“I can’t give a presentation, what if people ask me questions - I don’t know what to say!”
“ I can’t be on a podcast interview because what if we go off the cuff and I don’t know what to say! “
“I don’t want to go to that networking event because what if I don’t know anyone and someone comes to talk to me, and I don’t know what to say!”
If this is a limiting belief you have experienced yourself, then you know how challenging it can be to work with. You might also be wondering, how would you go about reframing this into a more empowering belief. Here is the empowering belief I chose to use, and the sticky note is still on my computer to this day:
“ I TRUST MYSELF AND MY KNOWLEDGE. I AM CAPABLE OF HANDLING THIS CONVERSATION”
And YOU are capable, too. I promise!
Now, the final step to creating more confidence is attaching a positive action to support this new belief. In this case, the action I take ( and the action YOU can take) is to always prepare your message.
Every single time you go into an interaction where you are worried you won’t know what to say, you are going to prepare your message. I know it sounds like a lot, but I promise it doesn’t have to be. This doesn’t mean that you have a full script that you memorize, it means that you think through the interaction in advance and answer some questions for yourself so that you can anticipate what you will say when the time comes.
This process has been so helpful for me, so I actually created a FREE guide that you can use so it is easy for you to implement and practice.
It is my 6 step framework to always know what to say… even when you don’t.
It is 100% free for you, so here is the link go grab it: https://bit.ly/3WyHSPm
And remember: YOU ARE CAPABLE!
Talk soon!
