How to Gain Confidence
Confidence is a relatively simple psychological tool that provides great power, so why is it so hard for most people to achieve?
In my opinion, most of the blame can be attributed to the fact that humans spend the first dozen years of their life actively attacking the
confidence of all around them. Some people stop this in their teens, others do this their whole lives. This is because of the flawed human instinct that you can gain confidence yourself by destroying the confidence of others. Luckily, this particular flaw can be turned around to work for us using NLP.
Take the picture above.
It’s a cat who confidently sees himself as a lion. When other cats see him, they don’t see a lion, they see a cat. But the cat’s body language will show to all the other cats that he holds himself in high re- gard, as if he were a lion.
The other cats will think that the lion cat is very sure of himself, and probably for a good reason. After all, throughout the cat’s childhood, he must have been thoroughly “tested” by all the other kittens - yet he has such confidence! No other cat will question this confidence, they will simply accept it.
How Confidence Works
Confidence works as a self-fuelling cycle, either for the positive or for the negative. That is why once your confidence is damaged, it can be difficult to send it back on the right path. The following page shows an example of a negative confidence cycle.
Now compare that to the following, which is a positive confidence cycle:
How to Gain Confidence Using NLP
Here is a script that can show you how to gain confidence using NLP. You can adapt this script to suit your own purpose.
Step one - Do not hold confidence in awe
If you hold the notion of confidence in awe or fear, you are telling yourself that it is a powerful thing that will be difficult to get. You need to understand that confidence is just a tiny littleemotional loop happening in your brain’s limbic system. That is all confidence is! Believe it or not, you have complete power over your confidence right now and at all times.
Step two - Picture confidence as a golden aura around you
Imagine a very, extremely confident person. Let’s call this imaginary person Confido. Picture him walk- ing up to a group of strangers at a party and start talking with them. They instantlylove him, because he is so friendly and confident. It is clear that Confido knew everyone would love him before he even started speaking. Picture a golden aura surrounding him that only you can see. This is his confidence.
You can take this aura and bring it over yourself. Feel how the confidence flows around you. Everything feels natural and you are confident to do anything you want.
Step three - Feel how it is to be 100% confident in a known setting
While you are doing this, set an NLP Anchor - I suggest pressing your left thumbnail into your left index finger in a pulsing motion.
Take a memory where you were doing something you really enjoy and feel safe about. Maybe read- ing a good book on the beach, or talking to a close friend in a comfortable setting.What can you see? What can you hear? Strongly re-establish the setting around you as vividly as possible. Describe it to yourself out loud, right now. Pay attention to your posture - doyou look relaxed or defensive? How does it feel to be so confident? You feel sure of yourself, relaxed, and you have a feeling of knowing that things are going well. Make this feeling of confidence as strong and vivid as you can before mov- ing on.
Continue to reinforce this anchor, and every time you feel the confidence, press the anchor again. Each time you do so, let the feeling of confidence double and surge. You must associatethe emotional feel- ing of confidence with the physical sensation of the anchor.
Step four - Feel how it is to be 100% confident in an unknown setting
During this step, whenever there is underlined text, reinforce your confidence anchor by pressing your thumbnail again.
Take the feeling of confidence and keep it flowing as you put yourself in a new, imaginary setting. Pic- ture yourself speaking to strangers with 100% confidence. Picture yourself at the party, walking up to a group of strangers who are talking amongst themselves. You have the confident posture of a confident person. You KNOW that because you are 100% confident, youwill get along fine with this group.
As soon as you approach, the strangers smile with their eyes, you FEEL they are interested in you. You start talking and merge right in with their conversation. The group takes you in as one of their own 100% seamlessly. You are not acting differently, you are being yourself, and everyone loves it. Feel how confident you are just being yourself.
Continue to reinforce this anchor, and every time you feel the confidence, press the anchor again. You must associate the emotional feeling of confidence with the physical sensation of theanchor.
Step five - Take a snapshot of yourself in the confident world
What you’ve just done is imagined being yourself and feeling very confident. You now have a memory of yourself in a very confident state.
Even though it is imagined, your unconscious mind cannot tell the difference between an imagined memory and a real memory. In fact, there have been cases where grown-up childrenhave falsely pros- ecuted parents for child abuse, when in fact the memories were entirely imagined and developed by the probing of incompetent psychiatrists.
I want you to take a snapshot of that memory we’ve just created. Something that encompasses the height of the confident feeling. Now take the snapshot and make it bolder and morevivid. Bring it closer to you, make it larger, the size of a large wall. Make the snapshot detailed and realistic. Feel the feeling of the snapshot, and reinforce the anchor. Make everything as large, bold, and vivid as you pos- sibly can.
Now double it again! Step into the snapshot. Look through your own eyes in that confident setting, feel the confidence as strongly as you can, and reinforce the anchor again. Keep doing this for a good minute or two.
Step six - Use the anchor
Now go use it! Use your anchor and let all the feelings of confidence come flooding in. If it isn’t work- ing very well, then go back to step one and repeat everything. Once you get the hang of this, you’ll truly understand that confidence is a tiny little loop in your mind that you can switch on at will. The logic is undeniable:
1. By feeling more confident, you appear more confident
2. By appearing more confident, people react to you in a positive way
3. When people react to you in a positive way, it reinforces your confidence
4. Go to step 1
A Failsafe Way of Gaining Confidence
There is another way to create confidence - and that’s to simply act confident instead of actually feel- ing it (at first). It can be difficult to do in the beginning because you’ll need to adoptall the correct body language of a confident person.
To do this, imagine the most confident person you know doing whatever it is they do. Watch them talk, look at their body language (most importantly) and listen to how their voicesounds. Here are some tips:
• Adopt an open body posture. No crossed legs or folded arms.
• Make your neck tall and shoulders relaxed, as if you were trying to see over a wall that was very slightly taller than your eye level. Like a meerkat who is looking for a predator. You know what I mean.
• Speak clearly and with volume - and remember what you’re saying is worth hearing.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously, humour is the most universal language and can help prevent conflict with alpha-male and attention-envy types.
• Don’t be judgemental to others - but let yourself be open to judgement from others. This relaxes people around you, and helps bring down the barriers between you.
