How to overcome self doubt gain self confidence

Are you too honest for your own good?

Have you ever wondered whether you are too honest for your own good? Now what do I mean by that, let me explain. For Example, you go for a job interview and the interviewer tell you that you’ll have to achieve these unrealistic targets, do you say yes I will do that even though you know you are not so sure about it and then your mind starts thinking is that possible. What I mean to be precise is, let’s say the name of the company is X and you have heard the name for the first time in your life and the interviewer says that they have this event and you have to get the top people for that event, then the mind starts thinking I just heard the name of the company now, so how do I really manage to reach such top people and communicate to them that this is a fabulous company and you should take some time out an come for it’s event. So you are thinking and trying to give the interviewer a honest answer and,  the interviewer assumes that you lack confidence. Even though you know it’s not that you lack confidence, but are trying to be a realist here. Well to be really honest, you’ll have to be a little realistic and say I will give it my best shot. But then in this world today even that is considered to be a lack of confidence.

What a lot of these interviewers expect is a person who says, yes it will be done. Now, saying yes it will be done is a sure shot way of getting the message across that table that you do not lack confidence at all, maybe a little over confident but works. Now let’s get to the point what’s this about honesty and confidence. Well we all have out flaws, now when we think about our flaws with a view of trying to overcome them, we tend to think about them every time some challenges crop up, like in the case illustrated above, what happened. You went for the interview and then your mind started thinking a lot of things, like is the company brand good enough to get the kind of people for the events, how will I manage that, will I be able to deliver, should I tell him/her yes I will be able to do this job, what will happen if I don’t deliver, what if I manage to get no one, and then the thoughts start going downhill, till you start having doubts about your own abilities. And all you are doing is making an honest assessment.

STOP IT

Stop this assessment now. You don’t need to honestly think of so many things, with so much doubt. What you need to do is start having some faith in yourself. When an unrealistic target was given to you, all you could have done was believed that you are up to the job to get those people and half of your problems would have solved themselves. The interviewer would have seen the confident you, would have realized that this person will be an asset to my company. And automatically you would have said yes sir I will be able to do that.

Now, understand the point, when you try to be too honest in your self assessment, you tend to develop a lot of self doubts. This in turn will make you look like a person low on confidence and that won’t help you much.

So how do you gain that confidence, no matter what all the confidence gurus say, it is ultimately you who has to think and figure out a way to boost your confidence. One of the best methods has been to fake it.

FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT

Well this will work, even when you are not a confident person start behaving like a confident person, to actually motivate yourself to do this, you do have to change a few things in your life, few simple things.

Groom yourself well, the better you look the more confident you’ll feel.

Stay clean and hygienic.

Strike the power pose just for two minutes, the one which every confidence coach says, keep both your arms on your waist and stand with your shoulders up and chest out of two minutes, even two minutes will work wonders with your mind.

Smile, this is a big trigger, when you smile you’ll actually feel happy and that in turn will boost your confidence.

Find one good thing about yourself, maybe you have a caring nature, good smile, good listener, manage to strike up a good conversation etc. One good thing and start to be happy about that.

Stop thinking what others will think about what you say or do, this is easy to say but really difficult to do. So you’ll have to consciously work hard on this. Every time a thought like this comes to your head, and trust me it comes a lot of times and it disguises itself in so many ways that it becomes really difficult to point out when it comes. But you need to stay aware and negate this negative thought completely.

BE LIKE A BABY, not a worry in the world.

Well all this is easy to type, but not that easy to implement. But one BABY STEP A TIME and you’ll get it.

Just remember that you are in no way inferior than the people around you, you have the same capabilities, all you need to do is start believing that.

I will come up with a few more interesting ideas and tips about this soon and will post it and share it with you all. Even I am working on my confidence.