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Episode 72: Unwavering Self-Confidence

This episode is for you if you want to be more secure in yourself and your abilities, and to feel worthy, helpful and capable. We look at what self-confidence is and the basics of what you need to do to get it.

Right now, imagine the feeling of having unwavering self-confidence. When I say unwavering, I mean steady, resolute and consistent.

You are someone who is totally secure in yourself and your abilities. You trust yourself and your abilities completely – there is no second-guessing, and you are committed to taking action without needing to know all the steps required, or any promise that you will succeed.

What would it be like to be a cool cat like that?

How would self-confidence affect your relationships, your business, your job, your kids, your friends and your level of satisfaction and fulfilment with life?

It’s really worth talking about self-confidence because it’s one of the keys to success, and it’s something that most people want – yet there is a bit of confusion about what it is, what it isn’t, and how much confidence you have.

So that’s what I want to talk about in this episode.

Let’s start by exploring what self-confidence can create in your life.

Self-Confidence is a Key to Thriving

According to research by Deci and Ryan (2002), confidence is one of three vital lifetime pursuits (the other two are learning/developing competence and applying strengths).

You have probably heard of the saying that “like attracts like”.

What this means is that if you are confident, you will tend to attract more positive and confident people, opportunities, clients and circumstances.

Confidence is a strong predictor of success in all areas of life, from work performance through to creating new health habits.

So, What is Self-Confidence?

There are various definitions of self-confidence out there.

But a simple one is this – self-confidence is your ability to be secure in yourself and your abilities. A self-confident person has thinking patterns about how worthy, helpful and capable they are. 

So what are the elements of confidence?

There are three things:

  1.     Backing yourself
  2.     Trusting yourself and
  3.     Having a healthy opinion of yourself.

Backing yourself is mostly about courage. It means that you will take the risk of putting yourself or your ideas ‘out there’.

Trusting yourself is mostly about your competence or self-efficacy. It means you believe that you have enough skills and know how to follow through and complete something.

It means you will follow your plan and take responsibility for things, even if you are nervous, frightened, unsure or inexperienced.

Trusting yourself is mostly about your competence or self-efficacy. It means you believe that you have enough skills and know how to follow through and complete something.

Notice that I said complete, not achieve.

Trust is not about results – it is about your faith that you have the ability and persistence to follow through.

A healthy opinion of yourself is about your self-esteem or value. In other words, you feel good about yourself and have a realistic view of your value, and that you are deserving of success, respect and achievements.

Henry Ford sums up confidence in his famous saying:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.’

That being said, I want to myth bust some of the confusion around self-confidence and be really clear about what it isn’t.

What isn’t Self-Confidence?

When you hear the word self-confident, what comes to mind? Here are some words that are often associated with self-confidence, but which are actually nothing to do with it.

Aggressive – this is being forceful.

Aloof – cool and distant; uninvolved.

Arrogant – this is thinking you are better than someone else.

Assertive – the quality of being self-assured without being aggressive.

Gregarious – fond of company, sociable.

Happy – showing pleasure or contentment.

Successful – accomplishing a desired result.

These words are more likely based on your perspective, beliefs or judgement. 

Please don’t confuse them with self-confidence. Being self-confident is none of these; it is capacity, capability and strength.

The interesting thing about confidence is that you can be self-confident without any proof.

When you have those three elements in place, you develop a self-confident attitude to life, and that’s what creates the results and life you want.

The Attitude of Self-Confidence

To develop self-confidence, you need to adopt a proactive attitude. That is, if I see it, I will believe it – rather than the other way around.

Your attitude is that you don’t need certainty to take action and you are prepared to take calculated risks on the unknown. 

We’re not talking about reckless behaviour – it’s about managing risks and being willing to be uncomfortable, knowing that growth is on the other side of that.

Remember that self-confidence is about backing yourself, trusting yourself and having a healthy opinion of yourself.

With that in mind, you can see that someone with an attitude of self confidence totally trusts themselves and the process – irrespective of the result.

This is also known as a growth mindset.

Let’s do a little test. I’m going to read out six statements now. Count how many you agree with and believe. 

  1. The why is more important than the how
  2. The steps will be revealed along the journey
  3. You need to persist and follow your plan even if you’re fearful
  4. You may need to change your plan, problem solve and be agile
  5. There is no failure, only feedback and learning
  6. Risk is a prerequisite for learning and growth.

How many did you agree with? 

Does this sound like you overall?

The more of these statements you agree with, the more of a self-confident attitude you have.

You are probably someone who is willing to give things a red hot go, to respond to feedback, and to problem solve so you can overcome setbacks. 

You are willing to explore uncharted territory and go against the grain in order to succeed, if necessary. 

You have a pioneering spirit. And, with a self-confident attitude, you an innate capacity to build self-confidence. But even if you don’t – you can build this attitude with a few simple techniques, which we will talk about in a coming episode.

By now you probably have some idea about your own level of self-confidence.

I want to ask you some questions now so that you can get clarity on what self-confidence means and feels like to you. 

When have you felt self-confident?

What did it feel like in your body, and where did you feel it?

What were you thinking at the time?

What were you able to do because you had self-confidence?

What results did your self-confident action create?

I’m sure you have felt self-confident at some time in your life. 

Here’s what it feels like. It feels good, energizing, uplifting, optimistic and powerful.

You feel unflappable, unstoppable. You have pose, and are calm, unshaken. You have a cool head, you are composed, have faith and are disciplined. 

You take action because you believe in what you are doing, and your ability to do it.

Does that sound familiar? If not, or if you want to feel more self-confident, you may need to do some work – and that is a topic for the next episode – a deep dive into building self-confidence.

Summary

Self-confidence is your ability to be secure in yourself and your abilities. A self-confident person has thinking patterns about how worthy, helpful and capable they are. 

The elements of self-confidence are your ability to back yourself, trust yourself and have a healthy opinion of yourself.

Remember that self-confidence is about backing yourself, trusting yourself and having a healthy opinion of yourself.

When you have those three elements in place, you develop an attitude of self-confidence, that is unwavering, persistent and the basis of all your actions.

We will talk about building self confidence in the coming episodes.

But if you’d like to build unwavering self-confidence NOW, join the February intake of Habitology where we will study this important topic and implement the lessons into your life. 

Visit https://www.melaniejwhite.com/habitology for more details or visit my contact page.

Ready for unwavering self confidence?

Having a healthy opinion of yourself can make all the difference. If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

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Episode 65: Discover and Communicate Your Value

This episode is dedicated to the people out there who do amazing work but struggle to sell it because they have trouble describing the value of their work.

It breaks my heart to see skilled, talented and passionate people with so much to give, but finding it hard to get people to engage with them or buy from them.

I want to dig into this and give you some tools to discover and communicate your value.

Why Is Knowing The Value Of Your Work So Important?

FIrst and foremost, I think it’s pretty obvious that if you believe in and truly feel the value of what you do, then you will have the confidence to do it well, promote it and talk to people about it.

Your words will flow with ease. 

You feel sure of yourself and confident to describe your services.

Secondly, understanding and believing in the value of what you do will help you to 100% nail your marketing.

When you understand the value of your work, it will be EASY to develop very, very clear and compelling the words, messages, connection statements, elevator pitches, advertisements.

So, why do we get stuck?

We Are All Professionals

When we become skilled professionals, we all get stuck in this world of our own jargon. 

What I mean is this, when you learn how to do something and the methodology behind it then those are the things that stick in your mind and those of the things that you communicate. 

I remember driving on a holiday with my parents and boyfriend once. I’d just finished a university assignment on banksia woodland.

Your audience isn’t as educated as you are on those subjects and they might be 2, 5 to 10 years behind you and experience. 

And as we drove toward our holiday spot, I looked out the window and said something like, “wow, look at that low, open banksia woodland with a shrub understorey.”

Of course, my parents and boyfriend all laughed out loud. They even cried with laughter. I was SO mortified. But you get the idea. 

I was talking in my language about the bush, and they had no idea what I was going on about.

University Versus Kindergarten Knowledge

So here’s the lesson for you. Your audience isn’t as educated as you are on those subjects and they might be 2, 5 to 10 years behind you and experience. 

They’re not a scientist. They’re not a practitioner. They’re not heavily geeking it up on your area of interest.

It’s like you’re at the University level of knowledge in a particular area and your potential clients are at the kindergarten level in terms of their understanding and knowledge of that subject area. 

That’s a big reason why you’re struggling to communicate your value.

What that means is that you have to take a step back to the old you. 

You have to go right back to where you were five or 10 years ago or at least to the absolute  beginning of your journey and explore what you are feeling and thinking then, to reflect on why you were studying that, and what you needed and wanted. 

This segues into the second reason you’re finding it hard to communicate.

You Need Emotion, Not Logic

When you are in your geeky learning brain, university knowledge mode, you are using logic and jargon to talk about what you do.

But 90% of anybody’s buying decision is based on the emotion they feel when they interact with you.

You need to get out of your logical thinking and onto your passionate, emotionally heightened and ranty soap box to get people interested, engaged and believing that you are the person to help them.

This is known as ‘sharing your why’ and it’s the most powerful driving force in marketing.

That’s because your why contains your values, motivators, beliefs, and possibly life experience – all wrapped up in an emotive story.

That’s what you need to tap into.

If you believe in and truly feel the value of what you do, then you will have the confidence to do it well, promote it and talk to people about it.

Tapping Into Your Why

My friends, the value of what you do is in the result that it gives the person who’s buying it. 

Right now, I invite you to cast your mind back to the person you used to be and what you were desperate for and how much value that brought to your life. 

Think about how you would describe that value, how you would define it. 

Go back to the reason why you studied this in the first place.

That’s where your ideal client is right now, and doing this will give you some clues as to the value THEY are looking for.

Now I want to talk you through a little two-part exercise to help you to get the words right for this. 

A Two-Part Exercise

I want you to imagine that you are your customer. 

I want you to imagine that you are the you of a few years ago. 

Part 1 – Reflections

Now imagine that you are about to buy your service as a customer what is the value that you want to get out of buying your own service. 

  • Why are you buying that service? 
  • What would it mean to you if you could get the result that you wanted? 
  • What is that result? 
  • What will that allow you to do in future? 

That’s the first part of the exercise. Now let’s go to the second part. 

Part 2 – Reflections

Imagine that you have just finished using the service that you’re selling. Pretend that you’re the customer and you’ve completed this program or whatever it is.

  • How are you feeling right now? 

Write that down. 

Imagine you are giving yourself a testimonial.

  • What were you doing before the program? 
  • What did you achieve in the program? 
  • How is your world transformed now, because of that?
  • How do you feel? 
  • What have you gotten rid of? 
  • Describe the sense of accomplishment that you have? 

You noticed that I’m asking a lot about feelings here. And that’s because 90% of any buying decision is based in strong emotions. Logic makes up only 10% of the buying decision.

People buy results that they want and they want to feel a certain way. 

So our goal in marketing is to listen to what our customers are saying and to reflect that back. 

Summary

Hopefully there’s two part exercise has given you some ideas on the value of what you do by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and by asking yourself how you felt before and after using the service, what you truly wanted and what you got from it. 

I hope this has been useful and if you are a coach who needs some help to dig into this and figure out how to clarify the value of what you do, so you can more effectively package, describe and sell the value of your services, join my new Facebook tribe – CoachingSuccessAccelerator. Doors are open, I’m so excited!

Ready to recognise and communicate your value?

Honouring your own journey is the key to communicating your value. If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here: