StevePavlina.com Podcast #012 - Building Confidence
March 5th, 2006 by Steve Pavlina
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StevePavlina.com Personal Development for Smart People podcast #12
Today’s podcast is about building confidence, a topic that many readers have requested I cover. This podcast will give you four different methods for boosting your confidence.
One of the reasons people don’t feel confident is that they harbor limiting beliefs that block them from tapping into this inner resource. For example, do you believe that in order to feel confident, you must be well-prepared? Believe it or not, that’s a limiting belief. Even if you aren’t well prepared for a situation, you can still choose to feel confident. Confidence is an internal state, and you don’t need an outside-in reason to justify triggering it. While preparation is important, sometimes preparation and experience by themselves aren’t enough to create the feeling of confidence. It’s entirely possible to be competent and well-prepared and still feel tremendous self-doubt. This podcast will help you move beyond those limiting beliefs and learn to get yourself to feel confident whenever you feel it would be in your best interest to do so, such as asking for a date, giving a speech, or taking an exam.
Enjoy the podcast…
Pavlina-012-Building-Confidence.mp3
(Time = 15:31, Size = 7.1MB)
Visit the audio section to play this podcast directly through your web browser and to view the entire podcast collection.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:07 am
[...] On the day of the performance, I noticed I was feeling slightly anxious. I found myself succuming to mental images of myself performing well along with other images of things going badly. What if I was on the spot and couldn’t think of anything to say? What if I tried to make a joke and all I got in response was dead silence? But fortunately I know how to handle my brain when it gets ornery like this. I took my own advice and applied the strategies I explained on Podcast #12: Building Confidence. I took about 10 minutes to consciously visualize what I wanted, and I also used my body and my voice to put myself in a state of total confidence. I imagined myself up on stage having a great time, feeling highly enthusiastic and energetic, and seeing the audience laughing uproariously. And I got up out of my chair and physically moved around to act out some pretend scenes. I didn’t try to imagine myself performing flawlessly — that would have been totally unrealistic. So instead I chose to focus on something my subconscious could deliver, and that was to thoroughly enjoy the experience. Within a matter of minutes, all self-doubt evaporated, and I started feeling very excited about doing the show that evening. Consequently, during the hours before the show and all throughout the show itself, I experienced no nervousness whatsoever. Instead I was excited and enthusiastic and looking forward to a great time. My negative thoughts had no chance to break through all the energy created by the positive thoughts. And while I was on stage, I felt that I was fully in the moment. Feeling the energy of the audience and getting lots of laughs was amazing. [...]
March 13th, 2006 at 10:16 am
[...] I recently listened to Steve Pavlina’s podcast on building confidence. It crystallized a couple of things for me. [...]
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