Sometimes all it takes is one word to shatter our self-confidence. After such a thing, it’s hard to pull yourself together and move forward. How can you regain your confidence in just a few minutes?
Life is a ride of ups and downs. If we live our lives at high speed, they change each other quickly. And we don’t have time to prepare for an important event or recover from a painful setback. That’s when we need an express charge of self-confidence. But how to get it without the help of others?
Try applying a few scientifically proven techniques – it will help to rebuild your mind on a positive note and get rid of destructive reflection. They work instantly, helping in situations where the further development of events – in business, in education, on the personal front – largely depends on self-belief.
1. Take a victory pose and stay in it for 2 minutes
In her TED talk, which has garnered over 30 million views, Harvard University social psychologist Amy Cuddy talks about body language and confidence broadcasting. For example, her recent study involved two groups – all of whom were potential job applicants.
Feel yourself being filled with power. Imagine yourself as an Olympic champion
It turned out that those who took “power poses” before a job interview showed a higher success rate than those who didn’t. They also had higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Practice the “power pose” before any challenging task. You can take it in the mornings immediately after waking up, as well as in the lift or in front of the toilet mirror. “Aim to take up as much space as you can without losing your inner comfort,” advises Amy Cuddy.
Superhero pose: Stand up straight, shoulders back, chin pointing slightly up, hands on your waist and feet hip-width apart. Feel yourself being filled with power and maintain this position for two minutes. Try to breathe deeply and rhythmically. You can also do the starfish pose by raising your arms up in a V shape. Imagine yourself as an Olympic champion on the podium.
2. Imagine yourself many years from now
A vivid and detailed picture of what your life will be like in the future helps you overcome the fear of failure. Hal Hershfield, a marketing technology professor at New York University, asked participants in his study to imagine what would happen to them in 10 years.
After that he showed some of the respondents their “aged” images, and then offered all of them, without exception, to become investors in start-up projects. Those who had seen their portrait in adulthood were twice as likely to invest as those who had not. It turned out that by drawing pictures of the future and clearly visualising it, we are more likely to strive to bring it closer and act more actively and decisively.
3. Give thanks to life
This is another way to see new horizons in front of you despite recent stress. After being laid off, divorced and in debt, it wasn’t easy for aspiring business coach and single mum Jen Scalia to get back on her feet and start living life with a clean slate. To do so, she decided to invest in herself and took a series of distance learning courses on business and personal development, as well as doing several practices every day. All together helped her grow her training business project from zero to half a million dollars in revenue.
When we experience gratitude, we think positively and feel a surge of energy
“My first daily practice was gratitude. Every night I remembered the most wonderful things that had happened to me and that I had seen in my life. Anything – a waterfall, a compliment from a close friend, winning a new project….
Gratitude allows you to focus on the positives, because we take a lot of things for granted. When we feel gratitude, we think positively and feel energised,” says Jen Scalia.
The next stage of the autotraining was gratitude for things that the woman had yet to receive.
“For example, instead of saying, ‘I wish I had two more new clients this month,’ I would say to myself, ‘I am so grateful that I now have two more great clients.'” Our minds are easily misled. So these affirmations really help you believe in success and ultimately attract it,” explains the business coach.