How to Work on your Confidence

If you watch some of the most viewed Ted Ed talks you are sure to see some of the most confident speakers. For example, Sir Ken Robinson speaking in a calm, authoritative, yet humours way, about creativity and schools. Perhaps Tim Urban who gives an energetic, fun performance and uses great visuals to talk about procrastination.

However, you will also see people who are as brave as can be. Who look afraid and even sound nervous. Who don’t have showmanship and yet show up. Who stumble on their words, but every word was said knowing that it would help someone in the audience and was said with intention.

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What does it look like and feel like to be a confident person? So I have looked at some people's views on this. So the first person I'd like to tell you about is Mel Robbins. She's great.

I really enjoyed her training for her. The definition for her is to say that confidence is the willingness to take action. Not perfection, not nailed it.

The willingness to take action. So confidence is something we acquire, which we get, which we earn, that we struggle towards. Nobody is born with utter unshakable confidence.

We need to have a great attitude towards failure. We need to learn how to fail and improve. So if I have a very negative mindset, like failures like the end of the road, which it isn't, guys, it isn't.

If I see failure as the nail it and then self reflect, learn and grow, I am going to become more confident. I'm going to acquire those skills that are necessary for me to become confident in that particular aspect of my life. So you have to refuse to quit when things don't work out.

You have to dig deep. You have to not just quit at the first struggle. And you have to find your strengths, but realize that you have some strengths, but then you have to build on those strengths and keep going.

So to sum up, what Mel says, confidence requires action. It requires practice. And if ever you're in doubt, try and try again. Try to start developing a positive feedback loop on your own performance to get better.

Another person that maybe you can relate to is Anthony Trucks. He's an American athlete. And he talks about confidence as action as a result of your thoughts.

This is a slightly different way of looking at building confidence. So work on your beliefs and your ideas around yourself because those influence the outcome of your action. It makes sense.

It's maybe less go in there and fail and then learn. It's a little bit more like control your thoughts, work on your self-image, work on your belief system, and then perform at your best. Different way of looking at things.

And then one of my favourite role models is Brandon Bouchard of Growth Day. He has a huge amount of content on confidence, but I'm just taking out the bits that I feel like are relevant right now for me and for you probably too, is that when you want to be confident as a speaker, be your authentic self. What does that mean? Be who you are.

So be yourself because you should be unshakable and confident with who you are. And that comes from understanding your wealth and worth, understanding your worth and loving yourself as a human being. Don't base your value on other people's opinion.

That is connecting with who you are and the message that you have and your value, but also seek connection with your audience. And this relates again to TED Talks that if you're going to speak up, speak up about something that is valuable and important. Do it from your heart.

Have connection. Let it be meaningful. And his final point, he makes many points, but the final one that I'm selecting for today, number three, is competence, right? Work on your skill, work on your talent, develop competence about who you are and what you are delivering in this world.

Because when you talk from a place of authority, you will be more confident. So develop your public speaking skills, develop your knowledge of your topic that you're teaching, or the thing that you're delivering in the workplace, at home, wherever you are, this person, you need to work on your growth and your skill so that you are competent, so you speak from a place of authority that even you believe in, because that's kind of key. Right, so in summary, we spoke about, well, I spoke about three great people today, Mel Robbins, Anthony Trucks, and Brandon Bouchard.

And take action, positive action, moving towards your desired outcome, learn from your failures, hunker in, don't get broken by failure, right? Fail up, keep going, and have a great feedback loop. And in my experience, 80% of your performance is preparation. So if you can have a feedback loop in the preparation phase, your outcome is going to be better than walking on stage and thinking feedback from your audience.