Wow, you managed to have enough confidence to click through to this exercise!
You may not realise it, but that is HUGE!
Most people shy away from confronting their fears and weaknesses, and as a result miss out on having the best life possible. Looks like you might be one of the few who are not willing to accept a lesser life!
I’ve developed an exercise – well, actually, it’s more of a lifestyle change – that you can use to take conscious action to increase your confidence. This is about facing your fears and overcoming your weaknesses, in a safe and controlled way.
If you can stick to this over time, your self-confidence will start to increase with an unstoppable momentum. Imagine being excited about facing fears rather than afraid! It is possible.
First, download this PDF here:
STEP ONE
In the Consciously competent box, write down the top 10 daily or weekly activities you do that you feel the most confident doing. These are your competence activities.
The reason you need to consciously identify these is simply to remind yourself that you do not build extra confidence with these activities (well, maybe a little bit over time). While these activities may be worthwhile, you need to consider sacrificing time spent on these to make room for confidence-building activities.
So, these might be things like:
– boring/non-challenging work-related activities
– exercise that is too easy
STEP TWO
Now list your top 10 Happily Sufficient activities. These are the types of activities where you may not be really great or expert at them, but you really don’t care as they are not important to you. You’re perfectly happy to remain the same in doing these.
So, these might be things like:
– shopping
– washing, cleaning and other household chores
Again, we’re just listing these to keep an eye on where we can ‘steal’ some time for your self-development.
STEP THREE
Let’s step it up a notch. In the Consciously incompetent box, list the 10 activities you wish you were better at. These may also be situations you wish you didn’t have to do because they scare you, but you know you have to do them.
Stuff like:
– public speaking for work-related presentations
– interacting socially with strangers
– sports
– care-giving / parenting
These are the activities you need to focus more time in developing. This involves doing them more often as well as learning more about how to do them well.
Choose the 3 most important to you. Now write some goals about how you are going to develop in those top 3. Make sure you create time, space and resources to address these. Swallow your pride and sign up to classes, coaching or courses if needed. You should have a minimum of 5-10 hours per week designated entirely to developing your competency levels in these 3 areas.
Overcoming your self-perceived ‘weaknesses’ in these important areas will do wonders for your confidence long-term. You should always be re-assessing your weaknesses and making action-plans on how to overcome them.
Sacrifice time spent on activities in the first two boxes if needed, in order to make time for your development.
STEP FOUR
This is the really tough one. In the Consciously afraid box list your top 10 fears. These are the activities or things that actively cause you to feel anxiety, intimidation, anger, panic and other fear-related emotions, including the feeling of being trapped.
These might be phobias like:
– heights
– public speaking
– rejection / failure
Or more specific activities where you’re not yet sure of what the fears behind them are, such as:
– asking your boss for a raise
– confronting your partner
– bungy-jumping
FOR GUIDANCE ON HOW TO MANAGE STEP FOUR, SUBSCRIBE TO MY EMAIL SERIES FOR FREE TODAY
