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The Confidence Booster Workout - Chapter Two (An Excerpt)

But Where Did My Confidence Go?

Thus we are born with natural confidence. But it is not long before we are acquainted with the seven major negative influences that impact upon our confidence:

• Blame
• Competition
• Conformity
• High Expectancy
• Perfectionism
• Exclusion
• Dominance

1: Blame & Criticism

Blame and criticism eat away at natural confidence. It can come from a number of different sources:

Parents

Perhaps you always received criticism from your parents, which can happen for the most unexpected reasons, for example the fact that you were born a girl and they had set their hearts on a boy, or vice versa, so that you will never meet their expectations of who they wanted you to be.

Maybe as a child you were clumsy and so your parents constantly berated you for your clumsiness, which then put you under greater pressure not to be clumsy, which would of course, make you even clumsier!

Perhaps your parents held very high expectations for you, to compensate for what they were not able to achieve in their own lives and that if you weren’t able to meet these high expectations then their disappointment in you turned to criticism.

In the presence of criticism it becomes very difficult to feel confident.

The Workplace

Maybe you worked for a boss or manager that never said an encouraging word to you even when you did good work, so much so that everything that you did, you expected this demanding boss to find fault with and thus anytime that you were called into the bosses office, you presume it’s because you did something wrong.

So you work in an atmosphere of uncertainty, never sure if you are doing a good job and with one eye over your shoulder for another negative comment about what you are doing wrong.

Some companies believe that this way of working keeps staff on ther toes. When the staff feel insecure, then they work harder to make sure they keep their jobs goes the thinking. Yes, it certainly does make the staff feel insecure, but does it make them more confident and therefore more accomplished in their work?

A good manager should always be letting their staff know the things that they have done well in the workplace, rather than always focusing on where they haven’t done well, if they want to retain a happy and confident work-force.

Partners

Being constantly criticised by a partner can have very negative consequences on your confidence. Criticism eats away at your natural confidence, especially as you are more open and susceptible to people who are close to you and thus more deeply affected by their negative words.

It may be that your partner has a ‘perfect’ view of what they want their other half to be like and you don’t fit this identikit picture, so that the gap between their ‘perfect’ partner and yourself causes them to be critical of the things that you do that doesn’t fit their image of perfection.

This state of affairs is very unsettling and creates a deep feeling of unease and lack of confidence that will make you think that whatever you do won’t be good enough. All you ever hear about yourself is negative messages and eventually these negative messages take root and you end up believing them. So much so, that you come to believe that you deserve the criticism.

The Five Major Symptoms of Blame & Criticism

You think that everything is your fault
You become highly sensitive to criticism
You expect to get told off whatever you do
You blame yourself when things don’t work out
You daren’t take risks in case you fail

2 - Conformity

Have you been in the classroom, when the teacher has asked a question - you've known the answer but daren't put your hand up in case you were wrong, because the last time that you gave the wrong answer you were laughed at, because your answer was inaccurate?

If you were a sensitive person then the pain of this feeling of being laughed at may have been so great that you will make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Alternatively, your classmates may have criticised you for always being right, which wasn’t your fault that you knew the answer, but nevertheless made you not want to be right, because of the criticism that would invite.

You don’t want to be excluded from your classmates circle, so you will rein in your desire to participate fully in the class to avoid the criticism of being too bright or being seen as an idiot

The significance of this is that it damages the intimate feeling of trust between you and you. You know the answer but you dare not say it. This leads to a state of contradiction in yourself, where you end up ignoring your instincts and feelings because they are not what everyone else is saying, feeling or thinking. Therefore you must be wrong!

You ignore your gut feelings in case you are wrong, even though they often turn out to be right. This can lead to much regret and remorse later on in our lives, whereby we don’t dare go out and do the things that we want to do in case we fail.

Or we think that it is too late to do the things that we want to do, like take up a musical instrument, leave our partners, sail around the world or start a new career.

Our decision-making becomes influenced by what others do, rather than what our instincts and gut feeling are telling us to do.

The Symptoms Of Conformity

You put off making decisions in case you are wrong
It makes you timid. You don’t accept opportunities when they arrive
You judge yourself (I’m stupid)
You try too hard to please others

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