We all have times when we lack self-confidence and don’t feel good about ourselves. Some people feel more confident than others, it’s completely normal to feel that you lack self-confidence in certain situations such as interviews, or presentations.
This article discusses how your thoughts and feelings can affect your self-confidence and outlines techniques which can help to develop your self-confidence. If you are concerned about a specific situation such as improving your interview skills, this approach can be used alongside developing and practising these skills.
How we see ourselves
Our confidence is based on our perception; how we think about ourselves, rather than our abilities. Our perception is based on our previous experiences and feedback from other people.
We all have an inner voice which comments on what we’re doing, both positive and negative. Psychologists refer to this as “self-talk.” This self-talk plays a critical part in how confident we feel. When this is supportive and encouraging we feel confident, however when this is negative it can undermine our confidence and contribute to anxiety. Negative self-talk says things like “I’m going to fail” “I’m useless” “it’s all going to go horribly wrong” “I’m right back at square one.” Most negative self-talk is programmed into us from childhood, it can also be affected by other things which are happening in our lives. If we regularly hear the same negative message being repeated, it can erode our confidence and self-esteem.
It has been proven that the more we hear something, the more likely we are to believe it. Our beliefs shape our behaviour, so our inner voice can have a large impact on our future success or failure, as well as our confidence levels.
Retraining your inner critic to become your advocate
We can build our confidence and self-esteem by encouraging and supporting ourselves and the people around us. Essentially this means recognising our thoughts and self-talk, identifying elements we wish to change, challenging negative thoughts and turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Whilst this takes time and repetition, particularly if you have thought a certain way for some time, it can make an enormous difference to your confidence and future success.
Recognise what you are telling yourself
Most people have never noticed their inner voice or self-talk, or considered how they think and feel about themselves, so it can be eye-opening to sit quietly and actively listen to what you are saying to yourself. As you go through your day, start to listen to what you’re telling yourself, you may wish to write some of this down. Note whether it is largely positive or negative.
It can be very helpful to consider yourself as another person who is set up to succeed or fail by what you do and say today. I recommend reading the article Why We Need Empathy For Our Future Selves on the Psychology Today website. This contains an exercise which shows how we can set ourselves up to succeed (or fail) by our actions today.
Think about what you would like to say to prepare a friend for an interview or other potentially stressful situation. Would you encourage them, or criticise them, then compare this to what you tell yourself. It can also be helpful to monitor what you say, as this reflects our thoughts.
Identify thoughts which you want to change
Identifying negative thought patterns is the first step in changing these. It can be helpful to consider your thoughts against the acronym THINK.
- True – Consider whether there is any evidence to support these thoughts. Is there another way of looking at the situation? Could someone else interpret the situation differently?
- Helpful – Do these thoughts empower you?
- Inspiring – Do these thoughts inspire you?
- Necessary – Do these thoughts help you? Are they accurate? Negative self-talk often exaggerates the situation, or the likelihood of the situation occurring.
- Kind – Would you say this to a friend?
Thoughts like “I’m going to fail, it’s all going to go horribly wrong…” “I’m back at square one” aren’t true, helpful, inspiring, necessary or kind, instead they reduce your confidence. Once you’ve recognised some of the things you regularly tell yourself, decide which elements of this you’d like to change.
Turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts
Don’t dwell on “what if’s” like what could go wrong, or what could be difficult or challenging. Push those thoughts away immediately and replace it with a neutral or a positive thought. Some people imagine wrapping the thought up in a ball and throwing it away, others imagine writing it on a bit of paper and setting fire to it. Other people set a certain amount of time in the evening when they’ll think about it and push the thoughts away until then. Often they’ve forgotten the concern by the allocated time, anyway. You may find it helpful to research different techniques of controlling your thoughts and see what works for you.
Some people find it helpful to list some of their concerns and gather evidence to challenge these. It may be helpful to enlist support from a trusted friend or family member.
| Thought | Truth / Evidence | Statement |
| I’m going to mess up the interview | I’ve thoroughly prepared for the interview. I’ve had interview coaching, there’s no reason to think it won’t go well. | I’ve done everything I can to prepare for the interview, my interview skills improved dramatically during the interview coaching. I’m in a far better place to interview successfully. I’m going to go into the interview and do my best. It’s totally understandable that I’m feeling negative because I really want this role. Regardless of how well this interview goes, I’ll be one interview closer to starting a new role. If I don’t get this role, it means it wasn’t right for me and I’ll find a better role. |
Earlier, we saw that the more we hear something, the more likely we are to believe it. We can use this knowledge to build our confidence and retrain our self-talk. Make a list of positive statements which contradict the self-talk which you want to change, and say these out loud. “I can do this”, “I feel calm, confident and well-prepared” “It’s OK for me to feel worried, it won’t affect my performance” Some people find it particularly effective to include the evidence why the thought is wrong. Then read these statements out loud, several times a day, which reinforces new thought patterns and begins to reprogram your self-talk. Try to avoid saying anything negative “I can’t do it”, “I don’t know what to do” etc as this reinforces the negative thoughts which you want to retrain, we want to reinforce positive thoughts – the truth. You can do it, it will work!
Building your Confidence
Would you like to improve your confidence? I provide coaching sessions, personally tailored to your needs. Sessions can focus on particular challenges, such as career coaching, or interview coaching you can find more information and prices via the links. You are welcome to contact me, and I’ll be pleased to discuss how I can plan a session to help you.
