Ways To Improve your Confidence

In this episode we look at ways to improve your confidence and how to rewire your brain. Everyone loose their confidence at one point or another, so today we're looking at how to build it up again.

This episode was written by my colleague and fellow therapist, Mary Jeffery and gives you some useful tips and information to help your confidence.

We welcome your feedback and if you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact us at any point.

https://www.horizonplymouth.co.uk

Transcript

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Thanks for listening.

Hi, Ann.

Welcome back to the therapy guy.

My name is Alan and today I'm going to be talking

to you about things that can crush your confidence and how

to rewire your brain to think differently about them.

Now, this has come from one of my fantastic colleagues.

His name is Mark Jeffrey and he's one of

my therapists that work with me at my Practise.

So are you suffering from anxiety and panic attacks?

Do you understand how debilitating that these can be?

How our confidence can be destroyed

as a result of them?

Are you struggling to change this?

The simple answer to some of these questions is,

although you may be feeling this way, although you

may be experiencing this anxiety, you can change anything

that you've learnt, you can unlearn.

So we're going to give you some ways

that might help you to rewire your brain

and rebuild that confidence once again.

So, has your confidence gone missing lately

in your brain, you have different sections.

And there's one called the limbic system, and

specifically there's an area called the amygdala.

This is the part of the brain

that helps to keep us safe.

It's responsible for your fight or flight reaction.

All it really wants to do is keep us safe

and protect us, keep us out of harm's way.

And basically that's all it's doing, 24 hours a day.

And sometimes it works perfectly, other times it's way

off base, which then has this ability to keep

us locked inside our so called comfort zone.

This keeps us away from more unnatural abilities

to be brilliant in what we do.

Under normal circumstances, we naturally have.

This will make us see the world differently and

not how we would really like to see it.

So it fills us with self doubt about

our abilities and can stop us from expanding our

careers, asking for that pay rise, climbing that mountain,

asking that person for a drink.

So we're missing out on our true calling in

life because we're just so afraid to take a

risk and we're stuck in that comfort zone.

It is responsible for killing our confidence.

That voice, you know the one, the one that whispers

in your ear, it makes you believe that you're stuck

and you're not able to move forward, lose control.

You lose confidence in those moments as it whispers

all those doubts left unchecked, it will run you

ragged and leave you filled with regret, killing your

confidence and naturally impacting your success in life.

Now, before we get to the bits that we should

help, you should know there are plenty of books out

there on the market that can help you in different

ways, teach you about fantastic techniques to help you in rebuilding

your confidence to a level that you're happy with.

But as with anything, as what I've always said

before, if a certain book or a podcast or

an exercise, whatever it is, a therapist, if they

don't work for you, then try a different one.

Try something new.

Try not to give up after that first attempt.

So the habit of discontent, this is

nothing that is ever feeling quite right.

Something always seems to be going wrong.

Anybody recognise this?

I feel that we all do at some point in our lives.

You end up being weighed down by what seems

to be a constant state of dissatisfaction and discontent.

This leads to us complaining and moaning about how you

can't do X, Y and Z and eventually a little

voice in her head will have us believe in it.

This habit of discontent can easily lead you to

avoiding and looking for signs of creating the environment

that you need to sort of fail. Really.

Those negative thoughts and habits keep

your body in a constant state

of stress which releases different chemicals.

One of them called chemical cortisol and

this sends it running through your veins.

And over time, this constant state of disease can lead

to disease and illness in a host of different ways.

Yes, it really can make you ill when we think this way.

So what can you do?

Look for the good things that are also going

on in your life right now and then focus

your thoughts on them just as much.

We know that this isn't easy, but believe me, they

will be there, even if it's the smallest thing.

This will help lift your mood.

Why not try adopting an attitude of gratitude?

This is far more powerful than any negative force and

moving forward will help you balance your life out.

Positive thoughts enable us to create a

cascade of different emotions which creates a

release of different chemicals in your brain.

Sort of like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins.

All of these things have been proven to have

positive mental health effects and boost your immune system.

And overall they can make you feel good again.

It can be hard for a lot of people.

So start small.

Start looking for the person that says thank you.

Start looking for the person that does help you out.

We get focused on all those other people.

We might focus on the person that cuts us up in

the traffic jam or slams the door in our face.

Think about it.

When someone doesn't say thank you

to you, we focus on that.

Why not focus on the people who do say thank you, who

do open the door for us or let us out of returning?

Just as well.

We also get caught up in the what ifs.

This is where we tend to latch on to a negative

idea and then you concentrate on a negative thought pattern.

You play out all the worst possible case scenarios

in your mind of whatever could go wrong.

And this effect and that effect leaving you with the

what ifs and the should have or should have done

this, what if this goes wrong, et cetera.

These things will never solve anything because,

unfortunately, we cannot take back that time.

And if we're projecting what if will go

wrong in the future, we don't know for

any certainty what's going to happen.

It just fuels our bad feelings and

make us feel a lot worse.

What you can do instead of expecting the things to

happen, try playing the what if game with yourself.

Sounds a bit strange, but it's extremely effective.

Focus on the good things that can happen

and highlight what that can lead to.

And as you start to sort of balance things out.

So if you say, what if this goes wrong?

What if it goes right?

What if you don't get the job?

Or what if I do?

You can then start to create a more

balanced and rational approach to your thinking.

Toxic environments, they have a big effect on us.

If you're surrounding yourself with negative people as well

as toxic environments in various places in your life,

it's important that to understand that having a major

impact on how you see yourself and the world

around you, what you feel, what is or what

is impossible will be affected by this energy that

you're picking up with these people.

And that situation.

It can be hugely detrimental to yourself, both emotionally,

physically and how you think and feel will have

an impact on how your attitude to your life

is, which in turn can change how effectively your

body functions, or doesn't function, for that matter.

What can you do?

Well, you can notice and recognise who or what is bringing you

down or lifting you up in your day to day life.

It may be time to purge some not so

healthy people from your life, or at least downgrade

the amount of time you spend with them so

they don't impact on your well being in the

same way, although this is difficult, sometimes, it's essential.

You can surround yourself with visual reminders of things

that lift you up and make you smile.

It doesn't have to be big things.

It can be somewhere where you want to go on a

holiday, somewhere you've been on a holiday, a picture of a

person you love and cherish and he respects you.

These visual clues can have a calming effect

and can bring your body back to a

more relaxed and healthy sort of state.

Now, purging these people, changing them

from your life, isn't easy.

Doing things like on social media, you can

restrict the people that are constantly moaning or

constantly having an effect on you.

If you look at them and you think, oh

yes, there's something internal, I don't really want to

be reading this, why are you just unfollow them?

You don't have to unfriend them,

you don't have to upset people.

Just look about what you feel

and how you can change that.

Another aspect we do is we focus on our failures.

Failure though, is how we learn.

When we constantly focus on what we're doing wrong.

It can pull you down tremendously fast, can

lead you into a pit so deep that

makes you feel like you're wading through quicksand.

It can be hard to get out of, leading to some

deeply rooted self doubt and a belief in your abilities that

you're unable to do the things that you want to do.

What can you do?

Knowing and understanding that we

can learn from mistakes.

It's how we've created who we are.

There's been lots of people

in history who have made mistakes.

Everybody does.

More importantly, we need to encourage

ourselves to move on from them.

If you think about it, when we learnt to walk,

we didn't just fall over and then give up.

We got up and we tried again.

We learned to talk by making mistakes, by changing. Try

that learning.

Looking back on what went wrong and dwelling on it

will only serve to allow it to go wrong again.

Recognising what the fault was gives you the

knowledge of what not to do again.

It will help you discover what to do differently in the

future and you can start to imagine it in your mind.

For example, if you go to an interview and

you make a mistake, you can then sort of

say, okay, I made a mistake there.

Next time I'm in an interview, I'm going

to say this I'm going to do it

that way, I'm going to do it differently.

Every time you do this, you will gain a

small win and this all makes a big difference.

Be sure that when you take the time

to celebrate those small wins, take the time

to recognise what you can do next time.

It will help you to release those happy chemicals, those

good chemicals into our brain that make us feel good

and encourages you to move forward in the right way.

And lastly, this feeling, this overall feeling that

we all get that you're not good enough.

This highly popular but limiting belief is probably

the number one reason at the root of

so many of our fears and dysfunctions.

When you're telling yourself regularly, I am not

something, I'm not lovable enough, I'm not smart

enough, I'm not capable or talented enough, I'm

not good enough for this person, et cetera,

then you're creating and breeding the environment for

all those negative pathways in your brain.

And each time you think that there is a

threat, this familiar pathway in your brain will get

activated, keeping you hidden in your comfort zone, holding

you back and discerning, successfully crushing your confidence and

your ability to do great things.

What can you do?

Well, you can get a positive amount or phrase such

as I am good enough, I can do this.

And you keep repeating this and have variations of it

to keep it positive and you will start to believe.

Think about an Olympian stood on the start line.

They're not stood there thinking, I'm not going to

win this, I'm not going to do this.

They're talking positively to themselves, they're still

feeling anxious, nervous, but they're using that

nervous energy in the right way.

The more you tell yourself you are good enough,

the more you will start to believe it.

The brain loves repetition and with this repetition, you'll start

to rewire a new positive pathway in your mind, which

becomes a go to pathway in times when you do

start to feel stressed and you do need it.

Ultimately helping you feel more confident in yourself

and helping you to ultimately conquer your fears

as you take more risks and expand what's

possible in your life, both personally and professionally.

This process can help raise your

energy and your outlook, your mood.

All these things will help reduce a

more confident, outgoing, believable lovable you.

If you're finding that your confidence is being

taken away from yourself and maybe even causing

you some stress and anxiety, sleepless nights and

health and issues like depression or anxiety, and

it's time to start rewiring your brain and

obtain that confidence that you need.

Take this opportunity.

Don't get me wrong, it's not going to be easy.

But in saying that, it's easier than you think.

It's only scary when you're afraid of it.

It's only scary when you haven't done something.

The things that you're looking for

are there waiting for you.

So success is available to you, love is available

to you, your health is available to you.

Everything you want is there, whatever you want.

You can create whatever action you want to take.

You can achieve it if you just start

believing in yourself and start taking small steps.

And if it all gets too much, don't be

afraid to go and talk to a professional.

These people are trained to help guide you

through whatever it is that you're going through.

Can feel like you're walking

through a minefield at times.

They can help you navigate that.

You can tell these people whatever

you want in total confidence.

I like to thank you for just listening to this.

I hope it's helped.

And if you want to speak to anybody, you've

got any feedback for ourselves or you'd like any

help or guidance from my cell phone Mark, please

don't hesitate to get in touch.

We'd love to hear from you.

But for today, I'm just signing off as the

Terrible guy and see you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the therapy guy.

Don't forget to tune in next week

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