Just Do It: Confidencebuilding Activities
The following activities are terrific confidence boosters. Obviously some will appeal to you more than others. For instance, if you enjoy dancing and you’re good at it you’ll probably feel that taking dancing lessons is unnecessary. But if you hate dancing, lack confidence on the dance floor and find it difficult to express yourself physically, the very idea may traumatise you. Why do most of us find it hard to put ourselves on the line? Usually because we’re frightened of showing ourselves up. Overcoming these fears takes a rewriting of your self-talk and questioning your beliefs.
With high self-esteem we don’t worry about making fools of ourselves in front of others because we know that this is not a disaster. So what if you don’t succeed first time? The obstacles don’t grow any bigger, but you do! With a positive self-image you can fail completely and still feel good about yourself . Because I’m OK I can make mistakes. I can fail and still feel good about myself. I am enthusiastic about life and filled with energy and purpose. “It is not the mountain that we conquer, but ourselves. Sir Edmund Hillary ”
Saturday Night Failure
Richard was thoroughly miserable. At 35 this successful entrepreneur was still single and lonely. ‘I work late most evenings,’ he said, ‘because I dread going home. There’s nothing to go home to.’ He had never had a girlfriend, his only sexual contacts being with prostitutes, for which he felt dirty and ashamed.
He believed one of his main problems lay in his inability to join in the dancing at discos and nightclubs. He had been to many down the years, but try as he might was petrified of stepping onto the dance floor. He would stand at the bar watching people dancing and later leaving together, if he stayed that long. Usually he sloped off well before closing time.
Richard was introduced to the I-T-I-A Formula
©, encouraged to enrol for dancing lessons, and taught how to use anchoring. In stages he visualised himself arriving at the nightclub, chatting to people and buying drinks, using the ‘cool, calm and confident’ trigger if he felt his anxiety levels rising. Then he visualised himself calmly stepping onto the dance floor and moving easily – nothing too flamboyant at first – then approaching an attractive woman and dancing with her.
Then he took the plunge. At first he was terrified, but within a few weeks he was able to do everything for which he had set out.