Today, I want to talk to you specifically about the four different types of confidence. You probably, yourself, are really confident in certain situations and then in other situations you’re not. For example, public speaking, how do you feel about that? Tomorrow, I need for you to deliver a speech in front of a thousand people on something that you know inside and out, so don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to present on something that’s foreign to you, but tomorrow you are going to have to speak to a thousand people, a thousand strangers at a conference. It’s going to be the area that you’re an expert on. How does that make you feel? Nervous? Anxious? Are you like, “yeah, sweet, bring it on, I’m ready for it?”
What about other situations? What about physical confidence? Imagine that you’ve got to show up in a group exercise class of 20 other individuals who are really fit and they’ve been doing this work out and it’s going to be a really hard workout. You’re going to be front and center. You’re a part of the class, you’re not teaching it, but you’re going to be a part of the class in the room where everyone can see you at the front. How does that make you feel? That’s an area of confidence. Let’s break these areas down and I’ll give you an example of each one.
The first one is, social confidence. When you think of social confidence I want you to think about how you feel and then give yourself a score on a scale of 1-10. 1 being, I know I need to improve this. I am, this is not where I’m confident. 10 is, bring it on, I love it, that doesn’t make me nervous at all. I actually quite enjoy it. The first one you want to score yourself on is social confidence. Everybody in the room can do this too. Socially, how would you score yourself on a scale of 1-10? I want you to think of situations where you’re going to be around people you don’t know. You’re going to be in an environment where there’s conversations and people don’t know each other necessarily and your friends aren’t there with you. How does that make you feel on a scale of 1-10?
Next area is your expertise, your knowledge. In other words, how well do you feel you are able to grasp information or knowledge? Do you most find that you become insecure or shy when everyone seems to have a lot of knowledge about a particular subject and you wonder if you know enough or if you’re smart enough, if your input is going to be valuable? When it comes to knowledge and expertise there’s obviously knowledge and expertise of that thing that you’re already an expert on, that’s not what I’m talking about.
I’m talking about when people are discussing a topic, how does it make you feel if you don’t know a lot about it, but you know a little? How does that affect your confidence? How does it affect your confidence when you’re in a conversation and then suddenly everybody speaks about a subject that you don’t know very much about? Does it make you curious or does it make you self conscious? Does it make you want to ask questions and you like it? You like being in that position to learn, or does it really start to make you feel inferior and question if you’re smart enough and if you should be in the circle?
The third on is, from an appearance standpoint, how do you feel about your physical appearance? I’m not saying that you should give yourself a 10 because you think you’re perfect. We all think that there’s something we could improve. I’m asking you to rank your confidence as it becomes to your appearance when you’re at the right body weight and you feel good about yourself, how do you feel? Is it never enough? Are you always wondering what people think about your appearance? Do you always think that people are looking at your body or your face or your hair? I’m always thinking I’m not tall enough, I’m not short enough, I’m too tall, I don’t like my nose, I don’t like my hair and that’s all I can think about sometimes is my appearance. In that case, you’d want to give yourself a 1.
You might want to score yourself much higher if you were like, “I probably don’t give it much thought, yeah I could lose 5 pounds or I could lose 10 pounds but it doesn’t stop me from diong things. It doesn’t get in my head.” That’s another really great way for you to gauge where you’re at today. By the way, this stuff can change all the time. Right? I score myself high on a lot of these categories but I remember after I gave birth to, in particular, [Sierra 00:07:15], and thinking that, wow, for the first time I’m really self conscious about my appearance. I don’t like the way my body looks. For the first time in my life, I remember thinking, I wonder if people are judging me because I should be in better shape by now. I had the baby months ago. At that time I would have scored myself lower on appearance.
This can shift and change. The score I want you to give yourself today, is where you are today. It’s awesome if you’ve given yourself really high scores in almost every area. Cool. Most of us are going to find that there is one area that’s the one area we should probably work on first. So what is it for you? All of these social confidence, expertise or knowledge, confidence on our physical strength, for some people when we’re talking about physical it can be your athletic abilities. Some people are like, when it comes to anything athletic, I would rather die. I’d rather crawl underneath a rock. I’ve got two left feet. I’m so uncoordinated. I’m not competitive. I don’t have control over my limbs and so that situation makes me feel really insecure. That’s the next one. Of course the last one was appearance. Which of those do you need to work on first?
This is really important for you. This is how we track or measure your progress. The whole point of these exercises like anything else, like any program I’ve ever created before, whether it’s a strength training program or a cardiovascular program or a program to give you a stronger core, if I don’t teach people how to measure progress, number one you lose motivation and number two there’s no way to be incentivized to know I should continue because this is working. What do we do in a physical program, I’ll say, get out your tape measurer, measure your waist line, get on the scale, or have your body fat tested. That way you know if this hard work, the exercises that you’re doing everyday are making you stronger or they’re a waste of time.
I want you to put some measure here so that as we go through this progress you can actually go, “hey, I’m getting a lot better in this area.” Some of these just recognizing that it’s an area you need to work on, that alone is going to help you. You’re going to go, “oh I know why I’m nervous right now. I know why I’m avoiding this. It’s because I don’t have as much confidence as I could in this area. I’m not going to give myself permission to cancel tomorrow because I know we’re going to be in a social situation where I won’t know people. In the past I would have just said, ‘yeah, I feel sick in the morning,’ and decline the situation but now I’m aware that this is something I need to work on and in order to do that I need courage.”
Just being aware is going to help you improve this score. If you are aware of it then you’re like, “well I better do something about it.” To just know that I’m feeling a little nervous about this and I’ve already identified that that’s the first thing I need to work on, so I’m going to do this.” You’re going to see that score improve and that’s why I’ve asked you to list the score for each one of these areas.
Now that you’ve identified the one that’s the first for you to work on, perhaps the lowest. Hopefully, it’s the lowest score. What can you do in the next week to put yourself in this situation, create it for yourself? If one of the things that you absolutely fear is failing in a workout or being around super fit people and not being able to make it all the way through, then your assignment is you’ve got to go take a class or do a workout, or pick up a new sport or do something that’s really scary and uncomfortable. I want you to know that that’s the area you’re going to work and improve and it’s not going to kill you. It’s going to in your evidence file right? That’s why we talked about your evidence file.
The more situations we have that relate to the area you’ve identified as your low area, the more evidence that goes in this book, that score goes up. You’re in this program just like an exercise program. You need to make weekly progress. Now, identify something you can take some time out. I’ll be right here. Take some time and figure out what you can do in the next week to put yourself in this situation. Let’s come up with some examples. If it’s appearance, your worried about how people see you so you purposely wear looser fitting clothes or you purposely show up late so that all eyes are not on you. Put yourself in a situation where you have to feel a little uncomfortable and then keep track of the result. Did you live? Was it okay? Was it not nearly as bad as you thought it was going to be?
What about expertise and knowledge? Purposely put yourself in a situation where people are going to be talking about something where you’re like, “I don’t know a lot about this.” Just experience that without having to dominate the conversation. Ask a couple of questions that you might have. Yes, you’ll feel nervousness and a knot in the bottom of your stomach like, “I hope this isn’t a dumb question,” don’t say that though. You’re going to ask that question anyways and you’re going to realize that you’re going to live through it.
Want more great tips and resources on improving balance, energy, organization, health fitness, relationships, focus, faith and happiness? Each episode of my podcast, The Chalene Show is designed to give you strategies and simple steps you can implement today to become a better, more balanced, happier version of yourself. LISTEN NOW!
Hey! and did you know Build Your Tribe has been resurrected? We had so many request to revive this show, so we brought it back. Listen Now >> https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-tribe
Already a devoted listener to The Chalene Show? Leave a voice message about what topics you’d like to hear on the show or your feedback on a particular episode >> LEAVE A MESSAGE. Chalene would also love for you to leave a review on iTunes! It’s kind of like her tip jar >> LEAVE A REVIEW.
Helpful Resources:
For help with goal setting and determining your life’s priorities, check out Chalene’s 30 Day Push Program: www.30daypush.com
For health and fitness advice from Chalene, head to www.cj7day.com to download her FREE program with complementary workout videos!
Wow! you’re still reading this! Then let me take a moment to say you’re amazing 🙂 Connect with me below!
Connect with Chalene:
Chalene on Facebook: www.facebook.com/chalene
Chalene on Periscope: follow @chalenejohnson >> You can catch my Periscope replays at www.katch.me/chalenejohnson
Chalene on Instagram: www.instagram.com/chalenejohnson
Chalene on Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/chalenejohnson
Chalene on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chalenejohnson
Chalene on Youtube: www.youtube.com/chalenejohnson
Some of my Instagram Accounts:
www.instagram.com/instagramimpact
