4. Coaching Application: Ways to improve self-confidence
4.1. Self-awareness
Pretty often, the beliefs that you are not even aware of run your live. They can be so deeply implanted in your brain that you don’t even consider them, you simply accept their existence and build your thought process around them. You see them as “absolute truth” but they are often times inaccurate and damaging to your existence.
When a person assumes that what he now believes is true, he runs the risk of holding on to a false, limiting belief that will make him defeat himself. All the power and dedication will not succeed in front of a false powerful belief that he accepted as “truth”. According to Anthony (2008), “Low self-confidence is simply a problem of awareness.” Employing self-awareness combined with sustained effort, self-confidence can be learned and built on.
The approach a coach could adopt in order to encourage his client develop his self-confidence, is to help the client gain awareness. As soon as the client’s beliefs have been identified, the coach can guide the client to analyze his belief system by investigating the validity of his beliefs and by assessing the cost of holding on to that belief. The first warning that a belief is limiting, is when it’s causing feelings of sadness, anxiety, fear, inferiority or helplessness. Examples of such beliefs could be: “I am not worthy or I don’t deserve it.”
Once the client gains consciousness that he lives his life guided by beliefs that work against him, he can be stimulated to challenge these beliefs by finding counter-evidence that disagrees with the original belief. Wilding and Palmer (2010) underline that the key to achieving a high self-esteem is by being able to examine, challenge and modify negative, limiting and unhelpful thoughts.
Provided there is enough open-mindedness, the limiting beliefs can slowly be eliminated. For reaching full awareness a person must be ready to reassess his beliefs, values, ideas; he must be ready to re-evaluate his needs and motivations; he must be ready to understand the way he thinks without prejudging and categorizing things in good and bad.
4.2. Self-acceptance
During coaching one of the key concepts in helping clients, is to stress the importance of self-acceptance. According to Jung ” We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate it oppresses.”
Before achieving a healthy level of self-confidence you first need to like and value yourself, you have to learn to accept yourself the way you are. Wilding and Palmer (2010) state that “when you adopt the idea of self-acceptance, you begin to value yourself in spite of what others think “.
No one is perfect and if you use self-criticism, you will only put yourself down, auto-sabotaging your own actions. “Your refusal or inability to accept things as they are, it is the root of the problem” Anthony (2008).
4.3. Positivism
According to Wilding and Palmer (2010), the only difference between a negative and a positive person is their thinking style. The pessimistic way of thinking reinforces the corrosion of the self-confidence level, while the optimist thinking style, leads to higher self-acceptance, more resilience and courage.
Based on Dr. Roopleen studies, self-talk leads one’s thoughts and it makes a huge difference to the way you feel and act. When people face difficulties and challenges, they may start feeling low and depressed and indulge in negative self-talk. Negative self-talk, can generate doubt and fear, minimizing the chances of achieving success in your life.
Dr. Roopleen further emphasizes that, if you change the way you communicate with yourself, you are more likely to succeed. Change can only happen if you become aware of how you talk to yourself and then replace negative thoughts, with positive ones. The transition to positive self-talk is one of the key elements that can be employed in order to enhance your self-confidence and empower yourself to rise above any challenging situation.
4.4. Self-reliance
Anthony (2010) states that “A self-confident personality is not possible until we built a solid foundation of self-reliance” Even if you spent your entire
life searching for answers outside yourself, once you start looking within you, the perfect answers to life’s questions will come out. Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by the amount of validation and recognition you receive from outside sources. You are the only one in charge of your life, your beliefs and your values. Becoming dependent on somebody else’s appreciation, opinion or confirmation, weakens your position.
Believing that anybody else except yourself is responsible for your happiness or your different states of mind, is very limiting and gives that person powers over you. You need to be fully in control of your life at all times. Make yourself the priority. By looking and feeling good about yourself, your life will begin to change for the better and your confidence level will go up.