In this two-part blog, we’re going to dig into the idea of confidence, what it means, and how mindset can have a huge impact on confidence in the short-term AND the long term.

The Win (for the Start of the Game)

Picture it: Sicily, 1922. (not really, but extra points for you if you got the Easter Egg).  

But really, picture it: You wake up, ready to travel to your very first paid job as a facilitator, and it happens to be with an elite group in the Mayor’s office.  Nervous?? Oh yeah.  Nervous-diarrhea-all-night kinda nervous.

You know your stuff; you’ve got all the binders prepped and in the car; your outfit is kick ass; you have the directions (it’s downtown, and you never go downtown...you’d take the subway if you didn’t have 25 binders to lug).

Crawling out of bed, you open the curtains...and you nearly shit yourself.  It snowed at least 6 inches last night, and you can’t see more than 100 feet now.  Because you know there is zero chance this event will be canceled, you’ve got a real problem: Your drive is at least 90 minutes under these conditions (never mind parking), and - to make that work in real life - you would have had to wake up OVER 60 MINUTES AGO.  Or more.

Sadly, you are not a person that can whip themselves together in 10 minutes - no shower = no nothing.  You do the fastest shower of your life, skip shaving AND conditioning, throw your makeup in a clutch, and bolt.  

Thank god you had a garage to park in last night.

When you reach the main roads, you realize it’s far worse than you thought.  As you approach the 90-minute mark, you calculate you’re only halfway there.

And you forgot your mascara.

You’ve spent every red light and broken-down car in the lane as an opportunity to try and reach your contact.  This is before texting, and email is also not a commonly-checked medium.  It’s good ol’ phones.  And nobody’s answering.

At five minutes to the start of your session, you get through:  You explain your problem (minus the part where you should have checked the forecast and set your alarm for waaaaayyyyy earlier).  

You offer to reschedule (while trying to choke down nausea at the words - it’s a big payday); they decline.  The team is ready, and they’ll wait for you.  You say that you anticipate being about 2-hours late.  

By the time you start, it’s 2 ½ hours later: the level of frost in their welcome of you is on par with the conditions outside.  You muddle through.  

You’re paid.  You’re never asked back.  And no recommendations ever come from this group

This is a true story.  It’s MY true story.

And I had things going for me: no kids, no one else depending upon me that morning, the ability to lose this income but still be solvent, and other unrelated contracts lined up.

I don’t even want to think about the alternatives.

I DID NOT WIN THE GAME THAT DAY.

Obviously. 

So, let’s look at the tools for “Updating Your Confidence ‘Settings’ Each Morning’, and then have a look at what effect they could have had on how this situation went down - had I known to employ them that much earlier (and younger!) point in my life in that particular game on that particular field.  

Getting Your Head in the Game (OR The Five Ways)

Confidence is all about mindset: those women that have confidence have either a) done the hard work to get to that place or b) been blessed by being born into/finding themselves in a situation that has allowed confidence to blossom without much work on their part.  For the record, I’m talking real confidence, not that “somebody blew smoke up their ass” fake-confidence, or bottled-confidence or “my-confidence-depends-on-everyone-liking-me” confidence.

And while these Five Ways for Updating don’t do the hard work of getting all the way to confidence, they do serve as useful mindset reminders/shift enablers/enhancements.

1. BEFORE you get out of bed, VISUALIZE yourself moving through the day with confidence (self-worth, adaptability, resilience, openness to possibility and joy).  GET SPECIFIC.  Throw a few curve balls into your visualization (ie. ‘problems’) and watch/feel yourself handling them confidently.  See the potential players.  See the field.
2. MENTALLY (or even better, journal - writing it down makes it real) LIST FIVE THINGS YOU ARE GRATEFUL FOR. A neat trick is to pick things that you will STILL be grateful for at the end of the day - pick powerful things, too, in case you have to drag them into service and the game goes wonky in the day.
3. CHOOSE the ENERGY LEVEL & TYPE you want to face the day with - do you want to use anabolic (growing, building) energy or catabolic (shrinking, tearing down) energy to face whatever the day brings.  By the way: this is genuinely a CHOICE.  Once again, setting the intention allows you to both create a pathway and a place marker to return to, if necessary, during the day.
4. REPEAT THIS AFFIRMATION  (write it down, put it on your mirror, type it into your phone, make a voice note you can listen to)

   I believe in me: I was born for a purpose, and I have immeasurable value that has nothing to do with my achievements, my appearance, my material wealth or anybody’s opinion.  The Universe chose for me to be here.  I am strong, capable, creative, flexible and able to respond to new and emerging situations from a place of positive energetic leadership.  No matter what happens, I can find the pathway through, and there will always be hidden value in every experience.  I am open to those experiences, both the ones I anticipated and the ones I didn’t, as gifts from the Universe that are designed especially for me.  I will find the lightness, the possibility, the joy in all the elements of my day.

(It’s always best, by the way, to speak affirmations aloud and with full intentional energy.  And yes, you may feel like a nutter.  Do it anyway).

5. STRIKE A POSE (not quite like Madonna).  Amy Cuddy’s work on Power Posing, while controversial in some aspects, still points towards an incredibly useful tactic: your body and your mind are intrinsically connected, and your body can often give your confidence the boost your mind is struggling to find.  So, whether your spotting a red, gold, and blue bustier-onesie or not, get your Wonder Woman on.

By implementing these habits as part of your morning routine (10 minutes, tops!), you are updating your confidence settings every morning.  It’s a little bit like a software update, in my opinion.  Insider tip: on those days you just don’t want to do these take note:  THESE ARE THE DAYS YOU NEED IT MOST.

Best of all, you can revisit these throughout the day, if you need a boost at intermission, so to speak.  You wouldn’t be the first woman I’ve run into Power Posing in the ladies’ room.  

One last thought - and maybe question:  Had I employed these at the start of my day, that horrid morning all those years ago (and on the subsequent drive), how might the day be different?

Yeah, I would have visualized and then gotten out of bed and all my hard work would’ve been shot, right?  Maybe.  I would certainly have panicked a wee bit, at a minimum.  

But let’s assume I got my butt out of the house and onto the road, and THEN I reclaimed the time to update my confidence settings (and, frankly, re-frame the debacle I was currently experiencing).

For one, I certainly had the TIME (insert eye roll) to do this on the drive… FIFTEEN TIMES if needed.

For another, I would have been in a good place to really define the field and make choices that included visualization, energy choice, affirmation repetition, and I could have spent some time sinking into my gratitude for those things that - once this was passed - would STILL make me grateful.

I could have done a power pose (or 10) even at the front of the room while facilitating.  

And rinse and repeat.

The point is I would have taken back the mental space, shifted the mindset, and entered the experience for what it was - an opportunity to learn, at a minimum, for next time.

It also would have afforded me the confidence and grace to enter that frosty boardroom and own my experience - and what a powerful teaching/facilitating moment that could have been.

But I’m giving you what I didn’t have, in the hopes that you will take the time - and make the effort (for just SEVEN DAYS) to give this a try.  You might just surprise yourself.

“The Greatest Thing You Can Do Is Surprise Yourself.”

~ Steve Martin

xo d

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