The impact of not having sufficient confidence means that you may not always get what you want; whether as a consumer, a sibling, a partner, an employee, a business owner or a leader.
Few people reach the heights of their career if they don’t have a high level of confidence, and few people will do business with people that don’t exude confidence.
Human nature shows that we will look up to people that display more confidence than ourselves. And we can tend to overpower, or look down on those people that display lower confidence than ourselves.
Take for example the people that you and others might look up to, whether it be an entertainer, leader, celebrity, or someone that you consider to be successful. An example might be Sir Richard Branson. Your internal dialogue perhaps is picking up that they are more confident than you, and therefore there is this imbalance that occurs. We may even put such people up on a pedestal so to speak.
Then on the other hand, unless you have done work in your personal development, there are times that you might find yourself being more controlling of others that are less confident or are at a perceived lower level than yourself. An example here of people that you might think of that display such traits could be Donald Trump or Sir Alan Sugar.
But here’s the thing, confidence is situational. There will be circumstances that you will feel more confident, for example when you’re doing a task that you are fully competent in, or where you feel you can overpower another person. And then there are times where you may feel less confident, perhaps in asking your boss for a raise, or standing your ground on a fee negotiation.
So what are the elements that you need to develop in order to reach higher levels of confidence in all areas of your life? Well in my experience there are three pillars that make up confidence.
Is the level in which you know you can achieve a certain outcome based on your abilities. Your competence level in achieving the task that needs to be done is what will underpin this belief. And the three areas that will form the pillars for competence are your skills, knowledge and experience of doing a task.
Is the value you put on yourself and how you expect and deserve to be treated by others. If your self-worth is low, you are enabling other people to over-power you.
Is the amount by which you care for, and about yourself. The three areas that will form the pillars of self-love are care for your mind, care for your body, and nourishment for your soul.
Therefore in order to increase your levels of confidence, you need to work on these three pillars; self-belief, self-worth, and self-love.
If you take our examples of Sir Richard Branson, Donald Trump and Sir Alan Sugar above, and measure the levels that each of them exude in each of the three pillars, then you will see how high levels of confidence plays out.
But here’s some caution as a person can go out-of-balance, like in a pendulum. If a person becomes over-confident, they are said to be cocky or arrogant, as opposed to being humble. In nature, everything is in balance. And therefore nature will try to bring a person back into balance. That is why you will see situations arise when a person displays signs of arrogance or being too cocky, there will be those people around them that will bring them down or challenge them. In the example above, you will see this play out with Donald Trump.
On the other hand, when a person is too humble, there will be supporters that will come forward to help or bring up that individual. Again in this example you will see this displayed with Sir Richard Branson when it comes to areas that he wants to achieve.
So while you can work on the three pillars of self-belief, self-worth and self-love, so as to increase your levels of confidence, it is important to keep an eye on having the pendulum in balance.
Paul Davis is a Business Consultant, Mentor, Coach & Trainer in the areas of Business Development & Personal Development for businesses and individuals globally. This subject matter is an extract of material that Paul covers as part of his “The ONE Dodecahedron For Reaching Your Highest Potential”. If this article has brought up any areas that you would like help with or want to discuss and find out more, please contact Paul at [email protected] or www.davisbusinessconsultants.com