Convincing Your Brain To Be Self Confident

Inside SNAP: 4 Steps To Getting Unstuck In Your Life we talk about the pillars that must be in place to make major breakthroughs and progress in your life…one of those pillars is self-confidence.

The the real challenge with low self-confidence is how much of an ingrained pattern it becomes for most of us and how little we understand how we became low in confidence.

Not only is this frustrating and debilitating, but it makes changing from a state of low self-confidence to high self-confidence a near impossible, or at least seemingly hopeless quest.

In her popular TED Talk “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are”, Amy Cuddy argues that we can snap ourselves back into a state of confidence by adjusting our body language.

She does make several good points on how those who command a room follow certain body language cues while others who sink in confidence shrink, become quiet and follow various other cues that reinforces their low self-confidence.

Here’ what I DO agree with…

1.  Self-confidence can be learned and can be returned to your life
2. Body language IS one piece of the puzzle and one’s state can be used to “train” your brain into higher levels of self-confidence
3. Your beliefs, thoughts and physical state are closely intertwined…you can influence one by changing the other
4. Your true confidence is tested when under stress…those of us who are going through extreme stress in our lives know what I mean by that
5. Your body can change your mind

A few things I question:

1. What comes first, the body or mind change?  In other words, there are other ways to improve your confidence (through mind exercises for example) that THEN lead to body changes, but not necessarily the other way around
2. It could be that our ability to handle stress and our belief in our ability to handle stress is at least as important to having confidence through very stressful times in our lives which means you want to work on your mindset during stressful times in your life
3. You must be authentic about your “acting out” as other people are very good at reading “fake” body language – to me this is the biggest challenge with this approach

What do you guys take away from this talk?