One of the things I hear my clients say the most is that they don’t want to come across as arrogant if they seem to be too confident.
Most of us need to feel more confident and project more confidence.
The definition in the dictionary of confidence is the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something. Meaning believing that you can rely on yourself.
Another definition that I love for confidence is doing what you said you were going to do. Again nothing arrogant about that.
If you are worried about coming across as arrogant, let me guarantee you that you won’t! The fact that it worries you, demonstrates that you won’t.
So as you can see there is a massive misconception that too much confidence can be perceived as arrogance.
Your behaviours will feel authentic and confident if the energy behind your actions or words is authentic and confident. So it is more about the energy than the actions themselves.
If you are coming across as arrogant, it is because your behaviour or actions are trying to compensate for your insecurities.
Hiding your confidence will hinder it. Lack of confidence will make you lose opportunities, lose clients or a promotion, miss out on extra income, make you be invisible in your industry and even stop your feelings of happiness.
So let's agree that feeling confident and acting confident is the only way to move forward.
But how can you increase your levels of confidence? Going back to my favourite definition that confidence is doing what you said you were going to do, let's start there.
Commit to your words and follow through with the promises you make to yourself. Start small, a little change or improvement is all it takes to get you on momentum.
Use your body language, stand tall and embody the feeling of feeling confident. I love this one, you can dance, jump on the spot or simply use a superman/wonder woman pose.
Watch your thoughts and stop your negative thoughts by using my stop/cancel/delete technique. It's super simple and is based on neuroscience.
Every time you catch yourself with a negative unsupportive thought, say to yourself stop/cancel/delete. Breathe and either flick a hairband if you have one on your wrist, snap or pull your ear, or click your fingers. Create a physical reaction in your body. Immediately after, say something positive to yourself. The purpose of this technique is to weaken the negative neural pathways associated with your negative way of thinking. and start building new more positive neural connections.
If you want to understand more about the SCD technique, hit reply and I can share more about it.
Stop overthinking this, choose to feel confident and go and share who you are with the world!
Have a fantastic week!
Alba Gomez is a presence and personal brand coach, keynote speaker, first impressions specialist and professional image consultant. Born in Colombia and based in Australia, she travels nationally and internationally for speaking, executive coaching, consulting and training.
Alba works with individuals and small groups right through to large corporations. She brings her client’s brand into line with their personal and professional roles, giving them the clarity and confidence to communicate and be their best. Alba uses a unique, results-orientated approach, drawing on her 14 years of experience with systems and processes as an engineer.
