Brinley Platts, co-author of Building Self Confidence for Dummies defines confidence this way, “ At it’s heart, confidence is the ability to take appropriate and effective action in any situation, however challenging it appears to you or others.”
As Real Estate agents, a lost listing, a crazy making client, or a slow month can cause our confidence to wilt. The strategy is often to get ourselves to a convention, or listen to a podcast, where the energetic speaker inspires with a rags to riches story or a new technique or skill. We are now pumped up and FULL of confidence. This lasts for a while and then something derails us and we slide back down the scale. Seeing a fantastic speaker is a great experience, but it’s not long lasting and it’s not intrinsic. It’s a veneer that can wear away over time. Here is just ONE of MANY NLP techniques you can use on a regular basis to increase your confidence on an internal level. Once you have the process down, it will only take you a few minutes a day.
1. Write down where your confidence is right now on a scale of 1-100 with 1 being the lowest and 100 being the highest.
2. Imagine that you are about to be interviewed by your local news reporter about everything you have accomplished in your life from grade school to the present moment. To prepare for this interview you go into a room and put down a pad of paper, get a pen and start to writing down all your accomplishments, all the way to back when you were a child.The things you write down may be the AMAZING art work your parents proudly put on the refrigerator, a graduation, a marathon, work projects, weight loss…all the things you are proud of. Look at grade school, summer jobs, all the things you are proud of. Imagine yourself writing at the table.
3. See yourself in a chair at a table in a room divided in two with a glass wall. On the other side of the glass wall, there is an identical chair and table. Now see your essence/spirit float through the glass and see yourself sitting in the chair, at the table, on the other side of the glass. You can see yourself on the other side of the wall, writing down your accomplishments.
4. Also, on the other side of the glass, as you do that, someone from your life is standing right beside you. Someone who loves you or someone who values you highly. It could be a person, or your favorite pet. On the other side of the glass you step into their body and observe how they see you, hear what they think about you, and feel the depth of their love thoughts and feelings for you. When you have all three….
5. Imagine yourself stepping out of their body, now float back through the wall and your spirit steps back into your body. When you step back into your body it changes things. You can now see how they see you, hear what they think about you, and feel the depth of their love, thoughts and feelings for you internally. Anchor this experience by pressing on your knuckle.
6. Quickly write down where your confidence level is right now on a scale of 1-100.
When you look at where your confidence was at the beginning of the exercise, did it increase? This is self esteem and confidence that is authentic and will give you a great life.
