Do you feel confident in your assistant role every single moment of every single day?

No, I didn’t think so.

In fact it’s unlikely that any of us will feel confident in our role all of the time but there are ways you can increase your confidence and move beyond what is holding you back, so you can take your career to the next level. We are not actually born confident, it is a learned skill, and something that we can also unlearn if we are put into a situation or environment which makes us question our abilities. For example, being bullied in the workplace, being micromanaged or criticised.

In today’s article I’m sharing my top 5 ‘go to’ tips for helping you increase your confidence.

1.   Act As If

Imagine how you would act if you were feeling confident in all aspects of your assistant role. Close your eyes and imagine this confident version of yourself standing in front of you. What are they doing? How are they standing? What are they saying? What is their daily routine? What are they wearing? What does their perfect day look like? Really take the time to visualise this confident version of yourself and notice what you see, hear and feel. Now step into this version of yourself and assume their physiology and take on the confidence that they are exuding.

Just spend a few minutes doing this exercise as often as you can and notice the difference in the way it makes you feel. It’s such a powerful little exercise to create more confidence in your life, so just enjoy it and have fun with it.

2.  Change Your Physiology

Changing your physiology and getting physical is one of the quickest and most effective ways for you to change your emotional state. So brilliant for boosting your confidence! As Tony Robbins says, if you want to change your emotional state, start by changing your physical state.

The change can be as simple as standing tall with your shoulders back, chin slightly down and eyes looking forward and slight up. Or it could be going for a walk at lunch or doing a Yoga class and getting your downward dog on. Have you ever noticed how when you come back from the gym or an exercise class you feel more optimistic and upbeat? That’s because when we move we shift the emotions in our body.

3. Focus on what you want (make your dreams bigger than your fears)

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘what you focus on persists?’. Well, here’s a bit of nerdy science behind that statement. In our brain you have this little thing called a ‘Reticular Activating System’ (RAS). It’s a fantastic little system which filters out the huge amount of data that is constantly flooding into your brain, so it can find what is important to you.

Your RAS learns your habits of focus which means you’ll only ever find what you’re looking for. So the more you decide to focus on good things, the more these good things will show up in your environment. All due to your RAS filtering system. Pretty cool hey?! So be careful what you focus on.

4.   Think about your language

How often do you think about the language you’re using?

The amount of times I’ve heard people say ‘I’ll try and be more assertive’ or ‘I’ll try and go to the gym’. By saying ‘try’ you are effectively telling your brain that you’ll give it a go but you won’t be able to do it. You only use the word ‘try’ when you expect or assume failure! Instead, use the word ‘will’ and feel more confident that you’ll achieve the actions you set yourself. Notice the shift in belief and confidence when you change just this one word and also how other people respond to you. Say to yourself, for example ‘I will get this presentation right’, or ‘I will meet my deadline’. Notice the difference in how you feel when you make a simple shift in the language you use.

4. Creating A Confidence Anchor

What if you could create instant confidence in any given moment, would you take it?

I have to say, this is probably my most favourite NLP technique and one that I’ve used numerous times, because, well…it works! There are six simple steps to creating a confidence anchor.

1. Remember a time when you felt really, really confident. Fully return to it now – see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel how good you felt. (if you can’t remember a time, imagine how much better your life would be if you were totally confident – if you had all the power, strength and self-belief you could ever need!)

2. As you keep going through this memory, make the colours brighter and richer, the sounds louder and the feelings stronger

3. As you feel these good feelings, squeeze your thumb and middle finger of either hand together

4. Now, squeeze the thumb and finger together and relieve that good feeling

5. Repeat steps 1 – 4 several times with different positive memories until just squeezing your thumb and finger together brings back those good feelings

6. Still holding your thumb and finger together, think about a situation in which you want to feel more confident. Imagine things going perfectly, going exactly the way you want them to go. See what you see, hear what you hear and feel how good it feels

Are you feeling more confident now?

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