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Faking Confidence?
Today’s show is all about how the mind interacts with the body. How our internal feelings are presented in the way we act.
When we’re feeling self-confident, we present ourselves in a certain way. We stand tall, with head up, shoulders back, breathing deeply with maybe a smile on our face. When we’re lacking confidence, we unconsciously try to make ourselves small. We hunch over a little bit. Our shoulder roll forwards, we tend to look downward and our breathing is shallow.
Our physiology is greatly effected by our feelings.
Fortunately, that works both ways. If we present ourselves in a way that a confident person would, our mind will be encouraged to act as if we were confident.
‘Faking’ confidence, obviously isn’t the same as being confident. But by pretending to be confident, you’ll try more things. You’ll feel more comfortable stepping outside your comfort zone. Which in turn, will help you to become confident.
Practice looking confident whenever you aren’t. It’s another tool to get you a step further along the road and it’s simple to do.
Resources
There’s a post on the blog that covers this subject HERE.
There is a good post on the Very Well Mind website about how even faking a smile has benefits to your mood. And I’ve linked to a research paper on The Role of Positive Emotion and Contributions of Positive Psychology, from The Clinical Practice of Epidemiology in Mental Health.
If you have any questions, or comments, please leave them in the comments section below.
Podcast music: Is ‘Sweet Life’ by Twisterium.
Music Link: https://www.twisterium.com
006 – Mind and Body
Hello, and welcome to the show.
Today I’d like to talk a little bit about how our physiology is affected by our emotions.
As I’m sure you’re aware, when we’re feeling a complete lack of confidence, we tend to portray that in our bodies. I’ll give you an example.
If I was to say to you, that you are standing in front of a curtain. And behind that curtain is a person who has a supreme self-confidence. They have total and absolute belief in everything that they do. And then I asked you, to describe what that person would look like, if you opened the curtain.
Okay, so just do that for me now. Imagine this person behind the curtain is completely and totally confident. How would they be standing, etc.?
That’s right. They would be standing upright and their back would be straight. Their shoulders would be rolled back, their facial features would be tight, maybe a smile on their face? Breathing deeply, giving an aura of competence around them.
Okay, so behind the next curtain, there is a person who is completely the opposite. They have absolutely no self confidence, very low self esteem and a 100% belief, that whatever they try will fail.
So, if you were to draw back this curtain, how would that person be looking? How would they be standing?
Right again. They’d be hunched over a bit, their shoulders maybe rolled forward, head down, breathing shallow.
Because how we feel in our minds, is portrayed in our bodies.
The good news, is that the exact opposite happens as well. So if we present ourselves in a way that a confident person would present themselves. We can also trick our mind into believing that we’re confident.
So, let’s give that a go. Just for a few moments, what I’d like you to do is to get into the position that you would be in, if you were feeling completely lacking in self confidence. Let’s say for example, that you just been asked to do something that you’ve never done before, but you just knew in your mind, that it was going to be a failure. That something was going to happen to make it all go badly wrong.
Now I know it’s probably quite unpleasant and I won’t ask you to do it for long, but just for a few seconds, get yourself completely into that mindset. So, look how you would look, feel how you would feel, if you were in that position. Feel all those feelings.
Okay now come back to normal. What I’d like you to do now, is completely change that around. I’d like you now, to see and feel how you would be, if you were about to do something that you did 1000 times before. Something that you were completely confident you’d be successful at. There was no doubt in your mind at all, that it would be a complete success.
So sit and feel that way now. Sit, or stand with your back straight, your head up, your shoulders rolled back, big stupid smile on your face, exactly how you would be if you were supremely confident.
Okay, great. Now that you’re in that position and without changing anything, don’t change the way that you look, don’t change the way that you’re sitting or standing. Everything exactly the way it is now.
And now, feel the feelings, you were feeling before. When you had a total lack of self confidence. Really try to feel those feelings, without actually changing any of your physiology.
And there you go, you can’t actually do it. You may reduce the feelings a little bit, but your mind can’t actually feel a lack of self confidence, if your body is telling it that you’re confident. So although it doesn’t work exactly the same as being self-confident. It does make the feelings much less intensive and the worst thing that’s going to happen, is the people that you’re trying to feel self-confident in front of, are going to believe that you are confident.
So that’s the absolute worst that can happen. You still feel a lack of confidence, you still feel tense that the people you’re performing in front of, for want of a better term, are going to realize that.
So there you are, a quite a short podcast for today. And your action, or your task for the next few days is… whenever you feel a lack of confidence, put your body in the position it would be in, if you were fully confident. So remember to stand tall, to smile, roll your shoulders back. Breathe deeply and do everything that you would normally do, if you were feeling confident.
The more often that you do it, the better at it, you’ll become. And although, in itself, it won’t make you supremely confident, it is another tool in your toolbox, and it will certainly make a difference.
So that’s it for today. I’ll put all the details into the show notes, as usual, which will be over at theskillfulmind.com/podcast/006.
And until next time, take care, and I will speak to you soon.
