Please note that Current of Life was previously published under the title: Living Your Potential
Write Down the Ingredients A financial services professional wanted to increase his confidence level when giving presentations to his prospective clients. I asked him, “When you are confident, what do you notice?” He began to list the conditions for confidence: Being relaxed, having a conversation that is natural and not forced, making a real connection with the person, keeping eye contact, being expressive, enjoying it, having good posture and standing tall, breathing, fully listening, and believing that I am giving a gift to the other person. In reviewing his list, you can see there are both physical and mental components. He then identified his top five and that became his recipe for confidence. Even when he cannot control the circumstances 100%, some of the main conditions are within his command. Cook it Up What is your confidence recipe? What conditions need to be in place? Write them down and when the situation warrants, gather the ingredients and follow the directions. In other words, use your recipe as a method of preparation. Here are two other examples:
File That Recipe The next time you’re in a situation in which your confidence might be tested a presentation, a challenging conversation with a coworker, or perhaps a social setting with several people you don’t know have your confidence recipe handy and use it. |
© 2004, Virginia M. Kravitz and In the Current®. All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to reproduce this article provided it is without any alteration, includes the copyright above, and if distributing electronically includes a link to www.inthecurrent.com. |