10 Tips to LIMITLESS Self Confidence | Jim Kwik

So in this session, I just wanted to give you 10, 10 brain hacks, little things you could do when you need an immediate, instant, quick boost of confidence. Let's say you're in a situation where somebody asks you to say a few words and you need to just kind of like get in that place, or you're going on stage and you have these butterflies and you need— or you're making videos or giving a toast at a wedding and you're getting nervous. And if you have a few minutes, what can you do? or you're really nervous about taking that test and you want to walk in there confidently or talk to that somebody that you're attracted to, whatever the scenario is, right? Here are 10 quick tips to have greater confidence. So in no particular order, I'll give you about 10. All right, we'll do it together. So the first one is the power pose. If you need— there was a study done by Amy Cuddy, Harvard psychologist, that said that using your physiology actually affects your psychology. If you have a power pose and you did something like the Wonder Woman pose or the Superman pose, When you do it, it helps reduce cortisol levels in your body, which is the stress hormone. It helps boost your testosterone. It gives you like— it feels like you have more— you have some strength and some power also as well. So you could do a power pose, something very simple. Number 2, one of the things that I do before I go on stage, because I get a little nerves here or there, besides tapping into my passion of helping other individuals and focusing on like 1 or 2 people, is I listen to music. Right, I'll put on my headphones and I'll just play one track. It could be even, it doesn't even have to be the whole 3 or 4 minutes of the song, but even if I just hear the first like 15 seconds and I hear that beat, all of a sudden, you know, you have a certain song. I posted this on Twitter the other day. It's like when you're down or you feel sad or depressed or not confident, is there a song you could listen to? And there was like 300 answers, right? Everybody has a soundtrack for their lives. So I would ask you, is there one song that could just put you in that state of boldness and courage? Right? Have that in your phone ready to go. Number 3, something quick you could do is just check your wardrobe. Someone on our team said this morning, said, when you look good, you feel good, right? And a lot of psychology is actually meant around, around colors that you wear. And if you feel comfortable and you feel like you look good, you are gonna act that way also as well. So there's, you could go into the study of this and look at YouTube and listen to podcasts on dress, but your external environment, which includes your clothes, it affects your internal environment also as well. So Choose your wardrobe. Number 4, there was a study done at the School of Biological Sciences in Liverpool that talked about the power of scents. Like, there's certain scents and smells that will raise your level of courage, your level of confidence also as well. And it might be different for each person. So you might want to experiment with a certain perfume or cologne. Some people use a certain essential oil, or they'll chew a very specific kind of gum. And chewing gum, as an added one, also actually has been shown to be good for cognitive performance also as well in terms of reducing stress, improving your focus. But the power of smell for yourself also, it affects other people as well. Number 5 is give yourself a high five. And I'm taking this from a podcast interview we did with my friend Mel Robbins, who has the high five habit, saying that when you're brushing your teeth, ideally with the opposite hand to train your presence and you train the other part of your brain, after you're done, next thing you do really quickly is look in the mirror, your bathroom mirror, and give yourself a high five because High-fiving yourself, according to her research, this is ingrained since we're a child. You're high-fiving people throughout your whole life, and that's to celebrate, to encourage, saying you are enough, you're gonna win today. But what about starting your day like that? If you want an instant boost of courage, find yourself a mirror, give yourself a high-five. But you can't just high-five your other hand because that's a clap. All right. But that's number 5, is give yourself a high-five first thing in the morning. Your 6th quick tip to access more of your quick confidence is have a charm. Have an amulet, as some people have. You know, for others, it's different. Like, for sports figures, going back, they wear that underwear or they wear those socks, right? Or they have a certain artifact or an amulet is like their charm that they feel like gives them some luck. So have something, something that is unique, that means something to you, that you have, that it's anchored to it. Because actually, in our nervous system, our external environment gets linked to our internal environment. So if you have certain music, as we talked about, or certain smells that we talked about, it actually could trigger certain emotional states. You know that you hear a song brings you back, right? A fragrance can bring you back. Well, objects could do that also as well. Knowing that it's in your pocket and it's on your person can help you access greater confidence, and you use that every single time you want to feel more confident. So that is number 6, is have some kind of charm or amulet to help trigger your confidence. All right, number 7 is having a ritual. All right, you'll notice whenever you watch confident sports teams and players, people who play at the highest level, they have a ritual, right? If they're doing the free throws, they're bouncing the ball the same amount of times. If they're serving in tennis and they're doing their second serve, they'll bounce it the same amount of times. You know, for me, I have a ritual every time that I get on stage, you know, something that I do for like 5 minutes. Music was one of them, but move my body to be able to relax, to be able to get into a state of confidence. So maybe what you could do is have your own confidence. Maybe you have a power move of your own, some kind of gesture, some kind of ritual, some kind of music, some kind of saying, some kind of affirmation that will put you in a place of boldness and courage. Your 8th quick tip is this: mental rehearsal. We know that the human mind doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something that is real. And we know mental rehearsal works. There was a study done at University of Chicago where they took 3 groups of people and just had them do free And they see how well they did. And they said, okay, for the next 30 days, Group A, I want you to practice an hour a day. Group B, I don't want you to practice, don't touch a ball at all. And Group C, I want you to practice, but just mentally rehearse. Don't touch a ball, but for an hour a day, same as Group A, I want you to just practice in your mind that you're successfully doing these free throws. They followed up 30 days later. Group A improved 24% because practice makes progress, not perfect, right? Group B, 10%. No practice, no progress. Group C, though, blew their mind. They never touched a ball. They never went on the court. Improved 23%, just 1% less than the people that physically did it. Mental rehearsal is very powerful. So what your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve, right? You've heard that success quote. So mentally rehearse, because most people are— what, you know what they're rehearsing? Failure. They're going through and saying, oh, I'm gonna mess up this golf shot, or, um, giving this toast, and they're practicing it 1,000 times in their mind. So they do Do it as if they practiced it, right? Exactly how they practice it. So mental rehearsal, your imagination is so powerful. Einstein said it's more powerful than knowledge. Number 9, the power of your self-talk. There's a European Journal of Social Psychology that talks about the power of your self-talk. Now, I believe your self-talk is powerful. You've heard me say that your brain is like a supercomputer, your self-talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. that you are not good with names. Now, it's interesting, in this, in this research, they said that actually saying you statements were actually more powerful than saying I statements. And that I found interesting. You know, you could test both of them. Each— people are a little bit different, but try, I am confident, I am courageous, I am limitless, and talk to— or talk to yourself in a second position. You can do this, right? You got this. And that self-talk could be very self-fulfilling. So monitor yourself. Talk, number 9. And finally, number 10, I would say the power of emulation. What does that mean? Yes, what you could do is imagine. Yes, you could imagine the best scenario, but sometimes we don't know how it's going to play out. But some people could train themselves, and I think you can too with practice, is when you're faced with a difficulty or a demand and you say like, what do I need to do? Maybe ask yourself, who do I need to be? So you like, don't ask what do I need to do, who do I need to be? You know, and then think about that person that you think would really succeed in this scenario, this decision, this dilemma, this situation, and what would they do? How would they act? You would emulate them. What do they believe? How would they be breathing? How would they, what's their facial expressions like, right? And the whole idea here is you emulate greatness, right? And part of it is certainly is you, what do you say? You fake it till you make it. You know, I also believe also you can fake it till you make it, but I also believe you have to face it till you make it. And that's why these— through challenges you make change. You go through adversity, you push yourself through difficult times, and that's where you get stronger. All right, so those are your 10 kind of brain hacks, you know, science-based ways that you could elevate your level of confidence so you could show up, be able to lower the self-doubt and the critic, and, and give yourself a boost of self-esteem, a boost of courage. There's this movie with Matt Damon, uh, I didn't watch all of it, but it's called We Bought a Zoo. And, uh, there's this quote I remember saying, like, sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and I promise you something great will come from it, right? So if you need this boost of courage to be able to go and make a hard decision, to be able to show up to do something you never thought was possible, try one of these 10 things. And you're— that's your really your exercise. And down below in the comments, give us your feedback. You know, which of these 10 things resonated with you? And what do you do? What's a method or a small simple step you do when you need to Really tackle and feel determined to overcome your doubt, to be able to have greater confidence and really be the person you're meant to be? Put those suggestions down below. Also, rate your confidence. How's your confidence today? And are you ready to take on the confidence challenge?