6 Self-Belief Master Steps | Ep 151 | Self-Belief Chief

People seem to forget if you change today, today will change your life. For a limited time only. For those of you enjoying the podcast, I'm offering a free coaching session. That's right, a free coaching session for those of you who want to improve in their performance or their business or their relationships or any other area where confidence is a key ingredient. Then on the Self Belief Chief site, on the podcast page, self belief.com podcast underneath the episodes, you'll be able to book your own coaching session for free with me or wherever you're listening to the podcast. In the description, there'll also be a link to be able to book your session. I look forward to speaking to you soon. And let's get on with the podcast now. Today we're going to talk about the six Self Belief Master steps. Now people have obviously heard me speak about confidence on this podcast before, but in the last month I've been revisiting and tweaking and making adjustments to the model that I have. And now I think it's better than ever. And I want to share this with you because this allows you to understand your self belief, understand your confidence better than you've ever understood it before. And it is very, very simple, very straightforward, but explains why you feel like you do. What I'd love you to do, as I ask in a lot of episodes, is if you can grab a pen and paper. I want people to take notes. I want them to actually record and make sure they've got this information so they can use it later. Not just so you feel good for a moment that you actually understand how to implement this stuff. Because learning is great. Learning is great. Learning doesn't change your life. Learning is great, but it doesn't change your life. Implementation changes your life. The implementation of the things that you learn and how you implement it and the consistency of it is what will determine the quality of your life. So grab a pen and paper, pause this if you need to, and we'll come back. Okay? Right. So hopefully you've grabbed a pen and paper. All I want you to do is write down the following. I want you to draw a circle. Want you to draw a circle in the middle of the page. Okay, A circle. And what I want you to do is you'll write down six things for me and I'll tell you where to write them based on sort of if you imagine that circle as a clock. So at the 12 o', clock, at the top, at 12 o', clock, I want you to write down clarity. Okay. I want you to write down Clarity. Clarity brings things closer, the clearer you are of what you want to be more confident in and why. The clearer you are, the closer the result will come to you. So at the top of that circle, I want you to write clarity. And we'll go through this in detail, but let's just talk about each one at a time. At about the 2 o' clock mark, I want you to write down energy. I want you to write down energy, okay? Emotion is created by motion. You have to have a level of energy, a level of motion, level of the change of blood flow in the body to change the biochemistry, to send different signals to the brain. Okay, so when you're confident person, you imagine a confident person, they stand upright, they stand strong, their shoulders are back and down. Maybe they're even moving and the way they walk is under control, or maybe someone's jumping around or dancing or celebrating. Whatever it might be, they have energy. You'll have the right energy, though, as well. Okay, so the top clarity, about 2 o' clock per energy. At about 4 o'. Clock. On that circle, I want you to write down focus, okay? I want you to write down focus. You feel what you focus on. And the secret of this really is people, just when they're in a rut or they lack confidence, they ask themselves terrible questions. Why can't I do this? Why isn't this working? Will I ever get good at this? And so we ask ourselves terrible questions. And it's about, how do we change that focus? How do we adjust that focus? Okay, so it's focus. At about the 6 o' clock mark, I want you to write down rules or slash metrics, okay? Rules, metric, okay, what are your rules or metric to measure whether you are confident? Really think about that. Not in terms of a performance element like, oh, it's when someone does this or when this happens, how do you actually know if you're feeling confident? Forget the result. How do you know if you're feeling confident when you're about to go and do it? Okay, so you need to have rules and metrics. We'll get onto that in a minute. At about the. Oh, think of a clock. At the 8 o' clock mark, I want you to write down momentum. Okay? We all need momentum. We need to, you know, over and over, over again, that consistency. Because when we feel like we're starting from scratch, we do lack confidence. Okay, so you need momentum. And with momentum you can get the next thing, which I want you to write down about the 10 o' clock mark, which is growth. Okay? We need progress, we need to see that it works. We need to be able to envisage another level. Okay? And so we need growth. Now we should have is a circle in front of you. At the top it says clarity at 2 o', clock, energy at 4 o' clock for focus at 6 o'. Clock. You've got rules and metric, number five momentum and number six growth. Okay, so you've got that as a circle. And I want to talk about how this works. So that circle, just imagine the flow of confidence travels clockwise. It starts from the top and travels clockwise. That is the order to build confidence through. Now most people, the mistake they'll make is they'll start with focus. They'll try and really believe they can get there. They'll try and think their way there. Just from my experience, just from everything I know it's not the right place to start. There's much easier places to start. The hardest way to change your mind is to try and change your mind. So don't start with the focus because you drive yourself mad trying to think your way through. But it's just not how it works. Now firstly, you've got to have, as I said, that clarity. So I'll ask the people the question, why do you want more confidence? Because self belief or confidence, you know, those two things mean slightly different things. But what is the reason you want to be more confident? To have more self belief, you know, is it to do with your relationships? Is it to do with being a parent? Is it to do with your business? Is it to do with your health? What is the reason you want to be more confident? Have more self belief. Because that's important. Because you've got some areas which you're confident in and you've got others where you're not. And that's perfectly normal. But it's not an overall concept. Think about the area you want to have more self belief, confidence. What's the reason why? Because the clearer you are, the closer it will come to you. Okay? So you gotta be really, really specific. Really specific. If you're vague at the start, none of it will work. So be really specific. So pick the area that you want more self belief in, whatever that might be right now, the next step. So we have clarity. So next with energy before we do anything else, got to get in the right state. So Harvard did a study a long time ago, there's even a TED talk about it where they found that if you, if you adopt a particular pose like Wonder Woman or with your hands behind your bed, behind Your head sort of lying back in your chair slightly, or any other pose that has that sort of kind of power or confidence. If you do that for two minutes, it boosts your testosterone, which is the key hormone for confidence, by 20%. Okay. And it drops your stress hormone, or cortisol, I think it's by 18%. Cortisol is the stress hormone. That's the thing that will affect your confidence. So you do that for two minutes, you've got this huge swing in terms of your hormone levels that will absolutely aid you. Now, if you just think about it, if you just sat in your chair quietly and hunched over and your shoulders rolled over and your head down, and do you think you'd be able to focus and think confidently? No. But imagine you stood upright, you stood powerful, your chest is up, your shoulders back and down, maybe even jumping, maybe you're even moving, maybe you're exercising, maybe you're dancing. And then imagine the movement in your body and that commitment with your body, and then the language that follows it. If you can hear me right now, it's because the posture I'm adopting sends different signals. That means the tone of my voice changes. Then you hear yourself speaking more confidently, and then that just reinforces the physical element as well. So keep reinforcing it. So you build that energy before you do anything else, you've got to know why first. And then before you do anything else, build that energy up, because that will help with the focus, because you. All these different signals will be being sent to the brain about sort of feeling more confident, more positive, and it will help to do the next bit, focus. So get your energy right. So you can do that through music, you can do that through exercise. You can do that with how you stand, how you hold yourself for a period of time. That could be with so many different options that you have in any particular moment to build that energy. That's why when you feel tired, you don't feel confident, you don't feel in a good place, you don't feel in a good mood. When you have that energy and that enthusiasm, it seeps through. So start with the energy. So if you're struggling with focus, start with energy and. And then go to focus. Okay, now I've got my energy in a good place. Now let's look at focus. Now, most of us will ask ourselves terrible questions. Why? Why is this happening to me? Why am I not good at this? You know, blah, blah, you know, the simplest thing. There are so many things I could do to help you with your focus. But the, basically the core element of all of them, just keep it really simple for today is ask yourself a better question. So you've got clarity. You know why, you want more confidence, more self belief. Then you've built your energy, now ask a better question. The energy is your foundations. Ask a better question, hmm, what can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? What's the solution? If you wanted to summarize it even more into two camps, are you asking yourself, what's the problem? And focusing on the problem, or are you saying, what is the solution? Are you dwelling on problems or are you thinking of solutions? Because yeah, you might need to think about the situation, but in what context? You can always be thinking about the solution. Always. So ask yourself, what's the solution to this? Something's gone wrong, it's not worked, it's not happened how you want it to. Cool. What's the solution? Imagine if you ask yourself that question, what type of answers you get. You get such better answers and you keep, you know, you keep that, that kind of enthusiasm and that confidence by being able to find solutions. Or you can ask yourself a terrible question and get terrible answers and it just makes you feel worse and reduces your confidence and then you've got nowhere to go after that. So clarity, Then build your energy, Then ask a better question. What's the solution? How can I learn? How can I grow? Just whatever that question might be, just ask a better question. Once you ask that better question, like, what is the solution? You need to know what the solutions are. And that's the rules and metric. You've got that at the bottom of your circle, rules and metric. Actually, how do you measure it? What has to happen for you to be confident in this area? Now, what I find with most people is if I explain the rules first. Okay, so a rule for having confidence in this area might be something like, so for example, if someone wanted to be more confident in a relationship, they might have a rule there subconsciously. They didn't even realize that. It's something like, I feel confident when the other person appreciates me and values me and smiles at me and makes me feel good about myself. Now, people think that sounds harmless, that sounds okay, but it's actually a terrible rule. Why is it a terrible rule? How much control do you have? Now, of course the other person's gonna influence your emotional state. Of course they are. But it's how you respond is what we're talking about today. So that rule, well, I don't have control because it's Dependent on the other person. We've said this has to happen and this has to happen and this has to happen. It's a really bad rule. Now how do you create and if by that own rule, how often are we gonna feel confident? Well, sometimes, but we're not in control of it. And it's gonna be very kind of 50. 50. Because is the other person in the relationship always gonna feel on top of. No, that's an unrealistic expectation to put on them. You know, we've got stuff going on in our lives. Let's not add more pressure to it. So how do you create a better rule? Okay, a better rule or a better metric? You basically start anytime I and then follow it up. So how do we be more confident in a relationship? Anytime I meet their values. Okay, so that's a question mark in terms of going, what are their values? What are the four things that are most important to the other person? Okay. Anytime I meet their values, anytime I'm appealing to those values, I can feel confident. It's not about the other person, it's just the role you're doing. Okay. Anytime I'm considerate, anytime I'm thoughtful, anytime I cook, anytime I clean, anytime I plan something spontaneous, anytime I show affection, anytime I support rather than fix, anytime I take the time to understand, anytime I listen. Do you think that there'd be much better rules to have for feeling confident? And not only that, those rules actually serve, you know, if you did those things, would they actually improve the quality of your relationship? Yes, they would. So it's not reducing expectation, it's just creating rules and appreciating the things that we can do that actually do serve the end result for being more confident in the relationship by providing more value. What too many people I work with have is they have really difficult rules for being confident and they have really easy rules for self doubt. I'll give an example of a really easy rule people have for self doubt. Okay, let's say, let's take a different example. Doubt in business. Okay, Right. So I want to be good at my job. Cool. What's your rule for self doubt? Anytime my manager, Anytime my manager questions something I do. Now, how often is that that's gonna happen? All of the time. And not even necessarily for bad reasons. To help you improve, to help you learn. Because they've got their own opinions, their own thoughts, doesn't mean you're bad at your job. But that's what people's rules will be without them even realizing. So write down what are Your current rules for feeling confident, this area and what are your current rules for self doubt? And I promise you, your rule for self doubt, if it's an area that you're struggling in, confidence wise, your rule for self doubt will be really easy to achieve and your rule for confidence will be very difficult to achieve. So write down better rules in terms of feeling confident. Anytime I do this, anytime I do this. Give yourself so many options, so many ways to be confident and then create a really difficult rule for self doubt, a really difficult one, One that makes it just so difficult and hard for you to question and doubt yourself. Something like this. Okay, self doubt. I avoid consistently expecting other people to agree with my opinions. Okay. So you just flip it around, make it really difficult. Right. People aren't always going to agree with me. I shouldn't expect that. Doesn't mean I'm not good at my job does. You know, we attach all these weird meanings to it. Just because someone questions what we're doing doesn't mean we're not good at our job. Doesn't mean they don't appreciate us. So I avoid consistently expecting other people to agree with me. How much more difficult does that make it for you to doubt yourself? So much more difficult than, oh, self doubt is when someone questions me. So you need to know your rules and metrics because then let's go back around the circle. Clarity of, you know, why do we want confidence? Build some energy, focus on what's the solution. And now we know what the solution is. It's those rules and metrics. Anytime I do this, anytime I do this, anytime I do this, anytime I do this, all things that we can control that empower us and empower the situation. As long as we can control it, it empowers us. And it empowers the result, empowers the situation. That's a great rule. And the more rules and metrics that you have that allow you to be confident, the better. Because then you've got so many options, so many ways and so many choices. How would you ever start doubting yourself? Now we've gone through clarity, energy, focus, our rules and metrics. So then we get to go to number five. Once you have those rules and metrics in place so you can build confidence all the time. We need momentum. Momentum means taking action, okay? Moment after moment after moment, momentum. Adding those moments together. Keep adding those moments together to build momentum, to make progress, take action. So keep going through those rules and metrics, keep living by them, keep using them to keep taking action on them. Keep Improving them, keep going through them and building that momentum over and over again. Because if you keep meeting them all the time, that confidence is going to build and build and build. A bit of build and with. When you build so much momentum, you'll get onto the next part, which is growth, you'll start to believe there's the next level for you. You'll start to be able to achieve that next level that's available to you and you'll feel that sense of growth and progress. And when you start progressing, you'll go, wow. Actually look at. And of course, when you progress, it builds your confidence. Now we've drawn that in a circle. So if we build growth and progress, guess what that does? It gives us more clarity. When we have more clarity, it helps us to build more energy. When we have more energy, it helps us to build our focus. When we have better focus, it helps us to better achieve our rules and metrics, which builds more momentum, which builds more growth, more clarity. Etc, Etc. The more times you go around that loop in a particular area of your life, the more confident you'll become. Keep going around that loop. I'm confident of what I do because I've been around that loop so many times. Keep going around the loop. Keep building and going through that loop over and over again. The more times you go through it, the more confident you'll become. So make sure you've written that down. So you have that circle, you have clarity at the top. Energy, focus, rules, slash metric, momentum, growth. Here's what I would like you to do, just to prove it to yourself. After you've listened to this podcast, on the back of that piece of paper or somewhere else, look an area where you're really confident and look at an area where you're not and the area that you're really confident in. In those six areas on that circle, I want you to score each of those areas out of 10. They will be high scores, I promise you. If you're confident in that area, all of those will be high scores. For the area that you'd like to improve your confidence in, there'll be low scores out of 60. So each of those areas out of 10 out of 60, really we want to score a 48 and above. So eight out of 10 in each of those areas, when you get to eight and above, that's when you start to feel really confident. If you're anywhere above 53, you'll be doing very, very, very well. In that area, your confidence will be starting to go through the roof. So that's the simple, very simple model to mastering self belief. I want you to think of the area that you want to build confidence in, and I want you to think of how that would change the quality of your life. What would that do for you beyond the confidence? What would it actually do for you in your life? What would it do if you were more confident in your work or your business? Would it get you that promotion? Would it help you get a pay rise? Would it help you use your time more wisely? What would it be as a parent? Would it help you to be more empathetic? Would it help you to deal with the stress of the situation? Would it help you to, you know, make you feel like your children grow up the best that they possibly can in a relationship? Does it help you build trust or overcome the fear of rejection or help you feel good enough and worthy of meeting someone or being in the relationship that you're in in terms of your health? Does it help you take action and move forward and, you know, build that body or design that body or sculpt that body that you've been dreaming about? This isn't, you know, this isn't playful stuff. This is stuff that changes the quality of your life. You can take action right now with this really simple model. I really, really encourage you. Too many people will listen to things and learn and learn and learn. You've learned today, but what I've wanted to get across to you is a way to implement. You've done enough learning. Learn to implement. And if you implement these ideas, if you implement by taking action, watch as you become unstuck and change the quality of your life. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your life wherever you are. I'll speak to you on the next episode.