Eliminate Self-Doubt And Gain Total Self Confidence With These Techniques

Now we're ready to dive deep into our four steps to crush self doubt and gain real confidence. Step number one, believe in yourself. Easier said than done, right? Do you ever wonder where our self doubts come from? Do you ever wonder? Because we're not born that way. We're not born with self doubts. The babies from all over the world, the north, the south, the east, the west, the rich countries, the poor countries, they're all born with only just two fears. Fear of falling down, fear of noises. All the other fears are acquired. So when and how do we learn to doubt ourselves? There is a fascinating study, well, fascinating and terrifying at the same time, that shows that children receive an average of 45 positive comments per day. And guess how many negative comments per day? Take a guess. 200. A little less. Let's go up with a 200. Okay. Children receive an average of 45 positive comments per day. 460 negative comments per day. So 460 times that somebody, mother, father, teacher, neighbor, stranger tells us, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not athletic enough, you're not attractive enough. Let me do it. What's wrong with you? Are you dumb? What is wrong with you? And then those collection of comments that we get when we turn into adults, they turn into limiting beliefs. And limiting beliefs are these voices inside our heads that when we're facing something new, we have a new challenge. They go, who do you think you are? Who are you trying to fool? This is too much for you. Stop dreaming. Be realistic. I was once coaching a while ago, a young man, young doctor, he was in his last year of medical school, and he had a dream, and his dream was to work in the most prestigious hospital in his country. And he said, in order to achieve this dream, I need to sit for an exam. But there's 1,000 candidates sitting for the exam, and I need to come out among the top 10. And the first thing he tells me is, I have never been a top 10 student. And so I asked him, did you study for this exam? He goes, yeah, I studied. Did you give your very best? Yes, I gave my very best. But you know what he said? It's been so many years of studying so hard and giving my very best, and I've never been even close to the top 10. And if I don't make it there, my dream, I need to forget about it. And so I told him, I know exactly what you need to take. I know exactly what you need to do. And he says, what is that? And I tell him you need to take. The guy's a doctor. He looks at me like drugs. And I say, nope, no drugs involved in this LSD approach. And this is what LSD looks like. And so I tell him, the L stands for listen. I want you to listen to the thoughts you're having. You're saying, I've never been a top 10 student. Listen and ask yourself, is that thought giving you confidence or stealing you confidence? I guess. Well, yeah, but it's the truth. I've never been a top 10. Is it giving you confidence or stealing me? Well, stealing confidence. Can you realize that with that thought you're affirming an identity that you actually want to change? And he says, well, yes. Let's move to the second step. And the second step is stop. You need to stop those thoughts the minute they appear. Stop them right away. And he goes, how? How? They're popping up all the time. And I tell him, you will have to train yourself to stop them. And this is how you can do this. Does anybody have a headband, wristband, or. Yeah. Oh, great. Thanks. I told him, I want you. We had 10 days from this conversation to the exam, to the big exam. I told him, I want you to wear something like this, a wristband. And every time you listen to the thought, you go, snap, stop, snap, stop, snap, stop. And he goes, it hurts. Good. It's a good reminder that those thoughts hurt your identity. So stop them right away. And the D. The D stands for. There you go. Stop. The D stands for declare. There is a huge difference between listening to yourself and talking to yourself. You see, listening to yourself is something. It just happens. You're gonna have automatic negative thoughts popping up all the time. Maybe you can't help that. But when you listen to them and you stop them, you can talk to yourself and you can say something that serves you, and you can declare something that is in line with the new identity that you want to have. And so I told him, how about your new declaration is I deserve to perform at my best. He said, I like that. Okay, I want you to do this for the next ten days. Listen, Stop. I deserve to perform at my best. Exam day finally came. Thousand candidates going into this very prestigious university sitting for the exam. Two days later, the results were there. And this is how they do this. They print out the names of the thousand candidates, they stick them to the walls. Very high tech. So they stick the papers to the walls. And this guy needs to walk into the hallway and look for his name. And so he walks in there, he Tells me, I walk in there and I start looking for my name. And I go straight to the top 100, which is a place I would normally fall into. My name is not there. Top 80. My name is not there. I keep on going, keep on going. Top 50, my name is not there. Top 30. My name is not there. By now I'm sweating, my palms are getting all sweaty. My heart is racing. Top 20. My name is not there. Top 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. My name is not there. And he goes, did I not even make it to the top 100? And so he says, as I'm walking, dragging myself back, feeling so frustrated and sad that this didn't happen. And I'm walking myself back, and suddenly I get a bump from a friend who carries me by the hand and says, come and look. This. Check this out. You came out first. You came out first. And you see, this was more than a wristband and an affirmation. This was a change of identity. And a change of identity can happen fast. I have seen this happen in hundreds and thousands of times. It can happen fast when we understand that the formula of success that we were taught is incomplete. Not to say it's just wrong. We were taught that if we study enough and if we work hard enough, we will be successful. Right? But don't we all know people who know a lot and who work really hard but don't make it? Don't we all know them? So in this formula of success, there's one missing element. The one element that if it's not there, it doesn't matter how many PhDs you have. It doesn't matter how many thousand hours, 10,000 hours, 20,000 hours you put in. If it's not there, you won't make it. Confidence is the most important element in the formula of success. You need to believe in yourself to be able to succeed. So I want to do this with you right now, guys. I want you to pick a thought, something that you. You won't share this with anyone. So don't panic. Everyone's like, oh, no, here we go. This one you won't share. Okay, pick a thought or something that you know that is stopping you. It could be related to your body, to your finances. It could be related to your relationships, to your business, to whatever you want. Something, you know, like this guy had the. I've never been a top 10. It could be I've never made the money I want. I've never had the relationship I want. I've never. Whatever it is, do you have, it just Raise your hand. Will not ask you to share the wonderful thought. I just wanna. Okay, we all kind of have it. I now want you to. If you have a wristband, do this with me. If you don't, just pinch yourself in the wrist and go think, hold the thought and go tack or pinch. And if it hurts, all the better. Okay? And now I want you to choose a declaration, something that you can say to yourself every time this thought pops up, that you can say to stop. To stop it. If you have something right, write it down. If not, just think about it. And while you write it, I want you to consider this idea. If talking nicely to a plant helps her grow, can you imagine what happens to us when we talk nicely to ourselves? It's really powerful. We're still in step number one, which is believe in yourself. And I have many tools to do this. I've written four books about it. I want to share with you one of the tools that holds. I would say one of the. Yeah, a very close place to my heart. Because this is something my mother used to do with me and my brother and sister when we were children. And she called it the Success Wall. The success Wall was a place in a room where she would hang, frame and hang there. Anything she would, she caught us doing, right? So there would be pictures of us, there would be photos with friends, there would be arts and crafts, there would be poems, all sorts of things. Anything she would see us doing well would go straight into the success wall. And this was a wall that I would look at quite often because school was not always an easy experience for me. I was a very good student. But as from age 11 onwards, I was bullied in school and I was bullied for being too skinny. That's me at age 11. And on the good days, the boys would call me the Magician. And you would feel, that's a really cool nickname, right? The Magician. Not so much. When you know why they called me the Magician. They would call me the Magician because I had nothing over here and nothing over there. Yeah, that was pretty mean. And on the bad days, they would call me Palo Vestido, which in Spanish, Spanish translates to a stick with clothes. So oftentimes I would come back from school crying. And I remember one particular afternoon, it was a really bad day. So I came back from school, I stormed into my room, I slammed the door shut, and as I'm looking at myself in the mirror, tearing myself apart and thinking, look at this chicken legs. And when is anything ever going to grow here? And out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly see there's a new thing in the success wall. So I walk over it and I see there's a poem there. And I'm confused then because I thought it was not a good poem. I had written it the week before. And so I go to my mother and I tell her, why did you hang a stupid poem on the wall? And she's like, oh, because I thought it was a beautiful poem. And then she said, and I think you are a writer. And I remember those words resonating in me. And I remember that for a minute or two, I stopped focusing on the hurtful comments about my body and I lingered on the idea of being a writer. Twenty years after that episode, I wrote my first book with my mother. So there is real power in remembering our wins. And I do suggest, if you don't have a success wall, build one. If you have children, build one for your children. Build one for yourself. You know what the power of this is? Because we're very used to building vision boards, and that's fantastic to pull us into the future. But we need a success wall to remind us of all the things we've done, right? So having the pictures there of everything you've done so far is a constant reminder. And remember your subconsc, which, by the way, is in charge of 95% of your actions in life. Your subconscious mind thinks in images. So if you have images that remember you constantly. There are things I do right, I could do hard things, I can overcome obstacles. That will be a great source of real confidence. And real confidence comes. Oh, and by the way, make sure you renovate the success wall, Because I've seen success walls that have, like the past successes are 30, 40 years ago, every six months, I like to renovate. In fact, today, when I'm done with you guys, when we're finished, I want to take a photo with you. And this will go to my success wall because I love having it renovated. Okay, do the same for you. Real confidence comes from remembering your wins. Real confidence comes from remembering all the obstacles you had to overcome. Real confidence comes from remembering and using your talents. Real confidence comes from leaning into your natural strengths. But you see, ever since we entered the educational system, we're pushed to do the exact opposite. We're forced to focus on the things we're weak at, don't we? So we get an A in writing and we get a D in maths. And what is the conversation going to be about at home and in school? The D in maths, of course, are we going to worry about it? Are we going to talk about it and stress about it and the A in writing? Well, you don't have a problem there. Let's, you know, just forget about it. And just like that, we get trained to not pay attention to the things we're naturally good at, but pay very close attention to the ones we're not good at. And then we ask ourselves, why am I not confident, Sam?