The great fake off - how not to build confidence

When people say to me “I want to appear confident as a presenter in front of an audience” a little alarm bell rings in my head.  I know it shouldn’t, because my job is helping people be confident around public speaking . It’s the word “appear confident” that worries me. Slogans such as “fake it ‘til make you make it” seem to give this approach credibility.

However appearing confident is only really at surface level, it’s about pretending that everything is ok. 

It’s like saying “If the “outside of me” looks relaxed to the audience then everything will be ok.”

We are trying to avoid being shamed about going red or sweating or shaking by somehow performing or masking our fears. However I think we need to take a step back and think about confidence in a different way.

The word con-fidence comes from the Latin for “con” = with and fidere= to have faith”. Faith in in modern terms could be “trust”.

Self-confidence is all about trusting yourself more on a fundamental level rather than a surface level.

We won't get the feelings of confidence straight away. We start to build confidence by practising trusting ourselves in small steps. Doing little things that are on the edge of our comfort zone

Recent examples from my course participants include “speaking up more at meetings”, “saying hello more often to neighbours”, “having a meal by myself”, “caring less every day about what people think” ,“walking home a different way occasionally” , “running a small presentation before I have do a biggie”

The work around confidence is about building trust and there are some fundamental practices

Can I trust myself that it’s ok for me:

1) to be looked at?

2) to be the centre of attention?

3) to take a pause and gather my thoughts?

4) to have the space in front of people?

5) to have a good eye contact with person I’m talking to

6) not to be perfect and that I can make mistakes

and, perhaps the biggest one

7) can I trust that its ok to be me?

If you are working with those questions you are exploring confidence.

Even after 20 years of teaching I still practice the actions of confidence.

Yesterday in addition to running a course in London I started two train conversations and returned a jumper to Marks and Sparks without a receipt because it was faulty. In themselves quite small things but it’s part of my confidence practice. It’s about taking small risks. Building that fundamental trust in yourself is a practice that not only helps with public speaking it also helps you connect to life and to the world.