Confidence

Self Esteem

What a wimp!

That's what it feels like.

如果你觉得你没有信心或自尊，你就是一个懦夫。

People will walk all over you, take advantage or just ignore you.

You'll be the last one picked for the volleyball team and certainly, you won't be trusted to make the big presentation in front of your company's major new client.

然后循环继续。

You try something and fail and get humiliated, so it makes it harder to try again.

Because you don't try, even thinking about it feels impossible.

当然，当然，给你一个更多的创造性，这是一个殴打自己的阿森纳。

男孩，你真的是一个wimp！

As the cartoon on the front cover says, 'It's easy'. Just entirely change who you are. Because that's also what it feels like; that you'd have to change everything about yourself in order to feel like tackling the world's challenges.

Doesn't all that sound just awful?

When you lose confidence it can genuinely feel awful, and for many as though there is nothing you can do about it. We've heard over and over again, "If I could just get some more confidence." It's as though we want to walk into a shop and buy a pound of confidence please (or should we say 500 grams).

我们知道有时候你觉得你可以做任何事情，征服任何恐惧，接受任何项目，处理任何问题。那些是美好的时光！

这是侵蚀信心的困难或棘手的情况。

We also know that though confidence may take a while to build, it can be undermined or lost in a nanosecond. All it takes is to feel wrong-footed, tripped up, embarrassed and you'll feel demoralised, deskilled and at a loss. It only takes one episode where you feel humiliated or were 'caught napping' or weren't sure what to do next, and the whole wall of confidence cards comes tumbling down.

Wouldn't it be great if we could just avoid those situations? Well, you'd need to lock yourself in a room to do that and then, of course, you'd be left with yourself, and we already know that people with low self-esteem are particularly good at making matters worse by the things they tell themselves.

Depressed enough, yet?

永远不要害怕 - 遵循的好东西。

What trips you up and what doesn't?

There will be some situations that undermine your confidence more than others. Take a piece of paper and divide the page in two. On the left side make a list of the areas where you know you feel more confident. Look at the list of things you do well as your starting point. If you know you're a good listener, for example, you probably feel relatively confident when you take on the listening role.

On the other side of the paper make a list of the places and situations where you don't feel confident. Meeting new people, giving a presentation, defending a decision, challenging someone further up the food chain than you, etc.

现在做一个信心量的库存。你在纸的左侧有什么用你可以在右侧使用？让我们说你对结识新朋友感到非常自信，但你确实感到充满信心。当你遇到新的人时，通过'具有'您的聆听技能，将两者结合在一起。人们喜欢谈论自己，所以你只需要一个良好的开放问题（见下文在实践周期下），他们将被关闭。然后你可以倾听你的心灵的内容，因为你知道你擅长它，只有不必建立偶尔的评论以保持它们。

There will be plenty of other places where you can borrow one skill to help you overcome a deficit in another. If you can get your head around this idea, you can become a whole lot more confident much more quickly than you think.

Not only that, if you look at the places where you do shine and feel good, make sure you put yourself into those situations more often. If you're good at riding a bike, go on more bike rides. Simplistic we know, but it's another small thing that really does work.

There's also nothing wrong with every once in a while deliberately avoiding those situations that do trip you up. There's nothing so confidence-undermining as putting yourself in situations where you know you're vulnerable. So take a holiday from it if at all possible when you're having a bad hair day. You'll have given yourself a break and will feel stronger to enter the fray when you choose.

练习周期

我们已经在开始时发表了评论，即有破坏的循环感觉不确定，羞辱，不太肯定尝试一些东西，然后运球不努力。

Of course, we know we're being a bit extreme here. We know it isn't always like that. Everyone has some areas of their life where they're really confident, or at least confident enough. This is when those lists of qualities and skills come in when we look at the Practise Cycle.

This is how it works: when you feel confident, you'll try new things, and the more you try the better you'll get. Like public speaking, for instance. Any good presenter will tell you that the more they get out there in front of an audience, the more confident they feel about handling whatever happens. NOT that they feel less nervous (some people, no matter how practised they are, ever get over being nervous), just that they know what to expect and also feel able to deal with the unexpected. If they get wrong-footed they have enough belief in their skills to get themselves upright again.

But you won't try new things unless you're feeling confident - real chicken and egg. Where do you begin?

The one and only place you can begin is to practise. Practise lots. And don't practise where the stakes are highest. Practise where no one will necessarily notice; where the spotlight isn't on you; where feeling a bit foolish won't undermine you.

Alongside practice goes preparation. Whatever the situation is you can prepare for at least some of the eventualities. Like meeting new people. To prepare for this situation you can make a list of opening gambits that you can try out.

We'll go back to our public speaking example. If you feel you have zero confidence speaking in front of a group, don't start practising in front of a group: all your fears and concerns will simply multiply. Practise in front of the mirror first; then practise in front of a trusted friend. More than once. Yah yah we know it can feel false and embarrassing, but practising with an audience of one who's on your side is a whole lot better than going into the lion's den of an audience you think isn't.

现在，如果你采取这个例子，看看你生命中的领域，在你不觉得自信的地方，看看你是否可以识别你可以练习的简单，未忽视的地方。例如，如果您必须遇到困难的对话，例如，事先花一些时间来写出您想要跨越的要点（这是准备位）。

Whatever you choose, don't throw yourself in the deep end. The shallow end will do; the paddling pool will do.