Negative Instruction: "Oh no, I can't face it. I'm tongue-tied."
Positive Instruction: "Stop! I can do it. Just take a deep breath and calm down... That's it. Breathing smoothly. Now on the count of three I’m going to raise my hand to speak. One ... two... three…" (An example of using thought-stopping and the relaxation command followed by instructions on a specific behavior to perform)
Positive Instruction: "I should expect physiological signs of fear. I'm confronting something frightening to me. It means I'm alert and prepared to cope. Just relax... relax... relax... That's it. Good." (Most people experience physical signs of tension in situations when they must perform. But overly fearful people take this as validation that they are afraid, and then the fear escalates)
Negative Instruction: "They're all looking at me. I’m going to make a fool of myself."
Positive Instruction: "Yeah, and I'm looking at them. Now relax and follow your plan. Yes, just relax... There's nothing to worry about. I know exactly what to do. First, I'm going to count all the people wearing red. Then I’m going to count the number of men wearing ties." (Having a plan gives you confidence-you know exactly what you're going to do. It helps you to feel more in control, which in turn helps you control your anxiety. This is also an example of using instructions to divert your attention from the feared stimulus: people looking at you. Counting and multiplying, drawing complex charts, and similar tasks require considerable attention, which is incompatible with anxiety)
Negative Instruction: "Oh no, there goes the seat belt light. These planes are miserable. I can't stand it. I’m going to freak out!"
Positive Instruction: "Ignore the plane! Look at the stewardesses. First, I’ll pick out the one I think is sexiest. Then, I'll have an erotic fantasy. She'll never know!" (Here sexual arousal is used as the incompatible behavior)
You might begin with fantasy desensitization: Give yourself instructions each time you approach the feared situation on your mental stage. This will give you practice in thinking the thoughts you want to think when you are actually in the presence of the feared situation, because you will have mentally rehearsed how you will act, how you will think, and how you will feel.
A lot of the instructions sound artificial and contrived. Don't worry about this; you won't have to use them forever, although they will be helpful in breaking your old fear habit, and once that has happened, you won't need the instructions.
Building Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is usually high on the list of qualities sought in executives, managers, and supervisors-and rightly so: The confident person seems to perform better and to do so with ease. An implicit requisite of confidence is success: But paradoxically, lack of confidence makes success difficult, if not impossible. So to be more successful, build your confidence. It's like the old adage: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Those who are confident succeed in their endeavors and become even more confident; those who lack confidence stumble and barely get by, feeling less able to tackle the next challenge.
What exactly is self-confidence? It is a belief in your ability to accomplish an objective, a feeling of certainty that you can handle the task at hand. What you feel and say to yourself about your ability to perform has a powerful impact upon your subsequent performance. In many ways, your past performance influences what you say to yourself. You can choose to focus on successes or failures in your past. People who feel less confident usually overemphasize past failures and disappointments.
Self-confidence is manifested in all four behavioral modalities: actions, mental pictures, physical sensations, and sentences. Positive changes in any one of these modalities tend to prompt positive changes in others.
Building Confidence through Actions
Goal accomplishment: Take the proverb "Nothing succeeds like success" as your guide-create successes in your life. The shaping technique can help you: Break down long-range objectives into small sub-goals, so that each step toward your objective is small enough for you to accomplish with ease. For example, in writing this book I might say to myself: "Today I will write the section on how to build confidence." I sit down to begin and find I can't get started. "This step must be too big," I conclude, so I break the task down further and decide to make an outline. When that's accomplished, I then agree to write the section on goal accomplishment. Completing each small task is an accomplishment. The more I accomplish, the more I believe I can accomplish what I set out to do. I have built up my self-confidence (and have also gotten some work done!).
Begin to build your confidence through achieving small successes. Use the self-contracting procedure to define your small steps. This will clarify exactly what and how much you need to do. Then rein force yourself when you succeed, so that eventually (or perhaps very quickly) those around you will begin to notice and to acknowledge your successes. ("You seem to get so much done, Bev, I just don't know how you do it.") Acknowledgment from significant others is powerful reinforcement: Not only does it encourage us to keep on succeeding, but it also supplies evidence on which to base our confidence. But don't wait for recognition; if you do, it may never come. You gain confidence by accomplishing goals, and the easiest way to do that is through small action steps.
Learning new skills: Lack of confidence is realistic if you lack the skill to do something you want to do. Of course, it is possible to "learn while doing," but it requires a lot of confidence to avoid becoming demoralized by the inevitable errors and setbacks. It's like the dilemma of the job candidate: "All the employers want experience. But how can I get experience when no one will give me a job?" Formal training is one way to solve this dilemma. Why suffer through trial and error and thereby risk undermining your shaky confidence? If you don't know how to manage time (or make a good decision or give a directive or speak assertively), then seek out training. Most community colleges offer a myriad of inexpensive training workshops and courses. When these are unavailable, you can use self-help books. But simply reading or attending a workshop is not enough; use the techniques described in this book to set up your personal training program. When you have the skills necessary to perform, your confidence will grow.
Act "as if" or fake it and you'll make it. Our opinions of ourselves are in large part determined by what we see ourselves doing and how others respond to us. Suppose, for example, that you observe Dean speaking very hesitantly about an idea he has. What conclusions might you draw about Dean and about his idea? What conclusions might Dean be making about himself? How likely it is that Dean's idea will be accepted?
Theater directors emphasize enacting specific behaviors. By acting as if, the actor creates a mood and projects emotions. In her autobiography, Liv Ullman describes how she creates a critical moment in the life of Jenny, the main character of Ingmar Bergman's film Face to Face:
One way to build self-confidence is to act as if you are confident! Of course, at first it will feel awkward and contrived, but just as Liv Ullman created the feelings associated with suicide, you can create the feelings of self-confidence. (Although this particular example is of a suicide scene, the principle of acting "as if" applies to all kinds of behavior, and it is important to stress the generally positive applications of this principle.) Attention to specific behaviors is important. If you command yourself to "act as if I am confident," you won't know what to do. It's better to say, "I'll walk in briskly, smile at Jones, lay my materials on his desk, and then casually light a cigarette."
The first task in acting as if you are confident is to identify confident behaviors. Identify one or two people who project the kind of confidence you desire, and study their actions. How do they walk and sit? What do they say? How do they dress? Detail is essential. Observe the posture, gestures, and voice quality. After you have defined several discrete behaviors, deliberately act. Don't worry about feeling confident; just concentrate on enacting specific behaviors. Liv Ullman says, "What I do on stage cannot be based on my feelings alone, for then I might be fantastically good one evening, but because it was all my emotion, I wouldn't know what made me laugh and cry, and I couldn't reproduce it at the next performance."
Once again, use the behavior change procedures, and teach yourself confident behaviors in the same way that you would any important project-work on it bit by bit. Through consistent effort and small steps you will learn self-confidence.
Using Mental Pictures to Build Confidence
Your fantasies are a powerful resource for building confidence. Start off by reviewing your past and identifying those situations when you felt most confident, and reenact these situations on your mental stage. This will have a number of positive benefits. First, by mentally observing your performance in that situation, you can identify specific confident actions. Use this data as a guide for what to do in similar future situations. Second, by reenacting your confident performances you are rehearsing the behaviors you want to increase. This mental rehearsal is often as valuable a learning aid as actual practice is. Finally, deliberately observing your self-confidence will help you develop a positive self-image. Don't allow yourself to be seduced into criticizing these past performances: Focus on your successes, relive them on your mental stage, and give yourself the positive reinforcement you deserve. An alternative is to select another person as a role model. Put this person on your mental stage, and observe his or her behaviors carefully. Then imagine yourself acting as if you were this person.
Mentally acting out successful behaviors is a mastery fantasy; a coping fantasy can help you learn and grow from less successful experiences and prepare you to cope with real problems in the future. The setting on your mental stage can be either a past or anticipated problem situation. Mentally act out the undesirable behavior. What happened? Which of your behaviors produced problems? You will want to reduce the frequency of these. Develop an alternative method for handling the situation, and enact this on your mental stage. What happened? What behaviors worked for you? Which ones didn't work? Continue this process until you can see yourself overcoming the problem, and do not allow yourself to continually reenact failure: You would be practicing the very behaviors you want to eliminate, and would thereby erode your feelings of confidence as well as your self-image. Use the self-instruction procedure to mentally rehearse how you want to act in the future.
Building Confidence through Relaxation
Excessive tension or anxiety is the enemy of confidence. High anxiety inhibits performance and thinking; on the other hand, moderate tension enhances performance: It makes us physically alert and ready to act. If you are observant, you will probably notice that when you act confidently, your tension level is moderate and manageable. You can accelerate this process and increase the quality of your performance by purposefully relaxing yourself, during both your mental rehearsals and your real-life performances. By using the procedure for physical relaxation, you can simultaneously manage stress and build confidence.
