Self Confidence

K09

Hi,

I find my self confidence affects me quite a bit - especially in work.
I find it difficult to be myself when in work - I am very quiet and others pick up on that. When in the company of my long term friends I am very confident and extremely outgoing.

This issue really annoys me and gets me down at times. Recently we had a meeting at work and I let myself down because I was nervous and just didn't feel comfortable with 5/6 people listening to me. To be honest I was disgusted with myself and was in bad form for the rest of the day.

I have tried to work on building my confidence - even read a book or two and took a course a few years back. I would just love to feel comfortable among others and behave like I do with my close friends.

Anyone here experienced this? Or any advice?

It's very frustrating because I know it is holding me back from developing in my life and career.

Thanks!

LegacyUser

I was like that too until a friend told me the key to dealin with it and i have been doin it since then

He told me to say the words "**** it in 100 years who will give a toss" and i stopped carin what others thought/said bout me and not long after started bein a bit more confident in myself

It sounds easy enough but it took time and effort

Hope this helps and if not hope you find another way to deal with this

D Bronc

Maybe you should see your GP, i dont think you have a serious medical problem or anything but he/she might be able to advise you on something to do or somewhere to go.

You're probably worried about being anxious and its making you worse the more you think about it.

Hope this helps:)

Esel

A proven way to defeat nerves when addressing a group is to picture then all naked. I find this works - especially if there are any hot females in the group!

cooker3

The more you do it, the more used to it you become and the easier it becomes so keep putting yourself in a position like this and it likely become easier.

If you want to read a book, I would suggest reading How to win friends and influence people by Dale Caregie. Even 70 years on the advice is utter gold imo.

purplegeko

I like you am shy and quiet and not the most confident public speaker. A lot of people have this problem and it can be overcome with practice and time.

When i was in college and had to do presentations in front of 50 people it freaked me out; so much so one time i wasn't breathing in between my words and the lecturer had to ask me to stop and take my time because she was worried i was going to pass out. This really didn't help because it was twice as hard to start again. It was gossip for like an hour but everyone soon had something else to talk about.

I did eventually get over it and the more i spoke in public the less nervous i got and if you do mess up or say something inappropriate who cares people will forget. You have to make the first step and start off slowly; make small contributions to meetings and build it up until you feel able to make full speeches and reports. Deep breathing helps to calm yourself.

AngryBadger

Work is a tricky one, it's not a social setting where you can be totally at ease amongst your peers, but you can't just be a robot and decide to be totally anti-social around your work colleagues, you ned to strike for the middle ground which is very difficult.

I'd endorse what everyone else has said, but i'd also point out that a lot of times, (and we've ALL experienced this), the reason people get so nervous and choked up about tings is because of the ANTICIPATION of failure. Prepare for every situation/meeting as best you can, even to the point of having an explanation or a valid excuse for certain mistakes or problems you eed to account for. Once you've done that the next stage is to accept you're as prepared as you can be, then accept that there may be things you haven't accounted for, and feel free to simply apologise for not reaching on them, or just putting your hand up and admitting you don't know the resolutiong to whatever question/situation has cropped up.

Honestly it takes time and practice to be able to adopt a responsible, but carefree attitude like this, practice it though and believe me, eventually you will reach a place where you can't even remember why you used to get so freaked out.

K09

thanks for the help so far.

I've had about 6 meetings in 3 months. sometimes I'm fine but more often than not I sound nervous and incoherent.

So I'm wondering if I am progressing with this??

Also I don't know why I'm quiet at work and with people I'm not great friends with.

thanks again.

Esel

K09 wrote:

I've had about 6 meetings in 3 months. sometimes I'm fine but more often than not I sound nervous and incoherent.

No, you only think you sound like this.

Even if you do show some signs of nervousness, this is completely normal and people accept it as such. They won't think badly of you because of it.

A good idea is to prepare some cue cards, with main points only in block letters on them. Try it.

LegacyUser

Hey there-
just want to say I undertand exactly what you're through. It's tough.

Do you find you also blush and get fidgety, especially around certain people? For example hot men!! At work, I sometimes try to avoid them, just so I wont blush and look stupid. Went to the doctor there last week, she gave me a prescription for Xanax, which I don't want to take because I believe there are other ways than resorting to medication, and she advised some counselling. Hopefully the counselling goes well. What are you doing to help your confidence/anxiety at the moment?

GLaDOS

While making a presentation concentrate on taking your time and speaking coherently. If you make a mistake, just smile and correct yourself, they arn't going to eat your head off because you got a little tounge tied

Knockoff Nige

There are excercises you can do such as taking a mental picture of people at work, shrinking the picture down in your mind, giving them a really childish voice and giving them mickey mouse ears and things like that. When you change your intimdating image of these people into a smaller less intimifating image, then you will feel less insecure around them. You'll need to do this a number of times though.

Mr. Incognito

Fake it. EVERYONE is an insecure creature. Hell, that's why the hottest birds are the easiest to pull, no-one approaches them all night and they think "what's wrong with me"- Kablammo- me! lol. Anyway, just fake it for a while and you'll see the difference. After a while you won't be able to tell the differnce between the "old you" and teh shiny "new you"