It is difficult, if not almost impossible, to feel or be confident when your nervous system is "on the edge". In fact, a simple explanation is that at that moment a part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, does not switch on, it does not work.
Let me give an example. Suppose you have a very important presentation to give at work. You have been preparing for months. And as you enter the hall, you realize that you have forgotten your laptop and backpack on the table at home. It is at this moment when your nervous system "explodes" and you internally freak out. Could you do an algebra problem right now? No chance! Your nervous system is burning; you are on the verge of a breakdown, no chance to focus right now. Let alone thinking strategically oreven thinking at all. But if you really want to upgrade your own response in moments like this and be able to focus on what is important and how to calm down, I invite you to learn something I call "Body confidence." It is the ability to know when you are on edge, but also the ability to calm your body and mind down when you need to.

It is interesting that marines who work under extreme conditions and situations are trained this exercise. And for those of you who are papents, I can assure that it also helps with children when they fall into hysterical condition.

The other name of this technique is VAKOG which comes from our 5 senses:

• Vision
• Audition
• Kinesthetic or simply said - sense of touch
• Olfactory - sense of smell
• Gustatory – sense of taste.

You need 3 minutes.

• Stop for a moment, close your eyes and if you want scan mentally your body with your mind by inhaling and exhaling slowly at least 3 times
• Open your eyes and see 5 red things around
• Then hear 4 different sounds from the surrounding environment
• Touch 3 different objects or surfaces
• Smell 2 different smells around you
• Finally try 1 flavor (this could be a drink, a cookie, etc.)

Now scan your body again. How do you feel?

This exercise gives you the opportunity to calm your mind, synchronize the body and brain, be here and now. Think about what is under your control now and act.

If I go back to the forgotten laptop example, the action could be: you can postpone the presentation until someone brings the laptop; you can find the version of your presentation in the cloud space and download it; you can remember the whole presentation or do it again?

Everything is possible.

Confidence appears when you return your need and desire for approval and acceptance back toyourself as well as the wish to be loved and liked (which are completely normal needs). You need to learn to give these things to yourself before you seek them outside. The moment you bring them back and create them from the inside out, then you will feel the true nature and power of the confidence. Then you create your source of confidence.

Here is what you have to remember: you weren't born with self-doubt. In fact, it is just the opposite. You were born with inner confidence. For example, when you were learning to walk, which you probably don't remember, you fell at least 17 times. And after you fell so many times, I don't believe you stayed on the floor and said to yourself, "I am never going to learn to walk, I'd rather stay lying here in my diaper. That's life." No, that is not what happened. On the contrary, you had the desire to continue, to walk, to stand up. You have confident spirit, body and mind. It is in our DNA. I put it that way on purpose - to emphasize that when I work with someone in order for them to gain more confidence, we actually start by remembering that we are already confident by touching our innate one.

And one more thing that is important to remember. Going through moments of uncertainty and fear is normal. It means that you try, grow, go outside your "comfort zone" in order to become the person you want to be. Do you know where insecurity lives? It lives in your thoughts, in your head. And it grows the more you think about it. And do you know where confidence lives? Confidence lives in your actions, in doing, in trying. Every time you try, yes, it might not work the first time. You can even fail or ridicule yourself, you can make mistakes. And? It is exactly in these moments that you not only grow and discover your strengthsbut youalso create your source of confidence that will always serve you. Just like when you were learning to walk. You have learned one important thing: you try, you fall, you stand up and try again until it works, day after day. So what will be your first step now?

The truth is that confidence is "forged" in fire. It is built when life is challenging and you overcome difficulties. And even when you fail in your endeavors, you learn something. Whenever you try, you learn something. That is how you build your confidence. 

Myth №2: Confident people are most noticeable.

The truth is that confidence is calm. You have seen such calm confident people around you. Confidence is far from declaring you don't care what others think about you or from taking risks. Itis not even related to whether you are an introvert or an extrovert because it is not aquality of the character but a skill. Confidence does not depend on how young or old you are, or how experienced you are. True confidence comes from your true "center", your "core" - your "ME". True confidence is about being willing to try, to test, to learn on the move, and while you are doing it to know that you can rely on yourself in any situation. 

Myth №3: You can lose your confidence. Hardly!

The truth is that you can't lose something that is inside you.When you say you have lost confidence; it actually means that you have a very clear idea of what it feels like to be confident! When you doubt yourself, it means you've just blocked the access to your own confidence, but thatis OK. It means that you are confidentbut you can't reach your confidence at this moment.The good news is that this is a temporary condition whichcan be easily overcome.

Each of them describes their condition in a different way but I can outline the following symptoms of this syndrome:

• Denial of one's own achievements
• Anxiety
• Perfectionism
• Self-doubts
• Fear of failure

This is like having a bad friend  who constantly points out negative things about you.

• - „You don't deserve it! Look, these people are really smart, you aren't”
• - „You succeeded this time but will  you next time?”
• - „Didn't you see how this colleague performed at the meeting? Your place is not here!”

Does it sound familiar?

The client truly believes that whatever achievement they haveit is a resultof pure luck. They are afraid that someone will find that theyare not suitable for their position and that they have behaved as "crooks" who imposed themselves there. The praises or positive feedback which they receive do not reinforce their belief in their own strengths, talents or results. Such a person often chooses a job or work environment that is highly stressful. These people are attracted like butterflies to strong flame. They need this tension and suffering, they need to prove themselves, to give themselves away to the maximum.

All of us regularly experience this syndrome when we are in an unfamiliar situation, environment, new position, or when we are simply tired. It is a fact that Impostor Syndrome can remain for life but there are a few things that can still be done to get it under control.

I can give these few:

1. Live, fall, stand up and get help when you need it.
2. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. No one is perfect.
3. If you once again find yourself comparing to someone else, stop for a moment and compare with the person you were yesterday or one year ago.
4. Create a "different character" in your head that does not give in to the voice of self-criticism and even manages to joke about the situation. Laughing at yourself can be winning strategy. We are all imposters from time to time, aren't we? 
   

I graduated from the certified program "The Pulse of Coaching" at Mentors Coaches, Sofia. I have been in this profession since 2016 and I have worked with both private and corporate clients. I have organized and implemented successful coaching projects for middle and senior management, as well as trainings for building highly effective teams in different companies.

I have Master's degree in Psychology and Economics and over 15 years of career as an expert in the field of Human Resources Management in large Bulgarian and foreign companies. Most of my professional experience is in large manufacturing enterprises (Mauer Locking Systems, Mania AD, BG Agro AD, Delta Textile Bulgaria, a partner of Nike), as well as organizations dealing with digital marketing and IT, BPO, wholesale trading. As a professional coach I have also worked with large companies such as SalesForce, Virgin Voyagers, Lyft, Boeing and many others. My experience as an insider  in various industries and my development as a professional coach and consultant during the last 5 years enable me to quickly gain orientation, analyze and be adaptable in my approach to my already personal clients.

My work meets me with interesting, successful people with high intellectual and emotional intelligence. At the same time, they often have moments of doubt in their correct judgment, they check again and again their sent e-mails and reports, and so they enter a circle of negative thoughts. These are people who are efficient, who always have goals and follow a plan, even more than one.They are capable of seeing every cause and result except the source of their own dissatisfaction, lack of confidence or unreasonable insecurity. The approach I believe in which has proven itself in my work is to support my clients in developing new habits. Such that will develop their own confidence like the mechanism for coping, overcoming and progressing.

Nice to meet you!

It is good to distinguish between confidence and overconfidence. If confidence means calm strength and self-belief, then overconfidence is close to arrogance or the so-called "unjustified self-confidence".

The difference can be described as follows: confidence means to be able to compare your inner views with the outer reality, the subjective ones with the objectivity. A confident person is able to assess their own strengths and look at them objectively. With overconfidence this line blurs and there is difference between abilities and demands. Such "boosting" covers the lack of confidence. Confidence is calm. It does not need to be proven, demonstrated and forced at all costs. Confidence does not need to be compared or demonstratively manifested. It is quiet.

What prevents us from being confident?

There are several factors that can influence our confidence and the reasons for them often hide in our earlier years:

1. Someone has told us that we are incapable, unworthy, not good enough. Someone has undermined our confidence that we can rely on our own abilities. And so we have started to "believe" that we can't manage.
2. Somebody has protected us from difficulties. But in life we need to face challenges so that we can believe in our strengths. It is similar to training our muscles. If we haven't faced enough difficult situations to test and convince ourselves that we can manage, how can we believe that we are capable? We need to have our personal experiences and make our own mistakes.
3. Somebody has boosted our confidence. Somebody has put us on a pedestal and pumped up our belief about how much we can achieve and how well we can manage. As a result discrepancy with reality may occur. We can fall from this height. When we praise a child it should be realistic and connected to visible achievements.
4. We were not set boundaries. Freedom is a good thing for a child but within certain limits. When children have to judge for themselves what is good and what is bad, for some of them this can build strong character but for others it can result in insecurity and inability to make decisions.
5. Uncertainty used to be an example, a norm in our early life. When we see insecure adults around us, how can we learn to be confident?

Nine practical ideas about what we can do if we feel insecure, as well as more information about the difference between confidence and overconfidenceyou can see in this interesting video by Alexandra Algaffari.

https://youtu.be/2j6YSH5UiwU 

Hello! Let me start with this clarification - confidence is not a talent, possession or gift for some chosen ones. I consider confidence as a skill. Yes, it is a skill that can be built and trained like a muscle!

I am Julia Russo and during my coaching practice in more than 70% of the cases, regardless of the client's request, we have come together to the conclusion that he or she needed more confidence.

It is a fact that when I ask: "What does confidence mean to you?" I get as many answers as the number of my clients. Among these are the needs of the clients to:
Speak more confidently during a presentation; with a stronger voice; with clear diction; with straightenedback and looking at the audience;
To stop looking for approval from outside;
To overcome their habit of over-analyzing;
To be as confident as they used to be when the stake wasn't so high…

Let  me ask you:

How many of the things that are important for you would have been different if you had had more confidence?

Then what exactly confidence is ...

Confidence is the ability to believe in yourself; to feel with your whole being that you can accomplish any task or goal,

no matter how lucky or unlucky you are, no matter how difficult or unknown the task is for you.

You believe and you know you can do it.

My work meets me with you - interesting, successful people with high intellectual and emotional intelligence. At the same time, people like you more often have moments of "second guess", doubts in their correct judgement, they check and recheck their sent emails and reports, they enter the spiral of their negative thoughts and are almost never OK with the results obtained. It seems that they are less happy with what they have achieved and are more focused on what they haven't.

If you search, you will find many tips for getting out of such situations - from clearly wishful thinking to definitely extreme ones.
The approach I believe in and which has proven itself in my work is to support you, more gently or more forcefully, so that you can develop new habits. These can help you grow your own confidence and one of them, for example, is the mechanism of dealing, overcoming and progressing.

Does it turn out that we can consciously work on improving our confidence? Absolutely yes!

How? Well, there are as many different approaches as the number of the people out there. But some principles are common: we need to have persistence and develop, both externally and internally, new habits of confidence. This makes the changes sustainable.

On the outside: confidence is seen in the physical body, the posture, the breathing and the walk. It is perceived through the body language, the timbre of the voice, the pauses!

On the inside: confidence manifests itself by what I say when I talk to myself, what the tone of my voice is, how I learn to accept and reward myself so that I can experience Pure Joy.

Can all this be achieved easily? -

It can become more easily but not completely effortlessly because habits are our second nature. But the key to success is - when you find your coach results start coming faster and easier so that you can come back to the game being more confident.