Confidence is a state of mind. We can have lots of confidence in certain areas of our lives, but wish we had more of it in other areas. What we often don’t realize is that we can control and change how we think or feel (our state of mind) using visualization and our powerful gift of imagination. And by doing this we can transfer this confident state, that we feel in one area of our life and link it to another situation, to be able to perform or feel better.
Transferring a state of mind is a skill and like any other learnt behaviour, it takes a bit of practice, but nonetheless it can be done. Sports people and successful performers both in business and the arts use visualization and mental rehearsal in this way to help them perform to optimum levels and to be their best.
The subconscious mind is very powerful, it just takes some repetition to ‘re-program’ it, so that it takes on a new thought pattern. We work with this part of our mind during hypnosis and that is how hypnosis can help people to make positive change.
Here is an exercise for you to try: Think of an area of life where you feel really relaxed, comfortable and confident. Now identify another situation where you would like more confidence. For example, you feel extremely confident cooking in the kitchen but feel like you need a bit more self-assurance when doing certain tasks at work. I will use this example to explain how to do this;
1) Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Now visualize yourself creating a wonderful meal in your kitchen. Connect with the feelings of relaxed inner focus and confidence that you have when in the flow during cooking. Feel the pride that you feel and the sense of achievement and satisfaction that you have made something lovely and/or you have given pleasure to others or yourself with the wonderful taste of the dish. Now imagine you’re actually in this scene and are seeing it with your own eyes. Again connect to the great feelings that you have there in that scene. The aim here is to feel these positive feelings with as much intensity as you can. Imagine them flowing through your mind and body and into every individual cell of the body.
2) When you feel these great feelings as strongly as you can, imagine an invisible circle on the floor in front of you. Within this circle is the situation that you want and need more confidence in at work.
3) When you have the feelings of the previous situation nice and strong, keeping your eyes closed, physically take a step into the imaginary circle in front of you, taking these feelings of confidence with you. This links these empowered feelings to the situation that you’re imagining in the circle.
4) Now imagine yourself carrying out the particular tasks at work in exactly the way you would like to, with confidence and ease. Mentally rehearse this going exactly as you want it to and feeling a sense of achievement and satisfaction that you have done these tasks well.
5) Now step out of the circle and think about something else for a minute or two. ‘Breaking the state’ (changing what you think about for a moment) is important, as the mind needs a break in between each time you do this. Each time you recall the good feelings the subconscious mind really locks onto the connection between the good feelings and the situation where you need them. This clever part of the mind will help you to make changes to the way you feel if you train it properly and it works by repetition.
6) Repeat steps 1-5 at least twice more.
This is a good tool to practice daily until the new thought patterns really imbed in your mind. Remember what Napoleon Hill said about our powers of imagination and visualization: “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve”.