Helen Blew Them Away

“Mark, you’re not going to believe this! I’ve been lumbered with doing the next Health and Safety presentation next month. I’ve never done such a thing before, and I can’t get out of it,” Helen shrieked as she stormed into Mark’s office.

She sank deep into his plush, swinging leather chair and brushed hair shaky long fingers through her shoulder length wavy hair in total dismay.

I quietly got off my chair and poured her a cup of coffee. Black, no sugar. My coffee machine is always ready for Helen’s outbursts.

Handing the large sized dark blue mug to her, I asked, “How would you rate your self-confidence right now, Helen, from 1 to 10, where 10 is totally confident and 1 is whoa, no confidence at all. Nada.”

I think you guessed it. An empty 1.

In her anxiety, Helen had forgotten a particular technique that I had shared with her a while back that she can use to raise her self-confidence almost instantly whenever she needed to.

I reached out for my A4 pad and divided a sheet into two columns. “Remember this exercise, Helen?”

She shook her head, looked down at her coffee and frowned her extra thin light eyebrows.

“OK listen. In the left column, I want you to jot down why you feel unconfident about the presentation. Write down all the reasons why. Leave nothing out.”

I paused to make sure she was paying attention, and then continued. “And in the right column, write down the first thought that springs to your mind as to how you would feel if it was easy to do the presentation. Are you with me?” I enquired as I handed her my pad and pen. “Perhaps the polar opposite of the reason why you felt unconfident.”

I can see her mind ticking; she’s searching the far corners of her mind trying to remember the remainder of the technique.

“Great. You’re doing well, Helen,” I encouraged, then pressed on. “Pick one obstacle, one of your unconfident feelings and its counter feeling…”

“Oh, yeah, and find a quiet place where I will not be disturbed for approximately five minutes,” Helen interrupted, almost jumping off her seat. Wiping the few drops of coffee that landed on her skirt with her hand she said. “That’s right. I remember now. The idea is for me to imagine how I would like to act and feel when making the presentation. I am to imagine myself feeling calm and confident, right?”

“Correct. Work down your entire list. Imagine feeling confident. Feel the confident emotions. As the presentation gets closer, you will feel yourself becoming more and confident.” I smiled encouragingly.

“And on the day of the presentation I will fly through it with complete self-assurance and self-confidence. That’s right. I remember it all now. It works wonderfully. I don’t know what I was so nervous about. Silly me. Now, about that coffee… Never mind.” Helen stood up, shook her head and placed the almost full cup of coffee on my desk, thanked me and almost skipped out of my office.

Let me just throw this bit in, it is important to remember that repetition is the mother of skill (thanks Tony Robbins for bringing that to my attention). When you use your imagination to tackle any area where you feel you lack self-confidence, do this process as often as possible, preferably twice daily, until you achieve the results you’re after.

How much do you value yourself to spend 5 minutes twice a day repeatedly imagining having and becoming self-confident in any area of your life?

Oh, by the way, wondering how Helen did? “I blew them away,” was her response. No surprises there!

Hani Al-Qasem
Commissions Editor

Tags: confident, imagination, Self Confidence, Success, visualise, visualize