So decorations are up and Miracle on 34^th Street has just aired on the television – it is that time of year. The festive season often brings situations and scenarios that you don’t find yourself in during the rest of the year. For some they totally enjoy and look forward to this, for others confidence issues can get in the way of looking forward to these times. A recent survey, for example, found that almost 1 in 3 office workers dread the office Christmas party. This month I thought I would briefly cover some practical tips to specifically deal with some of these situations. These are not an extensive list, just a few practical ways for you to play with and give you some more flexibility to choose to do something different this time.

• When you look in the mirror what is it that you say to yourself? Is it a variation of “yuck” or that your nose is too big or that you’re too skinny? If its something that isn’t particularly complimentary then I suspect that changing that will make a big difference. Notice what it is that your saying to yourself. Keep the same words repeat it to yourself again BUT this time use the silliest voice that you can imagine – whether that’s a cartoon character’s voice or just a really over exaggerated comedy voice notice if it has the same impact hearing that said in that tone. (For an extra bonus try moving the new silly voice off into the distance and see how different that is.)

Feeling unconfident about a particular event?

• Make life easy for yourself: if you already know that having your hair done or that wearing a particular outfit or pair of shoes gives you a boost then use it to your advantage.

• Plan to make sure that you have enough time to comfortably get ready before arriving, you’ll find it a lot easier if you are not running around like a mad thing at the very last minute. Do what you know works so that you arrive feeling more relaxed than stressed and flustered.

Feeling unconfident about the prospect of meeting an individual/family member?

• Again, lets make this as easy as possible. Is there is a particular individual who when you think about meeting them now results in you feeling unconfident? I’m presuming that this person is not physically with you at this moment so if you were feeling unconfident then it would suggest that the trigger was how you were thinking about them rather than anything they were doing at that moment.

You may find this easier to play with if you close your eyes and imagine the person whom you were feeling unconfident around. Without opening your eyes, point to where you are imagining that person.

Once you are pointing, open your eyes and notice if you are pointing above your eye-line, level or below your eye-line.

Most people find that if they are imagining someone above their eye-line that they feel intimidated by them. If this applies to you, as this is your brain, play with moving where you imagine that person. See how different it feels if you imagine that person at your eye-level or below your eye-level.

This may sound really simple, but it is amazing the effect it can have about how you are feeling about someone.

• Choose to spend more time around people that you feel good being around and less time around those who you don’t.

Have an exit strategy planned in advance should you want to use it – Some people report that just knowing how they can politely get out of a conversation or even the entire situation takes the pressure off and allows them to confidently focus on what is actually going on around them.

• Remember to breathe. Yes, I know that can sound simple and yet the rate and depth of how we breathe can impact massively upon how we are feeling. Use this to your advantage; if you notice that you are not feeling confident change the rate that you are breathing at (I suggest that you breath more slowly and deeply.) If you really want to go mad you could even add smiling at the same time.

These are just some of the ways that you can play with so that the events that you confidently choose to go to are far more enjoyable.

Have a wonderfully confident Festive celebrations.

Love

Jen

This was originally published on www.YourChangingDirection.com

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
(Michael Jordan, who is aclaimed as one, if not the, greatest basketball players of all time.)

Many of the reports I saw about the Oscars mentioned the fact that this was Kate Winslet’s 6th nomination. Yet this was only the first time that she won. Watching her acceptance speech, talking about imagining this moment as a child, it did not appear that her previous “failures” were detracting from her success this time around.

I also recently came across a story of a Korean who has, so far, failed their driving test over 700 times. What struck me the most when I read this was the focus and determination to reach the end goal of passing the test and driving.
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I love completely random facts, there doesn’t have to be any obvious practical application for the information I’ve found/been given to provoke me to give a genuine “Really? That’s interesting” response.

One of my favourite completely random pieces of information is that false eyelashes were invented in 1916 by a silent movie director who wanted to make his female stars eyes look bigger on screen. I came across this information years ago at a time when I still worked in the pub and hospitality industry, I never dreamed that it would come in useful, I just thought it was interesting. However, a few weeks after I learnt this fact I was called upon to quickly come up with a tie-breaker question for a busy quiz night that gave all teams an equal chance.

I love learning new stuff, I can’t help it – I am naturally curious. It’s one of the things that got me to where I am today, I found something that interested me and I just got curious to find out more. Just like with the randomness of the false eyelashes, the opportunities that can arise to use the skills/ information etc that can be developed from being curious may not always be obvious before hand.

It was this curiosity over the weekend that led to me being at an event that was in effect eavesdropping on a rehearsal between the actor Patrick Stewart and the successful director, John Barton. They introduced the event by saying that they were going to play with the text and experiment with different ways of using it – they too were getting curious, with some incredible results.

There are lots of hidden benefits to this curiosity about stuff you find interesting. For me, it’s also the easy way of doing things. When I’m curious and interested about any topic then I’ll happily read, watch, listen or take action to find out what happens next and generally want to find out more. This means that the momentum often snowballs on a project very easily.

It can also be a great way to increase your confidence in an area – sometimes a lack of confidence is based around your own perception of your skills in any area, getting curious about developing those and having an accurate assessment of where you are can be a huge benefit.

What can you get curious about today? What would you love to find out more about?

If you are up for it I invite you to give yourself some time to play with this. Pick a time frame that fits with where you are at the moment and your life, it may be a couple of minutes, it may be a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days … you get the idea.

1. Pick a topic that interests you and decide that you are going to spend your allotted time getting curious about that topic.

One of the key parts to this is pick something that you find interesting – not something you think you “should” find interesting, something that you actually do. It doesn’t have to be an earth shattering, life-changing topic – we’re only playing 😉

If you are still wondering what to pick – if you were reading a magazine what articles would cause you to pause and read more – or if you were flicking through unlimited TV channels and a documentary/ behind the scenes/ day in a life of show caused you to stop, what would that topic be?

I wonder what would happen if you allowed yourself to get a bit more curious?

2. As you allow yourself to wonder and be curious about this topic notice what questions come up for you around this area….

Maybe it’s a “how do they do that” type question, or a “why does that happen”, it might even be “I wonder what that feels like” perhaps its something else entirely – make a note of the questions you are aware of and note them down.

3. From your list of questions notice which (if any of them), you want to go find out more about – it may be that you can do a quick search on the Internet, perhaps taking someone to lunch and asking them would find you the answers. Maybe it’s even trying something for yourself.

4. What would be a fun way of finding those answers out?

NB: Here’s the disclaimer bit, do check out the safety aspect and consequences of any action you choose to take – In the unlikely event you are curious about what it feels like to electrocuted I am not suggesting sticking your fingers in a plug socket to experience it for yourself – maybe find a second hand account and find the answer that way!

5. Pick an action that would be fun (yet safe!) to do, something that you are curious to see the results of, and go and play.

I’m curious to know about your experience playing with this and would love to hear how you get on.

This post was originally posted on my blog Your Changing Direction, which contains lots of pieces about general life improvement.