How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Introduction

CONFIDENCE
Confidence comes from the word ‘confidere', the Latin word to mean to trust
or to have faith. If you don’t trust or you lose faith in yourself, then what’s
going to happen in the end? Your confidence decreases.
Think of when you are born. You just are. Then over the years you start to
grow up and have experiences. Some of these experiences are good, some of
these experiences are not good, and as a result of these moments you develop
your own blueprint on how to live your life. In effect, you develop an
unconscious formula on what life is all about. Your view of the world and how
you fit into it has formed.
You look at yourself in a certain way and you imagine how people view you.
Over time you view others in a certain way and unconsciously you look at
where you fit in the grand scheme of things.
This then determines your confidence in situations such a relationships,
friendships, work, business and life. The ebook is here to help you to make a
breakthrough and become much more confident. It’s time to become limitless.
All the chapters are concisely written to present you with ideas and tools on
how to move forward with confidence and clarity.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Introduction
Chapter 1 CONFIDENCE
Chapter 2 REJECTION
Chapter 3 STANDING UP STRAIGHT!
Chapter 4 WATCH YOUR MOUTH
Chapter 5 VOLUNTEERING
Chapter 6 MISTAKES
Chapter 7 THINKING POSITIVE
Chapter 8 SMILING
Chapter 9: WRITE IN A JOURNAL
Chapter 10: FOCUS ON SOLUTION
Chapter 11: HABITS
Chapter 12: CHALLENGE
Chapter 13 GRATITUDE
Chapter 14: EXERCISE
Chapter 15 PROCRASTINATION
Chapter 16 COMPETENT
Chapter 17 NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
Chapter 18 ACT OF KINDNESS
Conclusion
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 1
CONFIDENCE

Confidence is a skill that is very straightforward to learn. You can become the most
confident version of you ever, but what you have to realise is that self confidence is all
about how you think and feel at any time. Thoughts and feeling rule your world.
The greatest conversation you can ever have is with yourself - and this happens when you
are alone.
Think of the word “attitude”. What does it mean? What is your definition of attitude?
Attitude can be defined as thoughts and feelings which a person displays at any time. The
conversation you are having with yourself, creating thoughts and feelings all day long,
determines your attitude.
A truly confident person has a confident attitude. They will enter a situation whether it be a
relationship, the workplace or any other circumstance with an attitude of “I like myself”
outwardly shown on their face. They feel confident to talk to people, confident that they
can learn new skills and confident that everything will be okay. They trust themselves.
They trust life.

Exercise:
Think about one person in your life who you know is confident, someone you know who
lives and breathes with confidence. If you don’t personally know someone like this, then
think of somebody famous who appears to be confident.
What I now want you to do is imagine stepping into their body and looking through their
eyes. Their view of the world is going to be different to yours.
As you are looking through their eyes, they are having a particular conversation with
themselves. This conversation one of confidence. Their thoughts and feelings are
confident and focussed on moving forward in life. Imagine thinking like they do, feeling
like they do and start assuming their attitude of confidence. Experience it as if you were
that person. Do this exercise for five minutes ‘looking through their eyes’. Time yourself
by setting a timer and don’t stop until the alarm goes off!
Now, I want you to write down on paper the thoughts and feelings that went through
your mind as you looked at the world through their eyes. Assess these feelings and
thoughts that you have written down: What do they believe about themselves? What
do they feel about themselves? How do they look at the world?
Practise this technique today. Spend as much time as you can seeing the world through
their eyes - the eyes of a confident person.

What type of conversation are they having?

How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 2
REJECTION

Rejection is something that we all dislike. However, confident people will walk past
rejection. They will accept that rejection exists but instead of seizing up and feeling sorry for
themselves, they will dust themselves off and move forward, understanding that rejection is
part of both success and remaining confident. As well as this though, they truly believe that
they are bigger than the problem. No problem is insurmountable. Their confidence is
unshakeable.
Rejection does not define you but is just feedback to yourself. No one dies! It’s simply
rejection and can be overcome.
Imagine going for ninety-nine job interviews and each time you are rejected. Then imagine
that on the hundredth interview, you are offered the job of your dreams. It has taken you
one hundred interviews to attain that one perfect job. Would you like that one job or would
you prefer that job of your nightmares on the fifth interview? Which would you prefer?
Sometimes we have to go through the quagmire of rejection and darkness to get to the
place we know we deserve.
Both the most successful and the most confident people on the planet understand and
accept that rejection is part of the process. It’s a part of life, whether you are asking a
person out for a date or are looking for a new job, you will find that sometimes rejection is
part of the process. You are not for everyone and everyone is not for you. But we put so
much energy and effort into getting everything right the first time that we don't see the
bigger picture. Once you do, it’s as if a weight has been lifted from your shoulders and
immediately you relax.
Rejection is good for you for it builds character, it resembles the pressure that turns coal
into a diamond. Metaphorically speaking, in life terms do you want diamonds? As you
probably do, then you have to learn to be able to withstand pressure, and part of that
pressure is rejection.

Exercise:
Write the following phrase on a post-it note and place it on your wall:
“I choose to accept rejection as I move forward towards success”.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 3
STANDING UP STRAIGHT!

Just like your mother may have said to you as you were growing up. Your body stance can
influence how you think and feel. An angry person can stand rigid, clench fisted, whilst a
happy person could be dancing around very lightly with a big smile on their face. How we
actually move our body influences our state of mind.

Exercise:
This technique can help you to make a shift at any time.
Imagine there is a piece of string going right through you as you are standing upright.
If your posture is good, you will feel good.
Imagine how a depressed person walks and talks. Picture in your mind that person
focused on looking down, they may even be hunched over and avoiding eye contact.
So think about posture. The more upright you are, the more upright you’ll feel. The
better you feel, the more confident you will become.
Practise this technique repeatedly, and when you catch yourself having bad posture,
immediately correct it. You can do this by standing up straight, shoulders back and simply
walking with confidence. You may have to fake this at first but practise walking with
confidence and it will soon become natural to you. After all, confidence is a skill you can
learn as I said at the beginning. Keep your chin up and look straight ahead. When people
smile, just smile back. Smiling equals friendliness and that leads to confidence.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 4
WATCH YOUR MOUTH

Confident people speak with purpose and are not in a hurry to get their words out. They
speak with passion, knowing with total confidence that the words they are saying mean
something. It is a case of not wasting your words and of believing in yourself. The most
confident people are also great communicators. What is the one aspect of a great
communicator? They are usually very good listeners. Remember that you have two ears
and only one tongue. There is a reason for this!

Exercise:
Find yourself a device which will record a conversation. This could be your Smart
phone, PC or a tape recorder.
Record your voice in a conversation then listen to the way you speak along with how
the other person/s speak.
Notice how the sound of your voice can convey how confident you are as a person.
This will also give you an opportunity to understand how you respond or react in a
conversation.
You can also tell if you are good at listening to the other person and how often you
may interrupt them whilst listening.
Notice if you're actually listening to the other person and are not just waiting to
respond to what their actually saying.
After all the first step to change is awareness!
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 5
VOLUNTEERING

Volunteering is an excellent way of not only helping others but of also helping yourself.
When you are volunteering, you are able to practise your social interactive skills. One of our
basic emotional needs is to contribute to the wellbeing of others. We are simply
programmed to help others and when we are participating in this fundamental part of being
a human being, we feel good about ourself.
An excellent way of achieving this could be to help an organisation which is helping others.
Imagine that you have volunteered to work for a charity or organisation. How is it going to
make you feel? Imagine, for example, that you are working voluntarily for a day assisting
others to spread their message, or helping others to feed the needy. How would you feel?
For a person who has problems talking to people this could really boost their confidence.
Just the act of helping others and volunteering will boost your confidence. It’s a win-win
situation for everybody involved. So try it!
In the next seven days, volunteer to work somewhere, even if only for one hour and see the
effect it has on yourself. The effects this can will have on you include increased self-esteem
and increased self-confidence. This will be boosted by the effect your actions will have on
others.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 6
MISTAKES

Everybody makes mistakes. Some people fear making mistakes whilst others identify them
self with a past mistake.
Imagine the word “mistake” written as “mis-take”. Life is full of mistakes. However, people
are afraid to make mistakes. Not because of the mistake itself, but of how they themselves
will appear having made it. They fear being viewed as stupid, incompetent and not good
enough. One of the greatest fears of human being is the feeling of not being good enough.
When this fear grows inside of us, it stops us from doing what we could do. How many
ideas have you ever had, yet never followed up as you feared you were not good enough or
it wouldn't work?
If you are afraid to make mistakes then it’s time to let that go. It is normal for every human
being to make mistakes as we are not perfect - perfection does not exist. There is no point
in missing the glory of life as a journey due to this fear. We can learn from every mistake we
make to grow as a better person.
Confident people know that mistakes are a part of life and that they are the creator of their
story. There will be “Take I”, “Take 2”, “Take 3” and “Take 4”. Mistakes are normal. It is
time to get over it.
Time to let it go.
As you agree emotionally, to let go of the things of the past which have impeded you thus
far, you are saying “Yes” to setting yourself free.
Our past does not determine who we are. It is a learning platform which has created the
way we think. Once we are conscious of this, then we can go about changing it.
Whatever mistakes you have made in the past…
Is it time to let it go?

Exercise:
On a post-it note write the words ‘Let It Go’ and look at it daily.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 7
THINKING POSITIVE

The more you focus on what's great about life, ie., being positive, then the more you will get
out of life and live a life of purpose rather than hide in mediocrity.

Surround yourself with people who are positive in nature: people who make you
feel good, they challenge you, they provide you with positive and constructive feedback
for you to move forward. The one thing you don’t want to surround yourself with is
people who are negative towards you - those who are unsupportive, unreliable and
criticise you. To be able to move forward, you need to surround yourself with people
who actually have the mind-set that you desire. You have to associate with the mindset
of the happy and successful.

Listen to videos and audios which are delivered by people who you admire - those
who are confident and have the thinking strategies and methodologies that you crave
for. Listen to those people and watch them on video. See and feel how they are feeling
and learn from them. Also listen to pod casts and audio books. As you are listening to
these great minds, so you are spending time with great people who have written these
great books. So the more you expose your mind to great thinking and people who are
confident, the faster you are going to adopt these same principles.

You have parts in your brain which mirror other people’s behaviours and habits. The more
time you spend with these people, whether it be listening or watching them on your Smart
phone or in person, the more likely it is that you will adopt their habits and behaviours. Your
confidence can skyrocket as you receive one “aha” moment after another! Your brain is
primed to change by the process of neuroplasticity. It just needs to be exposed to the
correct influences.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 8
SMILING

Do you realise that when you smile, people will see that first?
People are attracted to people who smile. Imagine that two guys are walking into a bar, one
is full of smiles, openly happy and appears very friendly, whilst the other appears to be
serious and very moody looking. The latter does not appear friendly or amiable to chat
whilst the smiling guy looks like he is having fun. Which one do you feel drawn to speak to?
Which one would you speak to? Of course, it would be the one who looks open and friendly.
So the act of smiling acts as a signal to a person that you are open and friendly, and possibly
you are happy inside.
Imagine that there are dozens of muscles activated every time you smile, yet it takes more
muscles to frown than it does to smile. Smiling shows that you are open and friendly. The
more you smile the more comfortable it becomes. This is all about building your confidence
and moving forward.
Something I often do is when I walk down the street, I just smile at people. Some people
look at you in shock because they are not used to people smiling at them, while some
people smile back. Others look at you as if you are an alien who has just landed on earth -
“Why is that guy smiling at me? “How dare he smile. It’s raining!”.
When you smile… the world will smile with you.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 9:
WRITE IN A JOURNAL

A great way to get to know yourself more on a daily basis is to journal. A powerful way of
learning how good your day has been is to actually write down five things which have
actually gone your way today. This is because we are experts at looking back at our day and
wondering why did this go wrong, why didn’t that person talk to me, what did that person
mean by that, that person didn’t phone me, I didn’t finish my project in time, the phones
didn’t stop ringing at work, or even it rained again today! What we don’t think about is,
what was great about the day, what we could have learned from the day or what went right
for us in the day?
It could be the simplest things as when you went to a cafe and saw the smile of a baby, the
great service in a restaurant, when you had a good conversation with a friend or a colleague
or the report you wrote and you finished it on time. Maybe you had a great afternoon with
lots of fun and laughter, or when you drove home, the lights were green all the way. What
are the five things you have enjoyed about today that you could write down in a journal? It
would take you literally under three minutes to write down five things which went your way
today.
Can you imagine if you wrote down five things every day for 30 days: that is 150 good things
that happened to you that month. Wow! Isn’t that a game changer? Immediately you will
look at life totally differently. Immediately it would boost your self-esteem and your
confidence about who you are as a person. The minute you change your focus, you change
your life.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 10:
FOCUS ON SOLUTION

We are experts on what is going wrong. We are experts on focusing on problems. We are
expert in feeling the victim or feeling sorry for ourselves. Now is the time to turn it around.

Exercise:
Focus on the solution.
If you have a problem, ask yourself:
What is great about this problem?
What can I do to fix this problem?
What can I do to challenge myself to improve so that this problem won’t happen
again?
What can I do or what can I learn from this?
How can I use this to make me a better person? How can I use this to make me a
better colleague or a better friend?
What do I decide today to address this problem and starting finding solutions?
What skills do I need to learn to solve this problem?
Who do I need to see to help me solve this problem?
These are examples of empowering questions rather than disempowering questions.
Ask yourself some empowering questions. They will push you forward, elevating and
catapulting you into the area of confidence where you feel you can overcome any problem.
Remember that problems are here right now but they are future based. You can’t change
what you can’t control and you can’t control what you can’t change. The only thing you can
change are those thoughts. Look at the problem and start looking for the solution, the
minute you focus on the solution, the quicker it will come to you.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 11:
HABITS

When people are faced with changing a habit, they can go into a negative and hesitating
mindset of uncertainty. After all, change equals uncertainty. Even a habit such as smoking
or eating the wrong foods will cause you to perhaps develop anxiety or stress. Even though
you want to change those habits, you approach needing to change them with doubt and
hesitation. Habits though can be changed.
Imagine you are waking up in the mornings, tired and exhausted because you know you
haven’t gone to bed early enough. What would happen if you decide to go to bed half an
hour earlier tonight? That in effect is a habit change. Now imagine that you decide to go to
bed an hour earlier and in that hour you read before you drift off to sleep - within two
weeks you have read a book. That means you could effectively read two books in a month
just by going to bed an hour earlier. Getting a better night’s sleep can make you more
productive.
Little habits are easy to change. First you have to decide that ‘I’m going to change’. It could
be giving up artificial sweeteners when you're having your coffee. You’ve been wanting to
give up these for sometime but have never managed to so far. The first step to breaking this
habit after making the decision, is to take action. Halving your normal intake for the next
month could be a suggestion, and then reducing further after that. When you decided to do
something fully in the past, eg., learning to drive, moving home or changing job, then it was
because you made a decision. This clear decision was when you decided to burn the boats
and take the island. There was no going back!
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 12:
CHALLENGE

What one thing can you challenge yourself to do this week? It doesn’t matter how big or
small it is. Is it, for example, booking a holiday that you have been talking about but not
acting upon? Action could consist of going into a travel agent or booking it yourself online.
Would you like to go into a coffee shop and have a coffee by yourself? Is it going up to the
Barista and as you are ordering your coffee, just ask them these magic words: “How’s your
day going?”? You can almost guarantee that the Barista has not heard that recently! Will
they feel special? Yes. Will you feel good about yourself? Yes. Have you made somebody’s
day? Yes. When you go through the checkout at the supermarket, and you ask the person
serving you the same question: “How’s your day been?” - that person at the checkout is
going to feel good about their self.
As you do these little things, allow your confidence to grow.

Exercise:
What’s one thing you can do in the next week that would improve your confidence?
Is it a walk on the beach by yourself? Is it a comment to a stranger about how good
they look? What is one thing you could do that actually helps you move forward?
Think about it and then act on it.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 13
GRATITUDE

What can you be grateful for?

So what could you be grateful for right now? The feeling of abundance.
What around you fills you with so much love and joy? Who in your life could you be grateful
for? What in your life could you be grateful for?
In order to be confident, you have to understand that you need to have faith in yourself.
Look around and understand that you have so much more than you think you have - and it’s
under your nose. You don’t see it at times. What could you be grateful for right now?
Could you be grateful for the fact that you can drive a car? Could you be grateful that you
have two feet? As the old proverb mentioned, “a man complained and cursed because he
had no shoes until he saw a man with no feet”.
So look around you and decide what is there about your life that is actually so good? What
about your life is actually worth living for? What could you be grateful for right now?

Exercise:
Bring to mind five things you are grateful for right now? Is it the ability to walk, the ability
to breathe, the fact that your eye sight is good, that the birds are singing outside, that you
have freedom to walk to the park or the beach. What are you grateful for right now?
Think about it. You can list your five personal things you are grateful for either in your mind
or write them down. Five things you are grateful for right now. Practise this every day and I
guarantee you it’s a game changer. Your life will start to improve one percent a day. That’s
a lot over 100 days!
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 14:
EXERCISE

How many times have you heard people say that the hardest part of going to the gym or
working out is actually getting there? The upside? You release those feel good hormones
dopamine and seratonin which elevate your mood. You accomplish something which makes
you think differently. So it’s safe to say that your feelings and emotions change after your
work-out.
So why is it that people struggle to get to the gym? What stops people from exercising at
all? We focus on the potential pain of getting to the gym or having to work our body. We
dislike making an effort as this requires energy which we associate with pain - emotional
pain. If you start to associate exercise with looking and feeling good, as well as upgrading
your health, you will move towards it. The quickest way to develop a habit of exercise is to
start with a plan.
Try walking down the street for one minute. Then back home. That is already a two minute
exercise that you have achieved. Now you have a choice. You can repeat it tomorrow in
exactly the same time, OR you can add an extra minute. Time yourself. You are in control.
Improve the exercise by one minute a day as you get more confident. Aim to be able to do
a 30 minute walk by the end of 30 days.
Incidentally, the NHS in the UK have found out that 3 x 20 minute sessions per week of
walking briskly outside can decrease your depression. That’s powerful. So the act of
exercise can immediately boost your moods and lift your confidence. After all, exercise is
not just about losing weight, it’s about feeling good.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 15
PROCRASTINATION

Procrastination is known as the thief of opportunity. But what actually is “procrastination”?

It’s when you avoid a task, a thing, something that you need to do. You keep hesitating and
putting it off. What is the cause of the avoidance? Fear. So, understand that every time you
overcome a task, every time you do that thing you have been procrastinating over, you
become more confident, you understand that you are an action taker as opposed to an
avoider. So take action. Every time you take action you obliterate procrastination, as a
result you become more confident.
As Brian Tracey famously wrote: “Eat the frog”. What is the frog? It is literally that thing in
your throat which is choking you. Every time you hesitate, you are choking the
opportunities in your life.
What is that task, idea or thing that you have been meaning to do but putting off?
Try the five second rule. Within five seconds of a thought about starting to do something, do
it. It could be paying a bill, calling a friend or arranging a night out. We are very good at
hesitating. Very good at procrastinating. Would you like to look back at your life and realise
that it was one big hesitation?!
As Nike says: “Just do it”.
The more you do, even small tasks, the more productive you become. Suddenly, you are
living “life on purpose” rather than existing for and hesitating over the smallest of things.
Confident people are not prone to hesitation.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 16
COMPETENT

When you become more confident at something, you are actually saying that you are more
competent at that skill. So, imagine that you are learning to play the saxophone. When you
first start playing the instrument, you quickly realise that you are not very good! Thats why
you have to practise. Understandably, the more you practise, the better you become at
playing the saxophone. If you are generally interested in playing the saxophone, you invest
in a tutor and learn with practice until you can play a tune. You have practised your way to
competency by simply taking action.
With anything in life, the more you practise, the more focus and energy you put into
something, and so the more competent you become at displaying that skill. Increased
competency equals increased confidence.

Exercise:
So what skill can you learn that’s going to help you to become more competent and
in turn, more confident in yourself?
What little thing can you try, to challenge yourself with, and as a result, check it off
your tick list?
You will find that suddenly you are ticking all the boxes and becoming more and
more confident. The authentic you is happily surfacing. The best version of you has
arrived on the scene.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 17
NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

Imagine a negative thought crosses your mind. Examples of this include:

What if they don’t arrive at the meeting?
What if she doesn’t turn up for the date?
What if I can’t afford the wedding?
What if it rains when we go on holiday?
Can you imagine if you keep asking yourself the “what if” question? In doing so, you are
focusing on the future which you have no control or certainty over? It’s not hard to imagine
as its very common place!
From now on, every time you get a negative thought in your mind then ‘swipe’ it. Picture in
your imagination, a Smart phone where you can look at your photo album and you can flick
or swipe the pictures from side to side as you gaze from one photo to another. Now
imagine that you can do that with a negative thought, just “swipe” it.
If I’m driving along and I have a negative thought, I imagine just swiping it. All of my
negative thoughts transport themselves into an envelope then into a skip which is burning.
Hence, immediately the negative thoughts are gone. So if you use this technique, you will
swipe or flick that negative thought away from you, it goes into a burning skip and it’s gone.
Then replace it with whatever you want it to be; generally speaking, I would focus on what
you want in life rather than what you don’t want.
For example, imagine you are going to an interview and are experiencing negative thoughts
such as:
Will I know enough?
Do I look ok?
Will they like me?
Now you could replace these thoughts with:
What can I learn about the company?
How could I stand up straighter and smile more?
How can I enjoy meeting these new people?
Sometimes we place far too much importance on something which is out of our control.
Relax and focus on what you want.
Remember one thing: You can’t control what you can’t change.
How To Upgrade Your Confidence (Tools And Strategies)

Chapter 18
ACT OF KINDNESS

Doing things for others leaves us feeling good about ourselves. However, by doing random
helpful acts for others leaves us feeling even more significantly happier.
So, by doing acts of random kindness - the technical term is “random acts of kindness”, will
make you more confident. Imagine that you went into a coffee shop and you saw an elderly
person buying a coffee. What would happen if you bought them their coffee as a random
act of kindness? How would you feel in front of all those people around you. A confident
person can do that. Someone who has faith in their self. I challenge you to do that. Play it
forward. Within the next 24 hours, buy someone a hot drink.
Random acts of kindness are scientifically proven to improve your confidence and wellbeing.
As you are helping another person, your brain will register this as a form of pleasure and
accomplishment. Each time you do this, you exponentially grow as a person. It becomes a
part of you and your internal power of confidence starts to shine through consistently.
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DAVID RAHMAN
MIND COACH

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