Public Speaking and Communications - How to Become Unflappable - 3 Steps to Building Your Self-Confidence

3 Simple Steps to Expanding Your Self-Confidence

Communications is a complicated tapestry of skills. From public presentations, to body language to emotional intelligence to a strong sense of self-confidence. Self-confidence alone will not guarantee success. Self-confidence is simply one thread integral in this tapestry. One thing is certain, your career will unravel if you are missing or have any broken threads of self-confidence. Building self-confidence and gaining an unflappable disposition is a slow process. The steps are: 1.) Create a folder of successes 2.)  Visualize  (with two great tips including how to make decisions) and 3.)  Focus.  Practice these three steps and you will trim your sail for communications and achieve your much deserved career success.

“Who has confidence in himself will gain the confidence of others.”

Leib Lazarow

“Self-confidence is the memory of success”

source: thinkexist.com

Adj.1.unflappable - not easily perturbed or excited or upset; marked by extreme calm and composure; displaying no signs of alarm.

A great man once shared with his congregation how he managed to be a winning negotiator and top prosecuting attorney. One simple word - "unflappable". His sense of serenity he shared with us was a painting that reminded him of happy moments, moments of achievement, moments of power, moments of victory. He stated throughout his career, he would visually remember that one single painting and recall all the great and grand moments of his life and regain his composure no matter what the daunting circumstances might be. Communication is all about being unflappable.

How do we create or expand our self-confidence? Let us explore 3 simple tasks that all of us can do ...

In building your brand image, we spoke at length about consistency in building and maintaining the brand. So too, it is true in business. Your self-confidence shows through in everything you do. There is one sure way to obtain a job and one sure way to maintain a job - to be a great communicator. A great communicator can be counted upon for clarity in times of trouble, solice in times of sadness and direction in time of ....A great communicator is always one item - unflappable.

Whether you are presenting or just conversing casually at work, each and every day, we are creating a vision of ourselves - both personally and professionally. Our characteristics and work ethic serve to build a professional brand. Integral is the self-confidence that we exude to others.

A great communicator is always needed in every setting. From giving a speech, to persuading perspective clients to working well in a team environment. Each and every communication touch point demands your best presentation. Your voice, your body language must exude self-confidence.

Cracks in our self-confidence hit most of us every hour. How do we shield ourselves from marring our own self-image and better yet how do we showcase a great self-confidence to others?

Self-confidence is built upon a foundation of successes.  Past successes need to be memorized and clearly remembered and cherished.  Just as we create a scrapbook and photo albums of favorite events in our lives, so too, we need to as dedicated professionals to create a folder of accomplishments. 

This folder should include kudos from peers and supervisors, newspaper articles, portions of your job review - anything and everything that is positive.  If you brought up a create idea in a meeting, effectively handled a disgruntled employee - write these down in note form - handwritten or even an email to yourself and print it out and retain in a separate folder. 

An associate, a woman I greatly admire confided to me that my email detailing her professionalism was being printed and retained in her "smiles" folder.  Her smiles folder is a folder simply for kudos and accomplishments.

Hub Pages retain a great listing of accomplishments on our profile page of the number of views, comments, number of hub published.  We need to mimic this wall of honor somewhere at home or in our office.  Tuck it away and retain it.  Take it out and read through it for a boost on a dismal day at the office.

Visualizing our success is essential. As the photo showcases, the strength of your will and conviction and bring out the lion in you. It is through this mirror of imagination that we can solve problems and create the self-confident person that we want to be. We cannot harness and control the lion of our emotions without a clear vision of how we want those emotions controlled. Find great mentors, watch and learn and then visualize yourself in the most challenging role that you want to win.

Tips on Visualizing Your Success

• Find mentors, great leaders in your field or in the public eye that you admire. I, myself have some favorite Sunday morning shows that give me the talking points and showcase the mannerisms and body language of the best of the best. From great journalist to politicians to talk show hosts. You pick your favorites. Watch them closely. Analyze their techniques. From their speech to their organization of their ideas to their body language. Follow, analyze, learn, visualize and mimic.
  
• Foresee any potential problems, questions. Visualize you handling the situations effectively and with complete confidence.
• View challenges as positive opportunities to improve yourself and for your skills to shine.
  
• Harness your anxiety when under stress. Take your time, remain calm. Most people who drown in the water - drown because of panic. Most people fail because they too allow their emotions to control. Harness your emotions. Stay foscued at the task at hand. Learn to take your time, and you will look and feel more confident. Remember, if you think you look more confident - you will feel more confident.

Make Decisions from the Balcony - Visualize the Balcony - Tip Two

A mentor of mine a long time ago taught me to make decisions only from the balcony, always above the players and the audience. His reasoning was making decisions as a member of the audience, you lost the big picture and the proper perspective. This has stuck with me over the past decades.

To take this idea one step further, creating a vision of your personal balcony helps not just with the decision making but also with the visualization of the success. Watch the situation played out. Watch from up above - in your own personalized balcony.

Imagine your work team in sitting one or two stories below you. You are seated in a beautiful and spacious box seat - throw in the gold fringe and red velvet whatever pleases your senses.

Or if your goal is the corner glass office, that is where you are seated - that is your balcony of decision making. Create and visualize your own personal balcony in your mind. Then imagine the people below you struggling with the challenges poised. Next imagine your solution - your body movements are confident, your thoughts well organized and your voice strong and controlled. Your personalized balcony is your place of serenity for both decision making and also for creating and building your self-confidence.

Two Ways to Build Your Self-Confidence

Indirect

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Take all the directions you are going in - and boil down to one vision for you and your team. Detail the benefits to you and your team. Detail the strengths of you and your team. Choose the behavior that will build your confidence in order to feel confidence and engaged in your vision.

Fastest way to build confidence is to go direct!

#1 Create Folder of Memories of Success

To remember success builds self-confidence. Creating a folder dedicated to your professional achievements and successes is the first step in becoming "unflappable".

#2 Visualize Your Achievements Beforehand

Visual your success. Your mind is very powerful. If you cannot imagine it, you cannot create it, and therefore you will miss your dream. Create clear visions of your success and you will easily achieve your dreams.

Your visualization needs to be personalized. Create in your mind your own balcony of success. The corner office, a beautiful home balcony or the dramatic balcony at the Opera House. This is your mind's playing field. Stay above the fray in making decisions. Keep the emotions on the ground floor and your mental agility and freedom in the balcony off the ground floor will take you to soaring heights and boundless successes.

#3 Unstoppable Direct Determination - One Core Vision

One Core Vision - Detail the benefits - details your strengths and talents to make it happen. Choose your specific behavior to reach the core vision. Be passionate and engaged in your path.

This is a faster way to build confidence is to "go direct".

As Gma Goldie as labeled it "Unstoppable Direct Determination".