If I Wanted to Undermine Your Confidence...

Our mission at Foxleigh Commercial Performance is to build confidence and enable clients to succeed with even difficult customers. A few weeks ago I wrote a short post on how I would undermine your confidence if I was trying to do so.

In this article, I revisit that short post and explain more about why someone would try to damage your confidence and how to resist.

But more importantly, how we can damage our own confidence through the actions and words we inflict on ourselves.

Why Someone Wants to Damage Your Confidence

Ego is fragile and we all have one and therefore we are all constantly working to protect our fragile ego from damage. As a result we can find ourselves in a circular battle to build and protect confidence.

Our ego drives us to become more important and have greater status. We want to be a leader, be known as smart, skillful, productive or creative. When we have status then we feel good.

The challenge is that we naturally compare ourselves with others and additionally we are compared to others, by others. It is a constant game that we cannot win.

When we have a moment of success, that underlines our strengths, we can immediately be exposed to someone we believe is better than us and that moment is gone.

Many of us keep this struggle internal.

But some people externalise it and actively damage the egos of others to try to give themselves a boost.

We all know this personality type, they feel good by picking up the flaws of others.

Even if we do not meet this type of poison, some people feel that they must compete with everyone and win every conversation, moment, sale or event. They lack any humility and are constantly inwardly focused to protect their own status versus others.

When we meet these groups of people, they are the ones who attempt to damage your confidence. It is their main way to protect and build their own, it is like they steal the elixir or confidence from others and drink it themselves.

We sometimes meet them as a customer, but we sometimes meet them as a colleague or manager and it is these final two that are the hardest to deal with at work.

Strategies to Unravel Confidence in Others

There are some generalised fears that many of us have. A fear of looking foolish, a fear of making mistakes, a fear of not fitting in, a fear of rejection.

Someone determined to damage your confidence will use these fears to their advantage.

They will make you believe that you have got things wrong by using data and facts to question and challenge you, perhaps focussing on minute details.

They will frame you as being different and out of touch with the others, especially powerful groups and leaders.

They will reject your ideas, without explanation, as proof they can do so and maybe they will laugh at you.

Self Destructive Behaviour

The world is a tough place, especially if you are surrounding by people like those above who use strategies to actively damage your confidence. But many of us, make it worse, by inflicting those same techniques on ourselves.

We speak to ourselves most frequently and yet we say to ourselves that we get things wrong and "I am an idiot"

We look at what we do and how we behave and notice differences that we amplify into a belief that we don't fit in and we, perhaps most dangerously, fail to prepare for important moments and then do not have the information or skills necessary to be successful.

We self-destruct through what we tell ourselves about our capabilities. We prophesy failure and then allow it to come true by not preparing.

Take Care of Yourself

You are the master of your own success. Self-Confidence is that - confidence that comes from self.

If you lack it, then the only person to blame is you.

Take charge of the voice in your head and take charge of your preparation and practice

Concentrate and focus on what you are good at. Build confidence through dedicated practice that exposes you to challenges and uncomfortable situations and enables you to develop your skills.

Tell yourself how good you are.

Notice and track your progress through time, looking back 6 or 12 months to recognise how much you have learned.

At Foxleigh we develop learning programmes that are based on action because we learn from experience. These experiences help us hone skills, but they also trigger us to learn from what doesn't go perfectly.

Don't be too hard on yourself. Find people who are true supporters and create a safe space where it is good to learn from when things aren't perfect, practice and then learn together.

You will fit in, you will hear positive affirmation and you will build confidence.

The people who are poison. It says more about them that they need to suck confidence from others. They are clearly lacking in true confidence, because everyone I have met who is truly confident actually radiates it, and shares it with others.

Seek out those people instead.