That key to Confidence no one talks of

“Mira, I am great at my work. What I lack is Confidence. What do I do?” This is a question I get from many people. They may not realize that they are referring to “Social Confidence”. Which can be defined as:

- Walking into a room with “Presence” and not being nervous.

- To be comfortable in your own skin.

- To talk naturally, flow smoothly from one topic to the next, and make friends effortlessly.

Social confidence is believing that you can talk to anyone and build a connection. And because we all want it, there are thousands of books written about it. Though there is a lot of advice out there, here is my take on it.

Social confidence doesn’t come from what you do, how you feel or how you look. Even if it does, it will be very short-lived. It won’t sustain because what it misses is a key ingredient. The key ingredient is knowing - “Where to focus”. Sustainable social confidence develops when you focus on others, and not on your own self.

Focus on Others

When you are consumed by how you feel inside, your looks and your thoughts, (In other words you are “self-absorbed”) you lose the opportunity to make a real impact – and that is to connect with the other person.

You become less socially engaged, because your attention is turned inwards. And that produces quite the reverse results. When we focus too much on ourselves -- what we say, how people perceive us, how interesting we are -- this increases our anxiety and lowers our confidence. But if you shift your focus onto others, you’ll be more perceptive and far more socially confident.

A key reason people lack confidence is that they doubt themselves. They filter things because they don't want to make a mistake, or say something stupid. They worry what others might think. People attempt to say the smartest things in the room with the attempt to look great, but fall flat on their face. All of this is caused by too much self-focus.

This is the little-known secret to the confidence that nobody talks about. I say it’s a lot like watching a movie. When we are watching a show we are completely immersed in it. There is so much freedom when we escape into another person’s world and are not trying our best to show our own. That’s the key to our human interactions that flips the game.

You no longer fret over finding your “confidence”. All that is required is to shift the focus on to others and be willing to immerse in what it is to experience life like them. 

A word of caution

When I say focus on others, I don’t mean focus on how they treat you or react to you, or what they’re thinking about you. That just ends up being a convoluted way of thinking about ourselves. (Long story….. shall share another day)

Make a difference.... Add value

The best thing is to focus on others by helping them. A piece of research from British Columbia found that “being busy with acts of kindness” can help people reduce their social anxiety. By focusing on helping others, this countered fears of rejection and lowered levels of stress and anxiety. And at the same time, made room for more positive thoughts and observations. In the end, participants in the study actually found that people responded more positively to them than they expected.

Here I’d like to quote my Coach - Paritosh Pathak, who consciously practices these skills and also teaches them through a programme called MNP.

He says – "True Networking = GI + VC"

GI – Genuine Interest

VC – Value Creation