Instant Confidence: The Power to Go for Anything You Want by Paul McKenna PH.D. (2016)
SECTION ONE
DEVELOPING THE CONFIDENCE HABIT
CHAPTER 1
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Prepare Yourself for Success
Natural Confidence
Have you ever heard someone say about a person “they seem comfortable in their own skin”?
This is the essence of natural confidence—feeling a level of comfort with yourself that can withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and carry you forward to the life of your dreams.
“Don’t compromise yourself—you are all you’ve got.”
JANIS JOPLIN
This type of confidence is not something that some people are born with and others will never attain—it is the inevitable result of taking a few daily actions on a consistent basis. It is a process that you have already begun doing simply by picking up this book.
Stop for a moment and vividly imagine how your life would be if you were already naturally confident right now—at ease with yourself and whatever is going on around you:
How would your posture be?
How would your voice sound?
What kinds of things would you be saying to yourself?
What would you picture in your mind?
If you actually took the time to imagine any of these things, chances are you are already feeling more confident than you were just a few short moments ago.
But as you will soon be learning, confidence is much more than just a positive feeling in your body—it’s an attitude and approach to life that leads to success, motivation, and new possibilities!
You Already Know What to Do
I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who come up to me and say, “I’m just not a confident person.” When I ask them if they’re sure about that, they boldly declare, “Of course I am!”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
ARISTOTLE
The problem isn’t that they lack confidence—it’s that they’re confident about the wrong things. In fact, they’re supremely confident about the idea that they have no confidence.
Wouldn’t it be great instead to automatically go into your most confident and resourceful emotional states whenever you needed them most?
Imagine being able to step in front of a group or up onto a stage and feel even more confident than you did when you were sitting on the sidelines. Or finding yourself becoming noticeably more confident with each step as you approached an attractive person to ask them out on a date.
If this sounds impossible to you or even too good to be true, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. You are already an expert at the skills you will be using to develop the confidence habit.
Think about it—do you ever forget to become nervous before approaching someone you’re attracted to? Ever slip up and not feel uncomfortable before making a presentation or an important phone call for work?
Remember, our core principle is this:
WHAT YOU PRACTICE, YOU BECOME.
Some people have practiced going into an unresourceful state before giving a presentation or asking someone out on a date so many times that they now automatically feel scared when they come to do it. They may even have begun to think of themselves as extremely un-confident people.
In contrast, high achievers have often been faced with situations that involve risk and uncertainty. Because they have practiced putting themselves into resourceful states and taking action, embracing risk and uncertainty in difficult situations has become their habit. They have become completely comfortable in their own skin—and you can too!
The Vibration of Success
Imagine I have two violins. When I play a note on one of them, the corresponding string on the other violin will vibrate as well. Scientists call this “the law of sympathetic resonance”—the phenomenon whereby whenever two objects are tuned in to the same frequency, the energy from one is automatically transferred to the other.
“On an energy level there is no giving or receiving—just energy moving around within itself.”
STUART WILDE
Because the human body is composed of a complex system of high-tech electric currents and electromagnetic fields, the same thing happens with people. In fact, phrases such as “being in tune,” “feeling connected,” and “being on the same wavelength” are attempts at describing the way energy naturally moves back and forth between two or more bodies.
As you practice these techniques, you are changing your resonance and vibrating at a different frequency. You will become more attractive to the people and things you really want in your life. And as you attract more happiness and success into your life, your energy will continue to change for the better.
The Gradual Confidence Booster
Would you like to feel noticeably more confident in the next few minutes?
“A jug fills drop by drop.”
THE BUDDHA
Every year, thousands of people run in a marathon somewhere in the world for the first time. But unless you are in amazing physical shape to begin with, you wouldn’t expect to be able to go out and run 26-plus miles on your first try. If you haven’t been exercising regularly, you may find it difficult at first to go out and run even one mile.
So you would have to approach your target gradually, step by step. For the first week you might aim to run one mile a day. The next week, you’d do a few miles. Eventually, you’d be able to run ten. Your next milestone would be a “half-marathon”—approximately 13 miles.
Then one day, all of a sudden, you would find yourself able to run a full 26-mile marathon the same way the greatest runners in the world do it—one mile at a time.
This is how you will develop the confidence habit. If I asked you to imagine yourself as being more confident right now, you would only be able to do this from within the limits of what you have done up until now—your habitual confidence preset. But by doing it in stages, step by step, you will be amazed at your ability to go beyond your previous limitations and feel absolutely fantastic …
THE GRADUAL CONFIDENCE BOOSTER
Read through the exercise before you do it for the first time …
1. Imagine a slightly more confident you sitting or standing in front of you.
2. Now, I’d like you to imagine stepping into that more confident you. See through their eyes, hear through their ears, and feel the feelings of your more confident self. And notice that right in front of you is an even more confident you—sitting or standing a little bit taller, a look of slightly more self-belief behind their eyes, emanating a little bit of extra charisma.
3. Step into this more confident self, and notice that in front of you is an even more confident self—more passion, more power, more ease, more comfort.
4. Repeat step three, stepping into a more and more confident you until you are overflowing with confidence. Be sure to notice how you are using your body—how you are breathing, the expression on your face, and the light in your eyes.
That is all that you need to do!
For a more in-depth confidence-boosting exercise, play the Gradual Confidence Booster video.
As you continue to practice the techniques in this book and listen to the accompanying hypnotic trance, you will deliberately program your mind to respond to challenges and obstacles by bringing up feelings of confidence, ease, resourcefulness, and well-being.