Show notes
The REAL Path to Self-Confidence: Why There's No "Blueprint" But Steps to Self-Assurity That Actually Work What This Episode Is Really About Let's get one thing straight right off the bat - there's no such thing as a confidence blueprint. If someone's selling you that, it's clickbait, pure and simple. But here's what I can give you: a real, honest look at self-assurity and how to build it from the ground up. You see, I've been where you are. I remember being at the peak of my confidence in my career - I couldn't do anything wrong, just knew I had it all figured out. Until I didn't. Something unexpected happened, boom, that confidence bloody went. Completely went. So where did it go? Well, stick around because I'll tell you about that. Self-Assurity vs The Confidence Myth Here's the thing about self-assurity - it's different from confidence. Self-assurance is being confident in the things you say and do because you're sure of your abilities. I love this little saying: being confident in your competence. Your competence is your abilities, isn't it? And when you're confident in your competence, you're self-assured. But it doesn't have to be in everything. If you haven't got the abilities, you can't be confident in them. That's where mastery comes in - doing what you know and knowing what you do. That's being confident in the things you say and do because you're sure of your abilities. There are people who know it but don't do it. And there are others who do what they don't know and think they're confident - but that's just overconfidence getting into the realms of stupidity. Becoming More Self-Assured You already have self-assurance - you just want a bit more. And that's all about knowing what you want. You need a target to aim for. If you know what you know, then you probably know what you don't know. Then you can decide what you want to know. What could you aim for? Maybe you want to be more social, deal with that social anxiety that's holding you back. Maybe you want to speak out more at meetings, express yourself in a group, maybe even do a podcast. Perhaps you want a better job, a promotion, more friends, a partner, or just to learn a particular skill. You name it, fill in the blank. The Process That Actually Works First question: Where the hell are we now? Where are we in relation to the thing we want? We need to know where we're starting from. Don't get overconfident and think you're further along than you are. Think about what qualities you have. Don't be shy about this - no one's going to read them. What do you know? What have you learned? What have you done before? What have other people said? Get a feeling for where you are now and all the good stuff you already have. Next question: What does what we want look like? And it's more than just looking. What would it look like when you've got it? What would you hear? How would that feel? You've got to know it feels right. Jump into the future and ask yourself - if I had it now, what would it feel like? What would it enable you to do? When you see the difference between where you are now and what it would look like, ask yourself: What do I need to bridge that gap? If this seems difficult, try this simple question: If this was really easy, what would that be like? Sometimes we overcomplicate things when the answer is right there. What You Need to Learn Everyone knows someone who's sure of themselves. They're grounded, strong, and they have that inner strength because they're sure of their abilities. So, what abilities do you need to learn? Where are you going to get them? Where are you going to learn them? Maybe it's getting the skill of talking, being able to open a conversation with somebody. That one little skill could change everything. Write these things down because you need to know what you need to learn. Start small. If you can do one small step, and you can because you want this, you know what it'll feel like, you've got the motivation, and if you master that one small step, you'll have confidence in your competence for that step. Taking Action That Counts Once you've got that goal in mind, you start taking action. It's an intuitive action, but also a thoughtful action. Continued action. As you do that, you become aware of where you are now because you've moved along the road toward your goal. You become flexible because you start thinking about what else you might need to learn. You're not rigid in your approach - you have flexibility because of your awareness and the action you're taking. You can also act as if you have it now. When you visualize yourself doing it, you'll know how you'll be in your physiology, how you'll walk, how you'll talk. You'll know your psychology, the way you think. The Ripple Effect Here's what's amazing - when you're aiming for this one thing and building self-assurance in this area, it generalises into other areas of your life. You become more self-assured in different areas you weren't even aware of. You might be working on being more social, but suddenly you're getting on better at work, leading things, contributing more in meetings, and making more friends. From Thinking to Doing If this has got you thinking, I want that thinking to turn into doing. Start with this program: Get it down on paper. Where are you? Where do you want to go? What would it look like? What do you need to learn? Start a program and schedule of learning those things. Don't just listen to this and go "Yeah, sounds really good, Paul. I know all this." No - go and do it. And if you need help, you know what to do. Email me at [email protected]. Share what you know, share your journey, share your adventure. When you tell other people what you've learned and how you're using what you've learnt, you become more self-assured. They get to know about it and you inspire them as well. You can even mentor someone - help them learn the things you've learned. The Truth About Blueprints This isn't a blueprint - never was going to be. I don't think there is a blueprint for self-confidence. But it is a way, a process of achieving self-assurity, being sure of yourself. And this process is adaptable and flexible to you. I've broken it down into simple steps, easy steps. But simple and easy steps still take effort and energy. Once you start making little inroads into those steps, your confidence starts to build, and those steps get bigger. You go from a crawl to a walk to a run and a skip and a hop. Then it spreads to different areas of your life and becomes unconscious. Resources and Next Steps If you need deeper work at an unconscious level, check out my Supreme Inner Confidence program at paulcloughonline.com. For serious issues causing distress or panic, see a one-to-one therapist - find someone who's a master hypnotist, master practitioner of NLP, timeline therapy. Share this podcast if it resonated with you. Let's get everyone feeling good about themselves in the right way. Make this little old planet Earth a better place to live for you, me, and everyone else. https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/451-the-blue-print-to-confidence-and-self-assurity Get access to my hypnosis tracks at paulcloughonline.com/podcast - they're all downloadable so you can use them anywhere, anytime. Ready to build real self-assurance? Your journey starts now. Go fly, my friend. Contact: [email protected] Free Hypnosis Tracks: paulcloughonline.com/podcast Shine Brightly Paul Remember: I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. This podcast and any of my online resources are for educational purposes only. Never use the hypnosis tracks or exercises if you're operating machinery, driving, or if you have epilepsy or psychiatric conditions. Always consult a healthcare provider if you're unsure. And the transcript WARNING if you're a lover of the written word this may make you frustrated, or angry - you have been warned - is it an 'ism So the longer podcast, and is there such a thing as a confidence blueprint? Really, I know I said so in the title, but if there was such a thing as a confidence blueprint, I think you'd just find it's clickbait. You know, think about it, the one and only way to confidence, hmm, yeah, I don't think so. You see, I'm thinking about confidence, and it reminded me when I was one of the most confident people, confident Cloughie in my career. I was so confident, couldn't do anything wrong, I just knew, I just knew, until I wasn't. Something unexpectedly happened, and boom, that confidence bloody went, completely went. But where did it go? And I'm going to talk to you about that a little bit later, right at the end. But you see, the title also says, steps to self-assurity. That sounds a little different. So what's, what is self-assurity? Well, it's all about, I guess, being confident in the things that you say and do. Because you're just sure of your abilities. I think that's what self-assurity is, being confident in the things you say and do, because you're sure in your abilities. And I've always put that down to something, I love this, this little saying, being confident in your competence, because your competence is your abilities, isn't it? And if you're confident in your competence, you're self-assured. But it doesn't have to be in everything, does it? Because if you haven't got the abilities, you can't be confident in them. But you can be a master, and we've talked about mastery before, doing what you know and knowing what you do. That to me is then being confident in the things that you say and do, because you're sure of your abilities, because you are mastering the things that you do know, and you're actually doing them. And you know, there are some people who just, they know it, but they don't do it. And there are other people who do what they don't know, and they think they're confident, but that's just over-confident and getting onto, well, maybe the realms of stupidity. So, let's just think now, becoming more self-assured, because you already have self-assurance, you just want a little bit more. And that's all about knowing what you want, isn't it? You need a target to aim for, because if you know what you know, you probably then, if you thought about it, know what you don't know. And then you can decide what you want to know. It's getting in circles here. And when you set that target, you can start to learn. And then you become more confident in your competence, because you know what you're doing and doing what you know, because you're confident in the things that you now say and do, because you're sure of your abilities. Wow, that went round, didn't it? So, what are the things you could aim for? Well, you could aim to be a therapist. Yay! I mean, I didn't aim to do that initially, but hey, I'm very confident in my abilities of being a therapist now. Yeah, so I'm self-assured. And I think that comes, well, I know it comes across. But it could be so many other things. It could be to be more social. You know, that social anxiety, holding you back. But if you were self-assured about you, you know, and had that self-assurance about yourself, what you say and do, then you could be more social. That leads to things like speaking out more, maybe at meetings, maybe expressing yourself in a group. Maybe doing things like a podcast. Maybe you want to get a better job or get a promotion in your career. Maybe you'd like more friends. See, I said plural, not a, you might want a special friend, but just more friends. Maybe you want a partner. Or maybe you just want to learn a particular skill. You name it, you fill in the blank. Because these are all things we could aim for. Using what we know already and learn new ways. But we need a target. We need an aim in mind. We need a bullseye. So I keep saying so now, I don't know, where's that come from? I think we all experience unconfidence. And I don't know if that's a word, but I know what I think it means. When thinking about a goal, when thinking about an aim in mind, why is that? My thoughts are, well, we have to admit to ourselves that we haven't got there. And here's the thing when we say things like we haven't got there, and we get that that little bit of guilt or sadness or whatever it is, we missed the word off yet. We have to admit that we haven't got there yet. Oh, that sounds different. Yeah, so we just need an aim. Know that we haven't got there yet. And that's the whole point of doing this because we haven't got there yet, but we will. Now, if this thing about self-assurity is a big thing, self-confidence is a big thing, and it is causing you distress, maybe panic and things like that, then I think you really ought to go and see a therapist. That would be my advice. A one-to-one therapist, get in there, get it sorted. You know what I say, find someone who's a master hypnotist, master practitioner of NLP, timeline therapy, and boom, they'll help you really, really quickly. Or if it's not as big as that, and it's just you want some help to do it by yourself, obviously, I've got my supreme inner confidence program, paulcloughonline.com. I think it's confidence, it's a slash confidence, but you'll find it if you go to the front sheet, the landing page. But that's for dealing with it at an unconscious level, the things where your unconscious mind is trying to do something and it's not quite working, all that stuff. But I'm not selling that. Well, I am, obviously, but this is not the sales pattern for that. But all I'm saying is there are, we've got a couple of things if this is really, really, really big. But if it's not, and also, this will help you anyway. Either way, if it's big, just by thinking this through, doing this little process I'm thinking of, it will help you. It will loosen the model of your world. It might even get you what you want there and then. So what are we going to do? Well, now we've set out our aim in mind, yeah? We've got this thing that we want to do. We want to learn. We want to achieve, be able to, all that stuff. That thing about being and doing, more social, speaking out more, all that stuff, getting a partner, friends. So you have to think, I think, in questions. I love questions. But first of all, let's ask the question, where the hell are we now? Where are we now in relation to the thing that we want? Because we need to know where we're start from. We don't want to get overconfident and think we're further along the line. Well, I'm nearly there. Now, where are we now? And one way of when you think about where we are in relation to where you want to be, have, do, is to think about, well, what qualities do I have? Now, if you search it through the latter or the last sets of longer podcasts, there is one called my qualities. Also do hypnosis track on my qualities. But don't be shy. Think of the qualities you have. No one's going to read them, so you can write them down. Be assured about this. What qualities you have in relation to what you want. You know, what do you know? What have you learned? What have you done before? What have other people said? And just get a feeling for where you are now and all the good stuff that you have already. That's that mastery, remember? Even if it was only one quality, I know you've got so much more than one quality. But if you just do that one quality, knowing what you do, doing what you know, you are a master of that one quality. But you've got more. And just think for a moment. So we've done where we are now. We've done our list of qualities. We may have listened to a hypnosis track. But then we have to ask our question. What does we want? I'll start that again. What does what we want look like? And it's more than just looking like. But a lot of people say look like. A lot of people are quite visual. But just think if you could visualize in any way, shape or form, whether it's 20-20 vision or just an awareness, what would it look like? That end result? You know, maybe you being more social, maybe you speaking out more, you having that better job, having more friends, a special friend, a partner, or learning to do a skill. What would that look like when you've got it? Because when you look like it and what would you hear? And how would that feel? Because you've got to know it feels right. Because if you know, you might think, I really want that. But it doesn't feel right. And remember, this is what would it be like when you have it? Forget the how you're going to get there and you're not there yet. No, jump into the future, wherever that would be. And go, if I had it now, what would it feel like? What would it be like? What would I see? Because I just want to make sure that that's exactly what you want. Yeah, I do want more friends. I would like to be able to speak up. Because if I spoke up and I was speaking up with a self-assurity, it'd be like this, it'd be like that. And people would be smiling at me and they'd listen and I'd learn more and all that stuff. What would it enable you to do is another question. And when you see the two, the difference where you are now to what it looked like, just maybe another simple question. Well, in that case, what do I need to bridge that gap? Because we're going to start to find the steps to go from now to then. And you might go, oh, Cloughie, this is so difficult. You know, it's a bit difficult sometimes what it would be like. Oh, I don't know what I know. Yes, you do know what you know. But here's another simple question. If this was really easy, what would that be like? Well, if it was really easy, I'd make all the steps just like this and I'd get a piece of paper and I'd write the steps down and work it out. Yeah. So just make a note. What would this be like if it was easy? Where am I now? What are my qualities? Let's be honest. Let's not be shy. Let's don't underestimate, but let's not overestimate. Let's be, you know, I've learned a lot in my life. And what does it look like if I got it now? Yeah, there you go. Now we've started. So let's go back a little bit to self-assurity again. Everyone knows a person who is sure of themselves. Yeah, they're grounded, aren't they? They're strong. They have that inner strength because they're sure of their abilities. So this is this thing, the difference between now and then, what are the abilities you need to learn? So you can then be confident in the things that you say and do because you're sure of your abilities, being confident in your competence. So let's get them down. What abilities do you need? And then start to think of where are you going to get them? Where are you going to learn them? Now, if you want a little bit of help with this, because I want you to write those down, because you need to know the type of things you might need to learn. You know, if you wanted to do a particular thing for your job, you might need to learn another skill. Maybe it's just getting a skill of talking, being able to open a conversation with somebody. That one little skill, opening a conversation, knowing that you've got things that you can talk about. We'll do that. So you have to write those things down, but then think of a hashtag 449. It's not too far away. Listen to that, because that gives you all the steps you need to start putting it together. Start small. And as you consider everything in hashtag 449, and then you know what you need, you think, okay, I know what I need now, but what's the smallest step I could do? Because if I can do one small step, and I can, because I want this, I know what it'll feel like, I've got the motivation, it's important to me, and it's only a small step. And if I master that one small step, I'll have that confidence in my competence to master. And you see, once you've got that goal in mind, that thing that you want, and you do what I've said, you start taking action, and it's sort of intuitive action, but it's also thoughtful action, but you have to take action, and it's continued action. And as you do that, you become aware of where you are now, because you've moved along the road a little bit towards your goal. Where are you now? How much more have you got to do? Maybe there's some new things to learn, because you're now aware that you're on this path. And maybe you think, oh, I've strayed a little bit. Oh, I didn't think about this one. So you then begin to become flexible, because you start to think, well, maybe if I learn this as well. So you're not rigid in your approach. You have a flexibility in your approach, because of your awareness and the action you're taking. And because we did that little thing of, you know, what would it look like when you get the thing that you want? You could also act as if you have it now. You know, when you visualise yourself doing it, you'll know how you'll be in your physiology, how you'll walk, how you'll talk. You'll know in your psychology, the way you think, and you'll know then you'll be confident in your competence. Be sure of what you know, what you say and do. It's all there. You know, it's all adding to those qualities that we've made a note of. And then you'll start to skill stack. And then what happens is, oh, I'm starting to move towards this target with more self-assurance, which is, I feel confident in my competence. I feel confident in myself now. You'll find that will generalise into other areas of your life. So you become more self-assured in different areas that you weren't even aware of. It's amazing, this always happens. So you're aiming for this, but funny enough, I was only talking about social. But you know what? I'm getting on so much better at work now. I'm leading things. Maybe I'm going to meetings and bringing things there. Wow. All these things, you know, and actually I'm making more friends. I'm being more social. Whatever it is, you'll find that other things just get better, get richer. There's that word again, richer. So here's the thing. If this has got you thinking, I want that thinking into starting to do. Start doing. Start with the programme, this little programme of getting it down. Where are you? Where do you want to go? What would it look like? What are the things you need to learn? Let's start a programme and a schedule of learning those things. Let's listen to hashtag 449 if you haven't listened to it already, or go and review it again, make some notes, take action, knowing what you want. You take action, you become aware, you're flexible, you're acting as if, all these things, skill stacking. And that's all about doing. Don't just listen to this and go, yeah, all sounds really good, Paul. Yeah, I know all this. No, go and do it. And if you need help, you know. If there's something you think, oh, this all makes such perfect sense, Cloughie, but I need a bit help in this area. You know what you need to do. Just email me, feedback at personaldevelopmentunplugged.com. That's it. The other thing to do is, I don't know if I'm going to say share, but share what you know, share your journey, share your adventure. Because when you tell other people what you've learned and how you're using what you learn, you become more self-assured because that's what just happens. And they get to know about it and you tend to inspire them as well. And as you get that more assurance, self-assurance, more self-confidence in your competence and everything else. And as you share that with people, you know how much you've learned. It becomes a real solid platform, which is self-assurance and self-confidence. And if you want, you can mentor somebody as well. Mentor someone, help them learn the things that you've learned. I mean, this isn't a blueprint, never was going to be a blueprint. I don't think there is a blueprint of self-confidence, a blueprint to confidence, but it is a way, a process of achieving self-assurity, self-confidence, being sure of yourself. And it's just a process. And this process is adaptable. It's flexible to you, which is why I wanted to get it across to you because it is such a, it's an easy way. I've broken it down into simple steps, easy steps. But the thing about simple and easy steps are they take effort though. They take energy. But once you start to make little inroads into those little steps along the way, suddenly your confidence starts to build and those little steps get bigger. And you start from a little crawl to a walk to a run and a skip and a hop. And we're just having fun. And then it spreads to different areas in your life. And you start to use this everywhere and it becomes unconscious. It's a wonderful thing. It really is a wonderful thing. So please as I do share this with people, share this podcast, if you would, let's get everyone just feeling good about themselves in the right way. And in that way, this little old planet, this little old planet earth reaps a benefit, makes it a better place to live in for you, me and everyone else. There you go. And I'm sure you've subscribed, followed, all that stuff, all that stuff, those stuffs, whatever it is, have fun and yeah, look up hashtag 449 and those hypnosis tracks. And if I can, I'll add on a little bit at the end to tell you where to get them. Okay. So until the next time, my friend, you go with all the self-assurance you have bubbling up inside you. Go do it now. Go fly my friend. So the 90 seconds of hypnosis tracks. Why have I put hypnosis tracks on a separate website? Well, it's so simple, really. I want you to have them all in one place. So you can look through them all. You can find the particular one you want. I've even made them downloadable. So you can put them on any of your playing devices that you prefer. You don't need wifi. You don't need the iTunes or whatever. You can put them anywhere you like. You can even burn them onto disk if you want. Where'd you get them? Well, there you go. I told you it's paulcloughonline.com forward slash podcast. If you're worried about your email address, please don't be because they stay totally safe with me. I only use them to send you out that email and give you access. Simple as that. I send you a link, a special link so you and only you can access those hypnosis tracks because I want them just for you. And the other thing about this is you've taken responsibility. I don't want to make these open to everyone, just random. You have taken responsibility to listen and be part of this community of personal development. And I want to help you. I want to help you personally to get your dreams, your goals. And therefore I'm giving you these tools, these protocols, these paradigms, whatever you want to call them, but in deep hypnosis. So just enjoy, have more fun than you can stand with hypnosis. (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. 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