Tips to boost up your confidence

No doubt, during this PhD study I usually get less confidence with my self, frustrated with my research and the systems, besides usually shivering while thinking what will be happened tomorrow. Below are the tips for overcoming the less confidence feelings.

1. Ask yourself "what's the worst that could happen?". Too often, we place excess importance on potentual problems. We all have a certain amount of energy so let's apply it to creating extraordinary relationships, advancing our career and meeting our goals INSTEAD OF WASTING THAT ENERGY WORRYING. Take action on what you have control over and minimize risks for what you don't. Then invest your energy wisely.

2. In doing something for the first time, imagine that you have already done it in the past. Close your eyes, then vividly imagine you succeeding wildly at what you are really going to do for the first time. The mind does NOT know the difference between something VIVIDLY imagined and something real. Make it vivid by involving all 5 senses.

3. Find someone who is already confident in that area and copy them. Model as many of their behaviors, attitudes, values, and beliefs for the context you want to be confident in as you can. How can you do this? Talk with them if you have access to them. If you don’t have access to them, get as much exposure to them as you can. This could be talking to people who know the person and/or buying their products if they have some.

4. Use the “as-if” frame. I literally love this frame of mind. If you were confident, how would you be acting? How would you be moving? How would you be speaking? What would you be thinking? What would you tell yourself inside? By asking yourself these questions, you are literally forced to answer them by going into a confident state. You will then be acting “as-if” you are confident. Now just forget you are acting long enough and pretty soon you’ll develop it into a habit.

5. Go into the future and ask if what you’re faced with is such a big deal. This might be a bit morbid and yet this works tremendously well. Imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back over your life. You are surrounded by your friends and family. You’re reviewing your life. Is what you’re faced with now even going to pop up? That’s highly unlikely. Keeping things in proper perspective really diminishes fear.

6. Remember that you lose out on 100% of the opportunities that you never go for. To get what you want, ask for it. I fully believe that if I ask enough people for whatever I want, I can get it. This is not necessarily true and yet it’s a useful belief. As you think about your goals and what you are striving for, how effective would it be for you to believe that all the people out there want to help you if you only ask? Whether that is true or not in the “real world” does not matter. If you find that belief empowering, I invite you to adopt it as your own.

7. Disarm the nagging, negative internal voice. That negative internal voice can keep anyone stopped. To disarm the internal voice, imagine a volume control and lower the volume. Or how about changing the internal voice to Mickey Mouse? Do you think you could take Mickey Mouse seriously if he were criticizing you? Change the voice to a clown voice. The point is to disarm the voice by altering the way it nags at you. If I hear my own voice nagging me, it stops me. If I hear a clown voice, I laugh and continue onward .

(This article is based on the book, “Unstoppable Confidence” by Kent Sayre.)

I learnt that during PhD we might be to scared to our supervisors, afraid of others' perception, feeling biased especially when the custom,culture and language are totally different. I wonder if these experiences have varnishing my confidence during these 2 years. But I feel it does affect me somehow... so I might need to overcome this situation because I don't want the feelings affect my performance as lecturer after I come back. However, it has the pro effects where I realize that there are a lot of peoples out there that more clever, hardworking and knowledgable. Thus,actually there's no place to be egoistic in research. We usually meet some peoples that hardly to accept others' critics towards their works.Actually, we have to respect other peoples' ideas and abilities, which this basic is actually not being applied in Japanese hierarchical laboratory system. This might cause the less confidence case and low self esteem for a foreigner like me. :)

Anyway, Malaysia boleh!!! Patient is the best policy....