Tim Pim Blog

When things are going well for you, you probably feel more
confident in all aspects of your life. Sometimes you string a
couple of good days together and it makes all the difference. It
can be little things that inspire extra confidence - like
getting a cutie to smile back, acing a test, or getting a
compliment from the boss. Confidence builds quickly after
back-to-back victories.

When you’re feeling confident, you have the energy to try new
things. You cope more easily with minor set-backs. You are quick
to see the funny side of things, and you don’t dwell on
difficulties that you face. For many of us, it can be easy come
- easy go when it come to confidence. It doesn’t take much to
shake your confidence. Maybe you’ve not been sleeping well or
you’re your catching a cold, then you have a bad day and screw
up a few thing. Or, possibly something that you were working on
didn’t get you noticed the way you hoped it would.

We all get those days when the tide turns and we suddenly don’t
feel very good about things. The future doesn’t look so great
and you start to worry about the things that never bothered you
before.

What Exactly is Self Confidence? Self-confidence is a small part
of our complex personality. Analyzing personality traits can be
a bit complicated since there is no way to measure and compare.
Let face it, personality is a vague and abstract concept. It has
no physical location. There is no wide agreement on what is
normal. We all have one and we are all different.

One thing we all notice is when our personality is far enough
out of whack to start causing problems. Too much aggression,
joy, sadness, or fear and we get noticed.

Self-confidence is a part of out personality that helps us
socially to balance our aggressiveness. If we are doing well at
everything, we tend to get a little more confident and more
aggressive. The more aggressive we are the more we charge right
into things without thinking…. Right.

Our level of our self-confidence seems to be based on how well
we have done recently, and how people have been reacting to us.
We all continuously judge ourselves on how we are doing.

The problem is that we use our own set of values and are really
arbitrary how we factor in the feedback that we are getting from
those around us. We arrive at some of our values over time, but
we change them frequently. We give weight to the opinions of
those around us without ever really comparing value scorecards.

Let’s face it, we all make judgments that are often unreasonable
and often demand near perfect performances from ourselves in all
we do. For many of us life is a struggle to live up to an idea
of perfection. We find lots of reason to be tough on ourselves.

How do you get your MoJo back? Like Austin Powers, you need to
hang on until you can score some successes. If you use the two
secrets to success that I reveal below, success will return, and
your confidence with it. There are many reasons why a select few
become successful, but there are two traits that all successful
people share. If you get these two right, I guarantee you that
you will have the major ingredients to the secret sauce of
success

Introspection: Develop the ability to look fairly at your self
and inside yourself.

Sharing: Develop a quality community that shares your goals and
interest, Dealing with Adversity

If you follow my advice you will be much more resilient and able
to deal with setbacks. When things go wrong, spend some time
looking at “what actually happened” and your role in it. I like
to walk in the woods or drop by the beach to think things
through. If I spend some time I can sort things out a bit, then
I can take action or move on.

Sharing your thoughts with your friends can really help your
confidence. I have several friends and associates that I can go
to and say, boy I really screwed this thing up. Invariably they
will say “so what”, or “no big deal”, or “no you didn’t…
because”.

I value their independent, outside viewpoint to put things into
perspective and brainstorm solutions. They often have an idea
about how to solve a problem that I am frankly amazed at.

Go ahead be tough on yourself. I have heard counselors say don’t
blame yourself, or don’t be so tough on yourself. Ya right, like
we can help it. I say - go ahead be tough on yourself, figure
out exactly where you went wrong - but fix it, fix it as soon as
you can, then move on.

If you can’t fix it, that should be a clue that it wasn’t up to
you in the first place, so move on - anyway. Don’t always try to
figure everything out by yourself. Let your posse, family, and
friends, who share your values, help you out.

A good motivation theory has to recognize the fact that we each get motivated differently. In the practice of neuro-linguistic programming or “NLP” this is taken into account in many ways. One of the more useful NLP theories is the concept of “away-from” and “towards” personalities.

Of course, we each have both modes of operation as a part of the way we function, but often one is dominant in each of us. Those in who the “towards” motivation dominates will be more affected by thoughts of future rewards. Those with a primarily “away-from” motivational style, will be more affected by thoughts of escaping pain or trouble.

Why not use this test to get an idea about which motivational style dominates your personality? Just read the following two descriptions of what having millions of dollars could mean to you.

1. You are safe and secure. You never have to return to your job or do anything you don’t want to do. You have the means to eliminate most of your problems easily. You have everything you need to be free and comfortable.

2. You have the house of your dreams, and your favorite car too. You buy anything you want for you and your friends, and you do what you want. You have the means to achieve any of your goals.

If the first description is more compelling to you, you primarily have an “away-from” personality. If you feel more motivated by the second description, you have a “towards” personality. There are good and bad points to both types. “Towards” individuals make good entrepreneurs, for example, but often get into trouble because they don’t plan well enough to avoid problems. “Away-from” individuals manage things well and avoid problems, but don’t do as well at big goals.

So how do you use this motivation theory and this knowledge about yourself to your best advantage? Suppose you want to make more money and you are an “towards” person. You would want to envision the things you’ll buy and do with that money, but also be aware that you may be glossing over the problems. If you are an “away-from” person, you’ll need to continually remind yourself what a mess it will be if you fail. Otherwise you’ll lose your motivation once you reach some level of comfort.

Of course, when you understand these two motivational styles, you can also influence others more easily. If you wanted to sell a new car to someone, for example, you would first determine if they are motivated away from things or towards things. For the former, you might explain how this new car will mean no more used-car hassles, or how it will make life easier. For the latter, you would explain how great they’ll look in it, or what it can do.

You can play with this theory, and practice using this knowledge to influence others, but don’t forget to influence yourself. While it is useful for understanding and influencing others, this is a motivation theory that is best used to affect your own self improvement.