Personal Development All-in-One

By Gillian Burn

Personal Development All-in-One For Dummies is a complete guide to a range of techniques you can use to master your thoughts and achieve your goals. Discover the basic principles of each approach and receive sensible, practical and effective expert advice on how each one can help you challenge negative beliefs and change your attitudes. Whether you wish to conquer an anxiety, communicate better with others or simply think more positively, here you will find proven and popular methods that you can use to make major changes - improving your personal power and creating the life you want.

Techniques covered:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• Neuro-linguistic Programming
• Life Coaching
• Building Self-confidence

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Dec 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781119966388

Book preview

Book I

Essential Concepts of Personal Development

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In this part . . .

This book explains the basic concepts behind Neuro-linguistic Programming, cognitive behavioural therapy, confidence and life coaching – in short, it’s a handy introduction to the rest of this title’s content. If you’re not sure what the difference is between them, this is the place to start; and if you’re well aware of the differences between these disciplines, take a look at the chapters in this book to see how they interact or approach problems from different directions.

Here are the contents of Book I at a glance:

Chapter 1: Exploring the Key Themes of NLP

Chapter 2: Understanding Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Chapter 3: Examining Confidence

Chapter 4: Introducing Life Coaching

Chapter 1

Exploring the Key Themes of NLP

In This Chapter

arrow Working out the meaning of NLP

arrow Exploring the key themes of NLP

arrow Getting the most out of models and presuppositions

Increasingly, you will hear the subject of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) mentioned as you go about your daily life – in corporations, colleges and coffee shops. We wrote the book because our experience of NLP transformed our lives. We wanted to ignite the spark of curiosity in you about what is possible in NLP and with NLP. We also believed it was time for NLP to come away from academic- and business-speak to real-life plain English for all our friends out there. By friends, we mean everyone and anyone, especially you, the reader.

NLP has grown in popularity because it offers ‘aha’ moments. It simply makes sense. Yet the name itself, and the jargon associated with it, present a barrier to the average person. Some describe NLP as ‘the study of the structure of subjective experience’; others call it ‘the art and science of communication’. We prefer to say that NLP enables you to understand what makes you tick; how you think, how you feel, how you make sense of everyday life in the world around you. Armed with this understanding, your whole life – work and play – can become magical.

In any communication between two people more than one perspective always exists. Sometimes people just can’t grasp that fact because they don’t know to change their behaviour to communicate in a way that gets them what they want.

Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) is one of the most sophisticated and effective methodologies currently available to help you communicate effectively. NLP centres on communication and change. These days everybody needs the skills to develop personal flexibility. Tricks and gimmicks aren’t enough: everyone needs to get real.

So welcome to the start of the journey: in this chapter you get a quick taster of the key themes of NLP.

Introducing NLP

All able-bodied humans are born with the same basic neurological system.

jargonalert.eps Your neurological system transmits the information you receive from your environment through your senses to your brain. Your environment, in this context, is everything external to you, but also includes your organs, such as your eyes, ears, skin, stomach and lungs. Your brain processes the information and transmits messages back to your organs. With your eyes, for example, the result of this may be that you blink. The information can also create emotions, and you may laugh, cry or feel joy. In short, you behave in a certain way.

Your ability to do anything in life – whether swimming the length of a pool, cooking a meal or reading this book – depends on how you respond to the stimuli on your nervous system. Therefore, much of NLP is devoted to discovering how to think and communicate more effectively within yourself and with others.

Here’s how the term Neuro-linguistic Programming breaks down:

jargonalert.eps check.png Neuro concerns your neurological system. NLP is based on the idea that you experience the world through your senses and translate sensory information into thought processes, both conscious and unconscious. Thought processes activate the neurological system, which affects physiology, emotions and behaviour.

check.png Linguistic refers to the way you use language to make sense of the world, capture and conceptualise experience, and communicate that experience to others. In NLP, linguistics is the study of how the words you speak and your body language influence your experience.

check.png Programming draws heavily from learning theory and addresses how you code or mentally represent your experiences. Your personal programming consists of your internal processes and strategies (thinking patterns) that you use to make decisions, solve problems, learn, evaluate and get results. NLP shows you how to recode your experiences and organise your internal programming so that you can get the outcomes you want.

trythis.eps To see this process in action, begin to notice how you think. Imagine a hot summer’s day. You’re standing in your kitchen at the end of the day holding a lemon you’ve taken from the fridge. Look at the outside of it; its yellow waxy skin with green marks at the ends. Feel how cold it is in your hand. Raise it to your nose and smell it. Mmmm. Press it gently and notice the weight of the lemon in the palm of your hand. Now take a knife and cut it in half. Hear the juices start to run and notice that the smell is stronger now. Bite deeply into the lemon and allow the juice to swirl around in your mouth.

remember.eps Words. Simple words have the power to trigger your saliva glands. Hear the one word ‘lemon’ and your brain kicks into action. The words you read told your brain that you had a lemon in your hand. You may think that words only describe meanings, but in fact they create your reality. You find out much more about this truth as you read further.

A few quick definitions

NLP can be described in various ways. The formal definition is that NLP is ‘the study of the structure of our subjective experience’. Here are a few more ways of answering the question, ‘What is NLP?’:

check.png The art and science of communication.

check.png The key to learning.

check.png The way to understand what makes you and other people tick.

check.png The route to get the results you want in all areas of your life.

check.png The way to influence others with integrity.

check.png The manual for your brain.

check.png The secret of successful people.

check.png The method of creating your own future.

check.png The way to help people make sense of their reality.

check.png The toolkit for personal and organisational change.

Where NLP started and where it’s going

NLP began in California in the early 1970s at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Richard Bandler, a psychology student, and Dr John Grinder, a professor of linguistics, studied people who they considered to be excellent communicators and brilliant at helping their clients change. They were fascinated by how some people defied the odds to get through to so-called difficult or very ill people where others failed miserably to connect.

So, NLP has its roots in a therapeutic setting thanks to three world-renowned psychotherapists that Bandler and Grinder studied: Virginia Satir (developer of Conjoint Family Therapy), Fritz Perls (the founder of Gestalt Psychology), and Milton H. Erickson (largely responsible for the advancement of Clinical Hypnotherapy).

In their work, Bandler and Grinder also drew upon the skills of linguists Alfred Korzybski and Noam Chomsky, social anthropologist Gregory Bateson and psychotherapist Paul Watzlawick.

From those early days, the field of NLP exploded to encompass many disciplines in many countries around the world. We can’t possibly name all the great teachers and practitioners in NLP today.

In the 1980s, John Grinder became dissatisfied with some early coding work done in collaboration with Bandler, which he now refers to as Classic Code. Together with Judith DeLozier, he initiated some new models known as New Code (documented in his book Whispering in the Wind), and he continues this work with Carmen Bostic St. Clair.

So what’s next for NLP? The discipline has certainly travelled a long way from Santa Cruz in the 1970s, and the interest in NLP shows no sign of waning. So many more pioneers have picked up the story and taken it forward to make it more practical and help transform the lives of real people. The literature and applications of NLP are prolific, as any Google search demonstrates. Today you can find NLP applications among doctors and nurses, taxi drivers, salespeople, coaches, accountants, teachers, animal trainers, parents, workers, retired people and teenagers alike. Each generation takes the ideas that resonate in its field of interest, sifts and refines them, and chips in its own knowledge experiences. Much of the development of NLP today is around the applications rather than core models; people who are experts in one field incorporate NLP tools and take them into their own field. If NLP encourages new thinking and new choices and acknowledges the positive intention underlying all action, all we can say is that the future remains bright with possibilities. The rest is up to you.

A note on integrity

You may hear the words integrity and manipulation associated with NLP, and so we want to put the record straight now. You influence others all the time. When you do so consciously to get what you want, the question of integrity arises. Are you manipulating others to get what you want at their expense?

Therefore, when you’re in, for example, a selling situation, ask yourself a simple question: what is your positive intention for the other person (whether an individual or a company)? If your intention is good and to benefit the other party, you have integrity – a win-win situation. And if not, you’re manipulating. When you head for win-win, you’re on track for success. And as you know, what goes around comes around.

Encountering the Pillars of NLP: Straight Up and Straightforward

The first thing to understand is that NLP is about four things, known as the pillars of NLP (check out Figure 1-1). These four foundations of the subject can be described as follows:

check.png Rapport: How you build a relationship with others and with yourself is probably the most important gift that NLP gives you. Given the pace at which most humans live and work, one big lesson in rapport is how you can say ‘no’ to all the requests for your time and still retain friendships or professional relationships.

check.png Sensory awareness: Have you noticed how when you walk into someone else’s home the colours, sounds and smells are subtly different from yours? Or that a colleague looks worried when he talks about his job? Maybe you notice the colour of a night sky or the fresh green leaves as spring unfolds. Like the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, you begin to notice that your world is so much richer when you pay attention to all your senses.

check.png Outcome thinking: You’re going to hear the word outcome mentioned throughout this book. This term connects to beginning to think about what you want, instead of getting stuck in a negative problem mode of thinking. The principles of an outcome approach can help you make the best decisions and choices – whether that’s about what you’re going to do at the weekend, running an important project at work or finding out the true purpose of your life.

check.png Behavioural flexibility: This term means discovering how to do something different when what you’re currently doing isn’t working. Being flexible is key to practising NLP, and you can find tools and ideas for developing this aspect in every chapter. We help you find fresh perspectives and build these into your repertoire.

Figure 1-1: The four pillars of NLP.

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Here’s an example of what these four pillars may mean to you in an everyday event. Suppose that you order a software package by post to store all your names, addresses and phone numbers of friends or clients. You load it onto your computer, use it a few times and then mysteriously it stops working. A bug is in the system, but you’ve already invested many hours in the installation and entering all your contacts. You phone up the supplier and the customer service people are unhelpful to the point of rudeness.

You need to bring out all your skills in building rapport with the customer service manager before anyone listens to your complaint. You need to engage your senses – particularly your ears as you listen carefully to what the supplier says – and notice how to control your feelings and decide on your best response. You need to be very clear about your desired outcome – what do you want to happen after you make your complaint? For example, do you want a full refund or replacement software? And finally, you may need to be flexible in your behaviour and consider different options if you don’t achieve what you want the first time.

Discovering Models and Modelling

As we describe in the earlier section ‘Where NLP started and where it’s going’, NLP began as a model of how people communicate and grew out of studies of some great communicators. Therefore, the concept of models and modelling is at the heart of NLP.

The NLP premise begins as follows: if you can find someone who’s good at something, you can then model how that person does that thing and learn from them. You can discover how to model anyone you admire – top business leaders or sports personalities, the waitress at your favourite restaurant or your hugely energetic personal fitness trainer.

remember.eps NLP doesn’t change the world: it simply helps you change the way that you observe/perceive your world. NLP allows you to build a different or more detailed map that helps you to be more effective.

Modelling excellence is a theme much discussed in NLP, because so much of NLP is future-orientated and applied to creating change for the better – whether that’s a better qualified individual, a better quality of life or a better world for the next generation.

The NLP approach is that you learn best by finding someone else who already excels at whatever you want to learn. By modelling other people, you can break down your goal into its component parts. This perspective is empowering, and encourages you to convert large, overwhelming projects into lots of small ones and discover people who’ve already been there and can show you the way.

Introducing NLP Presuppositions

NLP presuppositions are no more than generalisations about the world that can prove useful to you when you act as if they’re true. In the following sections, we describe some of the presuppositions that we consider to be the most influential out of several that the founders of NLP developed.

The map is not the territory

One of the first presuppositions is that ‘the map is not the territory’. This statement was published in Science and Sanity in 1933 by Alfred Korzybski, a Polish engineer, philosopher and scientist. Korzybski was referring to the fact that you experience the world – the territory – through your senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste). You then take this external phenomenon and make an internal representation (IR) of it within your brain – the map.

This internal map that you create of the external world, shaped by your experiences, is never an exact replica of the map made by someone else perceiving the same surroundings as you. In other words, what’s outside can never be the same as what’s inside your brain.

Take the following analogy. If you ask a botanist what belladonna means, he may give you the Latin name for the plant and describe the flowers and slight scent while making a picture of the plant in his head. Whereas a homoeopath may explain its uses in treating certain symptoms and see a picture of a patient he treated. If you ask a murder-mystery writer about belladonna, he may say that it’s a poison.

Or try another analogy: if you’re driving in London, with your London street map, the ‘roads’ shown on the map are completely different from the roads you’re actually driving along. For a start, the tube stations you drive past are in three dimensions and in colour, whereas they are shown as a red circle with a blue line through it on the map.

remember.eps The point is that, depending on the context and someone’s background, different people make different IRs of the same thing.

Your senses bombard you with millions of different bits of information every second, yet your conscious mind can deal with only a handful of individual pieces at any given moment. As a result, an awful lot of information is filtered out. This filtration process is influenced by your values and beliefs, memories, decisions, experiences and your cultural and social background, to allow in only what your filters are tuned to receive.

People respond according to their map of the world

Like all humans, you respond in accordance with the map of the world you hold in your head. This map is based on what you believe about your identity and on your values and beliefs as well as your attitudes, memories and cultural background.

A child’s map of the world

A child’s map of the world can sometimes make an adult think again! This truth is neatly illustrated by the following delightful snippet.

A policeman was sitting in his police van with his canine partner when he noticed a little boy staring in at them. The boy asked if that was a dog in the van. The policeman confirmed that the other occupant of the van was indeed a dog. The little boy got extremely puzzled and asked, ‘What’s he done to get arrested?’

Sometimes, the map of the world from which one person operates may not make sense to you. However, a little understanding and tolerance can help to enrich your life.

There is no failure, only feedback

This presupposition is a very powerful one by which to live your life. Everyone makes mistakes and experiences setbacks. You have a choice between allowing yourself to be waylaid by your undesirable results or taking on-board the lessons that present themselves, dusting yourself off and having another shot at jumping the hurdle.

trythis.eps When you’re faced with ‘failure’, you can use this NLP presupposition to find the opportunities for growth by asking yourself some questions.

Think of something you ‘failed’ at and ask yourself:

check.png What am I aiming to achieve?

check.png What have I achieved so far?

check.png What feedback have I had?

check.png What lessons have I learned?

check.png How can I put the lessons to positive use?

check.png How am I going to measure my success?

Then pick yourself up and have another go!

The meaning of the communication is the response it elicits

No matter how honourable the intentions of your communications, the success of the interaction depends on how the listener receives the message, and not on what you intend. In other words, the response that your words elicit is the meaning of your communication.

This presupposition is another very powerful assumption about communication: it places the onus of responsibility for getting your message across squarely at your door, as the communicator. When you adopt this presupposition, you can no longer blame the other person for any misunderstandings. If the response you get isn’t what you expected, then, as a student of NLP, you have the tools to use your senses to realise that the other person is missing the point. You also have the flexibility to do things differently, through your behaviour and your words.

If what you’re doing isn’t working, do something different

This presupposition is so simple, yet you don’t always modify your behaviour when things don’t go as you want. After all, wandering through life wishing change on other people is easier, and you get to enjoy all the angst from thinking those horrible thoughts about someone else!

Remember that not everyone has your internal resources; the very fact that you’re reading this book means that you’re showing initiative in making changes in your life. We suggest that you’re going to expend a lot less energy in changing yourself than struggling to have other people conform to your ideals.

You can’t not communicate

Have you ever smiled at someone and said something really polite, but been thinking, ‘Just drop dead’? No? Just as well, because we bet that the way you held your body or gritted your teeth didn’t fool anyone. We’re sure that if the person on the receiving end of the message had studied NLP, or even had some sensory acuity, he would have detected the lack of warmth in your eyes, the grimace in your smile or the snarl in your voice. So even though you didn’t say ‘drop dead’, you were still communicating that message.

This fact is shown in a fascinating study, pioneered by Professor Albert Mehrabian. This research established that, when talking about feelings and attitudes – particularly when a discrepancy exists between body language and the words being used – what you say has a very small impact compared with the tone you use and how you hold your body. Other studies have subsequently suggested that the influences, in percentage terms, are as follows:

check.png Verbal (the words you say): 7 per cent

check.png Tonality (how you speak): 38 per cent

check.png Physiology (your body language): 55 per cent

Individuals have all the resources they need to achieve their desired outcomes

We love this presupposition because it’s so positive! This phrase means that everyone has the potential to develop and grow. The important point to make here is that you may not have all the internal resources you need, but you do have the necessary internal resources to acquire new internal and external resources.

The mind and body are interlinked and affect each other

Holistic medicine works on the premise that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. In order to maintain a healthy human being, a doctor needs to do more than just suppress the symptoms. He has to examine the mind and body and treat both together.

Recent research on emotion at the cellular level in the body shows just how integrated the mind–body connection is. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit impulses along your nerves. They are the means by which your brain communicates with the rest of your body. Each thought you think reaches the farthest cell in your body via neurotransmitters.

In addition, further research has discovered that the same neurotransmitters that are found in the brain can also be produced by your internal organs. So the idea that messages are initiated and transmitted one-way only along the neurons is no longer true; these messages can be initiated and transmitted by your organs as well. Dr Candace Pert, formerly of the National Institute of Mental Health, refers to the bodymind – the mind and body working as an integrated whole, because at the level of the neurotransmitter no separation exists between the mind and the body.

Final words on presuppositions: Suck them and see

tip.eps One great way to increase your understanding of NLP is to explore your basic assumptions, or presuppositions, about life. Whatever you currently think about different people and problems, how you communicate and what’s important, sometimes taking a new perspective can help by triggering new actions or behaviour.

remember.eps No correct response exists to any of these presuppositions. As you get a flavour of each one in turn, consider it carefully. You don’t have to agree with them all. You can simply try them on for size and see, hear and feel what happens.

Chapter 2

Understanding Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

In This Chapter

arrow Defining CBT

arrow Understanding how your thoughts lead to emotions and behaviours

arrow Getting acquainted with the ABC formula

arrow Looking at key CBT characteristics

Cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, is growing in popularity as an efficient and long-lasting treatment for many different types of psychological problem. If the word ‘psychological’ sends you running from the room screaming, try to consider the term as referring to problems that affect your emotional rather than your physical sense of wellbeing. At some point in your life, something’s going to go a bit wrong with your body. So why on earth do humans assume that their minds and emotions should be above the odd hiccup, upset or even more serious difficulty?

This book gives you a comprehensive introduction to the theory and application of CBT techniques. Although we don’t have the space to go into nitty-gritty specifics about how to use CBT to overcome every type of emotional or psychological problem, we do try to lead you in a helpful direction. We believe all the CBT principles and strategies outlined in this book can improve your life and help you to stay healthy, regardless of whether you’ve worked with or are currently working with a psychiatrist or other psychological professional.

In addition, whether you think your problems are minimal, you’re living the life of Riley, you feel mildly depressed or you’ve had years of uncomfortable psychological symptoms, CBT can help you. We ask you to be open-minded and to use the stuff in this book to make your life better and fuller.

Cognitive behavioural therapy – more commonly referred to as CBT – focuses on the way people think and act to help them with their emotional and behavioural problems.

Many of the effective CBT practices we discuss should seem like every-day good sense. In our opinion, CBT does have some very straightforward and clear principles and is a largely sensible and practical approach to helping people overcome problems. However, human beings don’t always act according to sensible principles, and most people find that simple solutions can be very difficult to put into practice sometimes. CBT can maximise your common sense and help you to do the healthy things that you may sometimes do naturally and unthinkingly in a deliberate and self-enhancing way on a regular basis.

In this chapter we take you through the basic principles of CBT and show you how to use these principles to better understand yourself and your problems.

Understanding CBT

Cognitive behavioural therapy is a school of psychotherapy that aims to help people overcome their emotional problems.

check.png Cognitive means mental processes like thinking. The word ‘cognitive’ refers to everything that goes on in your mind, including dreams, memories, images, thoughts and attention.

check.png Behaviour refers to everything that you do. This includes what you say, how you try to solve problems, how you act and avoidance. Behaviour refers to both action and inaction, for example, biting your tongue rather than speaking your mind is still a behaviour, even though you are trying not to do something.

check.png Therapy is a word used to describe a systematic approach to combating a problem, illness or irregular condition.

A central concept in CBT is that you feel the way you think. Therefore, CBT works on the principle that you can live more happily and productively if you’re thinking in healthy ways. This principle is a very simple way of summing up CBT, and we have many more details to share with you later in Book III.

Combining science, philosophy and behaviour

CBT is a powerful treatment because it combines scientific, philosophical and behavioural aspects into one comprehensive approach to understanding and overcoming common psychological problems.

check.png Getting scientific. CBT is scientific not only in the sense that it has been tested and developed through numerous scientific studies, but also in the sense that it encourages clients to become more like scientists. For example, during CBT, you may develop the ability to treat your thoughts as theories and hunches about reality to be tested (what scientists call hypotheses), rather than as facts.

check.png Getting philosophical. CBT recognises that people hold values and beliefs about themselves, the world and other people. One of the aims of CBT is to help people develop flexible, non-extreme and self-helping beliefs that help them adapt to reality and pursue their goals.

remember.eps Your problems are not all just in your mind. Although CBT places great emphasis on thoughts and behaviour as powerful areas to target for change and development, it also places your thoughts and behaviours within a context. CBT recognises that you’re influenced by what’s going on around you and that your environment makes a contribution towards the way you think, feel and act. However, CBT maintains that you can make a difference to the way you feel by changing unhelpful ways of thinking and behaving – even if you can’t change your environment. Incidentally, your environment in the context of CBT includes other people and the way they behave towards you. Your living situation, workplace dynamics or financial concerns are also features of your larger environment.

check.png Getting active. As the name suggests, CBT also strongly emphasises behaviour. Many CBT techniques involve changing the way you think and feel by modifying the way you behave. Examples include gradually becoming more active if you’re depressed and lethargic, or facing your fears step by step if you’re anxious. CBT also places emphasis on mental behaviours, such as worrying and where you focus your attention.

Progressing from problems to goals

A defining characteristic of CBT is that it gives you the tools to develop a focused approach. CBT aims to help you move from defined emotional and behavioural problems towards your goals of how you’d like to feel and behave. Thus, CBT is a goal-directed, systematic, problem-solving approach to emotional problems.

Making the Thought–Feeling Link

Like many people, you may assume that if something happens to you, the event makes you feel a certain way. For example, if your partner treats you inconsiderately, you may conclude that she makes you angry. You may further deduce that their inconsiderate behaviour makes you behave in a particular manner, such as sulking or refusing to speak to her for hours (possibly even days; people can sulk for a very long time!). We illustrate this common (but incorrect) causal relationship with the following formula. In this equation, the A stands for a real or actual event – such as being rejected or losing your job. It also stands for an activating event that may or may not have happened. It could be a prediction about the future, such as ‘I’m going to get the sack’, or a memory of a past rejection, such as ‘Hilary will dump me just like Judith did ten years ago!’. C stands for consequence, which means the way you feel and behave in response to an actual or activating event.

A (actual or activating event) = C (emotional and behavioural consequence)

CBT encourages you to understand that your thinking or beliefs lie between the event and your ultimate feelings and actions. Your thoughts, beliefs and the meanings that you give to an event produce your emotional and behavioural responses.

So in CBT terms, your partner does not make you angry and sulky. Rather, your partner behaves inconsiderately, and you assign a meaning to her behaviour such as ‘she’s doing this deliberately to upset me and she absolutely should not do this!’ thus making yourself angry and sulky. In the next formula, B stands for your beliefs about the event and the meanings you give to it.

A (actual or activating event) + B (beliefs and meanings about the event) = C (emotional and behavioural consequence)

This is the formula or equation that CBT uses to make sense of your emotional problems.

Emphasising the meanings you attach to events

The meaning you attach to any sort of event influences the emotional responses you have to that event. Positive events normally lead to positive feelings of happiness or excitement, whereas negative events typically lead to negative feelings like sadness or anxiety.

However, the meanings you attach to certain types of negative events may not be wholly accurate, realistic or helpful. Sometimes, your thinking may lead you to assign extreme meanings to events, leaving you feeling disturbed.

jargonalert.eps Psychologists use the word ‘disturbed’ to describe emotional responses that are unhelpful and cause significant discomfort to you. In CBT terminology, disturbed means that an emotional or behavioural response is hindering rather than helping you to adapt and cope with a negative event.

For example, if a potential girlfriend rejects you after the first date (event), you may think ‘This proves I’m unlikeable and undesirable’ (meaning) and feel depressed (emotion).

CBT involves identifying thoughts, beliefs and meanings that are activated when you’re feeling emotionally disturbed. If you assign less extreme, more helpful, more accurate meanings to negative events, you are likely to experience less extreme, less disturbing emotional and behavioural responses.

Thus, on being rejected after the first date (event), you could think ‘I guess that person didn’t like me that much; oh well – she’s not the one for me’ (meaning), and feel disappointment (emotion).

tip.eps You can help yourself to figure out whether or not the meanings you’re giving to a specific negative event are causing you disturbance by answering the following questions:

check.png Is the meaning I’m giving to this event unduly extreme? Am I taking a fairly simple event and deriving very harsh conclusions about myself (others and/or the future) from it?

check.png Am I drawing global conclusions from this singular event? Am I deciding that this one event defines me totally? Or that this specific situation indicates the course of my entire future?

check.png Is the meaning I’m assigning to this event loaded against me? Does this meaning lead me to feel better or worse about myself? Is it spurring me on to further goal-directed action or leading me to give in and curl up?

If your answer to these questions is largely ‘yes’, then you probably are disturbing yourself needlessly about a negative event. The situation may well be negative, but your thinking is making it even worse. In Book III, we guide you toward correcting disturbance-creating thinking and help you to feel appropriate distress instead.

Acting out

The ways you think and feel also largely determine the way you act. If you feel depressed, you’re likely to withdraw and isolate yourself. If you’re anxious, you may avoid situations that you find threatening or dangerous. Your behaviours can be problematic for you in many ways, such as the following:

check.png Self-destructive behaviours, such as excessive drinking or using drugs to quell anxiety, can cause direct physical harm.

check.png Isolating and mood-depressing behaviours, such as staying in bed all day or not seeing your friends, increase your sense of isolation and maintain your low mood.

check.png Avoidance behaviours, such as avoiding situations you perceive as threatening (attending a social outing, using a lift, speaking in public), deprive you of the opportunity to confront and overcome your fears.

Learning Your ABCs

When you start to get an understanding of your emotional difficulties, CBT encourages you to break down a specific problem you have using the ABC format, in which:

check.png A is the activating event. An activating event means a real external event that has occurred, a future event that you anticipate occurring or an internal event in your mind, such as an image, memory or dream.

jargonalert.eps The A is often referred to as your trigger.

check.png B is your beliefs. Your beliefs include your thoughts, your personal rules, the demands you make (on yourself, the world and other people) and the meanings that you attach to external and internal events.

check.png C is the consequences. Consequences include your emotions, behaviours and physical sensations that accompany different emotions.

Figure 2-1 shows the ABC parts of a problem in picture form.

Writing down your problem in ABC form – a central CBT technique – helps you differentiate between your thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and the trigger event. We give more information about the ABC form in Book III Chapter 1, and you can find blank ABC forms in the Appendix.

Figure 2-1: A is the activating event, B is your beliefs and thoughts, and C is the conse-quences, such as the emotions you feel after the event, and your subsequent behaviour.

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Consider the ABC formulations of two common emotional problems, anxiety and depression. The ABC of anxiety may look like this:

check.png A: You imagine failing a job interview.

check.png B: You believe: ‘I’ve got to make sure that I don’t mess up this interview, otherwise I’ll prove that I’m a failure.’

check.png C: You experience anxiety (emotion), butterflies in your stomach (physical sensation) and drinking to calm your nerves (behaviour).

The ABC of depression may look like this:

check.png A: You fail a job interview.

check.png B: You believe: ‘I should’ve done better. This means that I’m a failure!’

check.png C: You experience depression (emotion), loss of appetite (physical sensation) and staying in bed and avoiding the outside world (behaviour).

You can use these examples to guide you when you are filling in an ABC form on your own problems. Doing so will help ensure that you record the actual facts of the event under A, your thoughts about the event under B and how you feel and act under C. Developing a really clear ABC of your problem can make it much easier for you to realise how your thoughts at B lead to your emotional/behavioural responses at C.

Characterising CBT

We give a much fuller description of the principles and practical applications of CBT in Book III. However, here’s a quick reference list of key characteristics of CBT. CBT:

check.png Emphasises the role of the personal meanings that you give to events in determining your emotional responses.

check.png Was developed through extensive scientific evaluation.

check.png Focuses more on how your problems are being maintained rather than on searching for a single root cause of the problem.

check.png Offers practical advice and tools for overcoming common emotional problems.

check.png Holds the view that you can change and develop by thinking things through and by trying out new ideas and strategies.

check.png Can address material from your past if doing so can help you to understand and change the way that you’re thinking and acting now.

check.png Shows you that some of the strategies you’re using to cope with your emotional problems are actually maintaining those problems.

check.png Strives to normalise your emotions, physical sensations and thoughts rather than to persuade you that they’re clues to hidden problems.

check.png Recognises that you may develop emotional problems about your emotional problems, for example, feeling ashamed about being depressed.

check.png Highlights learning techniques and maximises self-help so that ultimately you can become your own therapist.

Getting complicated

Sticking to the simple ABC formulation in which A+B=C can serve you well. But if that seems a little simplistic, you can consider the more complicated formulations shown here:

This diagram shows the complex interaction between your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Although your thoughts affect how you feel, your feelings also affect your thinking. So, if you’re having depressed thoughts, your mood is likely to be low. The lower your mood, the more likely you are to act in a depressed manner and to think pessimistically. The combination of feeling depressed, thinking pessimistically and acting in a depressed manner can, ultimately, influence the way you see your personal world. You may focus on negative events in your life and the world in general and therefore accumulate more negative As. This interaction between A, B and C can become a vicious circle.

CBT pays a lot of attention to changing both unhealthy thinking patterns and unhealthy patterns of behaviour.

9781119962649-sb010201.eps

Chapter 3

Examining Confidence

In This Chapter

arrow Identifying the key ingredients of confidence

arrow Rating yourself on the confidence indicators

arrow Celebrating your good points

arrow Visualising the super-confident new you

arrow Getting started on changing

Welcome to the start of your confidence-building programme. Having you on board for what we promise will be a wonderful and transformational journey is great. With confidence comes more fun, freedom and opportunities to do what really works for you.

In this chapter, we lay the foundations for our travels together, starting with some definitions of confidence and a practical nuts-and-bolts assessment of where you are today.

Defining Confidence

When asked to think what confidence means, most people have a feel for it, but find it quite difficult to tie down precisely. After all, confidence is not some miracle pill or wonder food you can buy in a shop.

Before you dive into reading about how to be more confident, we invite you to explore the definition of confidence. A good dictionary provides at least three definitions for confidence, and understanding each aspect is important as muddling them is easy:

check.png Self-assuredness: This relates to your confidence in your ability to perform to a certain standard.

check.png Belief in the ability of other people: This definition focuses on how you expect others to behave in a trustworthy or competent way.

check.png Keeping certain information secret or restricted to a few people: This definition concerns the idea of keeping a confidence.

We think an even better definition exists. One that’s more useful to you in everyday life. One that’s true no matter how tough a situation you face, or how comfortable you feel about it. Our definition:

At its heart, confidence is the ability to take appropriate and effective action in any situation, however challenging it appears to you or others.

remember.eps Confidence is not about feeling good inside, although it’s a bonus if you do.

What it is in practice

Now, how does confidence show up in daily life? Well, have you ever started something – perhaps an exercise session or presentation at work – even though you didn’t feel like doing it at that moment, only to find that after you got going, you started to feel okay about it and even glad you tackled it? This kind of shift in how you experience a situation gives you a taste of what confidence is in practice. It is your ability to reach beyond how you are feeling in the moment in order to take action that leads to the outcome you want.

How it feels

Don’t worry about whether you feel comfortable performing a challenging activity or are fully relaxed about the action you are taking. Confident people are okay with the feeling of not knowing all the answers. Phew, what a relief. Confidence is just the feeling that everything will be okay.

The sense of feeling confident inside comes with increased practice and familiarity with what you do. You can also create it from your life experiences and bring it out when you need it. This doesn’t mean that you won’t ever feel scared. You will, but the good news is that you’ll be able to live with the fear.

Here are some ways that you can recognise confidence in yourself:

check.png You feel poised and balanced.

check.png You are breathing easily.

check.png You are moving towards a goal or action with a sense of purpose.

check.png You are being proactive rather than defensive.

check.png You know that you can deal with whatever life throws at you, even if you can’t control it.

check.png You can laugh at yourself.

check.png You know everything will be all right in the end, however long it takes.

Assessing Your Confidence

Any measure of confidence is by its nature pretty subjective. Other people may form an opinion about how confident you are based on your outside appearance and actions, but only you can know for sure what you feel like on the inside – what you believe to be true, and what being you is like. 

In this section, we invite you to make your own assessment of where your confidence level is today.

Your confidence level is different according to the time and place. If you think back ten years to a younger you, you probably realise that your confidence has grown since then according to the experiences you’ve faced, knowing that you’ve lived to tell the tale. How confident you feel differs in various situations, and may well fluctuate from day to day and week to week according to what’s happening at work and at home. You may have areas where you’ve taken a risk, or suffered a loss, for example, and your confidence has dropped.

If you’ve been unwell and have taken on too much work, your confidence level may dip and wobble. Yet when you’re well and have a sense of completing your work, you may feel as if you can conquer the world. Think of your confidence as a pair of old-fashioned scales with a delicate balancing mechanism, and anything, even something feather-light, may tip it either way unexpectedly.

remember.eps Make change easy on yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We’re not going to suggest you go hang-gliding off a mountain-top today if standing on a stepladder gives you the collywobbles in your stomach. Allow yourself time and space to improve. Lots of smaller steps are often more realistic and maintainable compared to giant leaps for mankind.

Looking at indicators of confidence

We pinpoint ten core indicators of confidence that we explore in depth throughout this book. When you act with confidence, you are likely to have a good selection of these ten qualities:

check.png Direction and values: You know what you want, where you want to go and what’s really important to you.

check.png Motivation: You are motivated by and enjoy what you do. In fact, you’re likely to get so engrossed in what you’re doing that nothing distracts you.

check.png Emotional stability: You have a calm and focused approach to how you are yourself and how you are with other people as you tackle challenges. You notice difficult emotions such as anger and anxiety, but you work with them instead of letting them overcome you.

check.png A positive mind-set: You have the ability to stay optimistic and see the bright side even when you encounter setbacks. You hold positive regard for yourself as well as other people.

check.png Self-awareness: You know what you are good at, how capable you feel and how you look and sound to others. You also acknowledge that you are a human being, and you don’t expect to be perfect.

check.png Flexibility in behaviour: You adapt your behaviour according to circumstance. You can see the bigger picture as well as paying attention to details. You take other people’s views on board in making decisions.

check.png Eagerness to develop: You enjoy stretching yourself, treating each day as a learning experience, rather than acting as if you are already an expert with nothing new to find out. You take your discoveries to new experiences.

check.png Health and energy: You’re in touch with your body, respect it and have a sense that your energy is flowing freely. You manage stressful situations without becoming ill.

check.png A willingness to take risks: You have the ability to act in the face of uncertainty – and put yourself on the line even when you don’t have the answers or all the skills to get things right.

check.png A sense of purpose: You have an increasing sense of the coherence of the different parts of your life. You have chosen a theme or purpose for your life.

You can use these indicators to help figure out where you are stuck in life because you lack the confidence to move on. Moving out of that feels like escaping from treading in treacle.

Finding your place on the scale

The 20 statements in Table 3-1 relate to the indicators of confidence we laid out in the preceding section. Consider each and decide on the extent to which you agree or disagree using the five-point scale provided. Take the test as often as you like and keep a note of your developing profile.

tip.eps Do the evaluation now and make a note in your diary to come back and review it in, say, six months’ time and notice what you’ve learnt.

Completing this questionnaire provides you with a very simple stock-take of some of the main areas of your life affecting your confidence right now. If you answer the questions accurately, you can use specific chapters of this book to target the areas that merit your immediate attention.

remember.eps There are no right or wrong answers. If you answer as honestly as you can, you get a rounded view of how your confidence indicators stack up as you begin building your confidence through this book.

/Table Bk1Ch3-1a/Table Bk1Ch3-1b

Now, give yourself 5 points for every tick in the strongly agree column, 4 for every one in the agree column, 3 for neutral, 2 for disagree, and finally 1 for strongly disagree. Add up your points and check the next section for advice related to your total score. The second stage of the scoring process, in the following ‘Personal profile’ section, encourages you to determine which areas of your life are worthy of your immediate attention.

Overall rating

Find your total score in one of the following categories:

check.png 80–100: Congratulations! By any standards, you are what most people consider to be a confident person. You are clear on your priorities and are in positive pursuit of the life you want.

Take note of any areas where you scored below par and consider the advice in the ‘Personal profile’ section below.

check.png 60–80: Well done! You are already pretty confident in most situations. Just a few areas bring you down in the test and in your life. You can find plenty of guidance for dealing with these trouble spots in this book. Look at the advice in the next section to make the most rapid progress.

check.png 40–60: You are in the right place! You may be experiencing some confusion or uncertainty in your life right now, and you may wonder whether you can do anything about it. Give yourself time to work on the areas that need attention and you’ll be amazed by the progress you can make.

check.png 20–40: Full marks for honesty and courage! Your confidence may be at a low ebb right now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can find good advice that you can put to use on almost every page of this book. If you take our advice and act upon it, life transformation is possible.

Personal profile

After you score your questionnaire and read the relevant advice in the preceding section, take another look at your scoring and note the areas that brought your overall score down. Look at statements you most strongly disagreed with. If you scored high on most questions, look at the statements with which you find yourself unable to strongly agree.

tip.eps This simple exercise is designed to give you a quick start and an immediate agenda for improvement. You can use the test to monitor your growing confidence. However, if you want a more detailed analysis, go to our website at www.yourmostconfidentself.com.

Recognising Your Strengths

Mark Twain said that each one of us has the substance within to achieve whatever our goals and dreams define. What we are missing is the wisdom and insight to use what we already have.

A key aspect of confident people is that they have high self-esteem – they hold themselves in positive self-regard. This means that they know how to love themselves and that they acknowledge what they’re good at. These realisations boost their resilience and ability to take on greater challenges.

Building confidence begins with going with your strengths. If you’re great at music, don’t beat yourself up because you’re not going to play international rugby. Pat yourself on the back, practise accepting compliments for everything you do well and enjoy the positive reinforcement from others. Respect and honour yourself, and you find that you get respect and honour from those around you.

remember.eps For confidence to thrive and grow, you must concentrate your attention on what you’re good at, instead of trying to turn yourself into something that you’re not.

Celebrating your own talents first

Everybody has different interests and skills. (Thank goodness for that!) So, your first step in developing confidence is to decide what you’re really good at and build on it. Recognise your qualities and build up your talent store by using the worksheet in Table 3-2 to list some of the things you think you’re good at, both at work and in your home life. Record during what period of your life you best put those skills and talents to use.

Now, fill out Table 3-2 with your own strengths and talents.

Table 3-2 Strengths Worksheet

Decide which of these talents you’d like to make more of and what action you can take to sponsor and encourage each of your useful talents.

Gathering feedback

Getting feedback from others is a powerful shortcut to building your confidence. Apart from performance reviews at work, you may not be in the habit of asking people to give you feedback on how you’re doing, and you may be amazed at what you learn about yourself by doing so. Quite often people don’t recognise what they do well. ‘Isn’t everyone good at that?’ they ask. Most people are their own worst critics, and receiving positive feedback from your nearest and dearest can be a wonderful experience. Having that outside view from another person may help you notice what you excel at and uncover some hidden talents.

trythis.eps Ask six people who have known you a while if they’d be prepared to give you some feedback about yourself. Choose people who represent the different groups in which you mix, including family members, friends, work colleagues and those who know you from your interests in the community, church or a sports club. Ask each of them these questions:

check.png What am I good at?

check.png When have you seen me operate at my best?

check.png What should I do more of?

check.png What should I do less of?

check.png What can you rely on me for?

check.png Where do you think I can stretch myself?

After collecting feedback, look for the common trends and themes and think of ways to build them into your goals and development plans. If a number of people tell you similar things, take note. (The odd negative comment from your nearest and dearest may be less helpful and more about their needs than yours – test it out.) Your attention then needs to be on working with the good stuff, stretching yourself and letting go of the rest. For example, if you have a particular talent, look for ways to tell others about it and use it more. Consider delegating or changing the things people suggest you should do less of.

Picturing the Life You’d Like to Lead

Confidence is almost all about perception. Very few people are wholly confident in every area of their lives. Those who appear to be so are probably good at acting – with themselves as the audience.

Imagine having a Ph.D. in Confidence. Think about how your life would be different if you had studied the subject, taken the lessons on board and were supremely confident, firing on all cylinders.

trythis.eps Find yourself a quiet place to sit and contemplate for ten minutes. Picture yourself with your newfound super-confidence. Think of a real-life time coming up in your calendar where you’d like to be supremely confident in that ‘I can conquer the world’ quality. And start to notice . . .

check.png Where are you and who is with you?

check.png What are you doing?

check.png What skills and talents do you have now?

check.png What are your thoughts and feelings?

check.png What’s really important to you about this newfound confidence?

check.png What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Adjust the picture so that it feels right for you. Hold the picture in your mind and savour it so that you can recall it whenever you want to.

tip.eps Visualisation involves focusing your thoughts on the things you want to happen in your life and picturing them happening. Although it’s a simple mental discipline, it can have dramatic effects. It’s a powerful motivational tool that can help you take your confidence sky-high.

Paying attention to what matters

As you become more confident, you start paying more attention to what’s important to you in life instead of bowing to the pressures that those around you place on you. By the time you have read this book, we expect you to know very clearly what’s important for you and where you’re going to choose to put your time and energy going forward. 

Start now by answering one simple question: What really matters to you in your life right now? For example, do you want a loving partner or family around you, a successful career or perhaps your health is your top priority? You may be working towards a very specific goal such as running a marathon or getting married.

Write your answer down and make this the priority for your confidence- building muscles.

Uncovering your confidence

You may still be curious as to what kind of confident person you can be at your best. This is a question that even the most experienced, capable chief executives and media personalities ask themselves regularly. Successful people stretch themselves.

You have enormous potential limited only by yourself. And it’s up to you to realise it. Gandhi had to overcome acute shyness to take on injustice in the world and free his people. And the more you connect with what is important to you, the more you become true to your most confident self.

Not everyone wants or needs to be an international leader on the world stage, but you can see yourself as a leader in your own world. You can lead by your example. Look back over time to things that you may take for granted. You have learnt to ride a bike or drive a car, to operate a computer or renovate your house. As your skills and competence grow, so you become more confident to take on bigger challenges. Something that seemed hard five years ago may be a piece of cake today.

You are important in this world and have a real contribution to make. Support, mentoring and personal sponsorship of various types can help you to be the very best you can be. Begin by assuming you are going to be successful and surround yourself with people who honour you and support your growth. 

So who are you really? The ‘you’ that you want to become is up to you, as you find out when you follow your own direction.

In the words of Gandhi: ‘You must be the change you wish to see in the world.’

Preparing for Action

When are you going to get started? You agree, we hope, that there’s no time like the present. Confidence starts here and now. Yes, that means today. Not on Monday morning after the excesses of the weekend.

Getting your confident self fired up means adopting a new, positive mind-set and getting rid of any doubts you have. So before you set off on the journey, first ask