The Voice in Your Head

For several months I have been working with Bucks. New University as a trainer and coach on their Graduate Internship Scheme. I have trained over 100 graduates in Employability Skills and coached many of them on issues of lack of confidence and self esteem.
It seems to me that lack of confidence and self esteem are issues that many of us have and that our thoughts, if we let them, can gradually lead us into a powerless state as we start to believe our own self talk of how we are not as good as others or worthy to get a job or new account or whatever we are looking to achieve.

How we reach the stage of such damaging self talk is probably not important, instead what is important is what we are going to do to keep us in touch with reality. We can draw upon two great overarching models here to help us fight off our darkest thoughts, one is from Transactional Analysis and the other Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).

Starting with Transactional Analysis and the model of I’m OK, You’re OK which is a very simple model to understand but perhaps more complicated to achieve. For more information on this model most TA books cover it in detail.. All we need to do is act as if we believe this concept which is based on respecting yourself whilst equally respecting others and we then influence our behaviour appropriately. So constantly reminding ourselves at times of self doubt of the two little words “plus plus” (++) really works.

“Act as if” is a maxim from NLP, it doesn’t matter whether you feel confident just “act as if” you are confident, as only you will know you are not feeling confident and then through your actions you will become confident. Having an anchor for confidence I think is also a great help at times and using the Circle of Excellence with an additional anchor is a great boost for confidence.
If we go right back to the presuppositions of NLP I think these can be a positive thought source for us when we are embarking on what we might feel as scary territory. Of the 13 presuppositions there are quite a few that have relevance to us at times of self doubt:

 We already possess the resources we need or we can create them.
 People make the best choice they can at the time, given their Map of the World.
 People work perfectly, none of us is broken. We execute our strategies perfectly it’s just that sometimes our strategies might not be the best ones for us.
 Every behaviour has a positive intention.
 All actions have a purpose.
 If what you are doing isn’t working then do something else.
 Modelling successful performance leads to excellence.

To read more about NLP, it’s presuppositions and other elements that help us to be more effective there are two books that are easy reading and comprehensive, one is Sue Knight’s new book "Working with NLP" and the other is Joseph O’Connor’s "The NLP Workbook." We also use NLP on most of our workshops where we think it offers an insight into helping us to be the best that we can be. Plus we run a workshop called Getting Started with NLP and following this another called Moving Forward with NLP - for more information just send an email to susan.lock@keycon.co.uk

Remember your life starts in your mind so use it wisely.

All best wishes to you.
Sue Lock
July 2010