We have been looking at confidence building over the last few weeks, today we explore this a bit more by looking at how strong or fragile true confidence should be. Finding a balance in who we are and how we interact with people is essential in building our own inner safety and security. Having that inner safety and security is the key to a happy relaxed life, as we don’t have to second guess ourselves, we just know all is ok as we stand calm and relaxed in our own power, it is a great place to be. If we have spent a lot of time not speaking out for ourselves and feeling we haven’t been heard then sometimes we can go to the other end of the spectrum and overdo it a bit. Our confidence needs to be balanced and we have to accept that sometimes other people may not be listening to us. If this is the case then we need to know that keeping going and going with these people won’t normally get them to hear us, it often then pushes us to over react in the process of trying be heard.
If we get to that point then we are like hail and we are pummelling our words at them and often as I said these people will still not listen to us. In the perfect world everyone would respect each other and we would respond accordingly in every situation, but let’s be honest we live in a far from perfect world. This being the case then we have to learn to stay strong even in those challenging situations, we can’t become too hard like hail or too soft like a snowflake. When we lack confidence, we can be like a snowflake we can just about get what we want to say over, but before people have had full time to absorb this it’s just melted away as we are not saying it with substance or clarity. The other extremes of this is the hail, where we batter the person with our hard words which land on them with force and often can just make people retreat, avoid or get angry with us. If this happens then our whole point will get lost and all the other person is thinking about is how you delivered this to them IE the barrage of hail, all the good intentions of your point you were trying to get across are lost. But the same can be said with the snowflake response, we are too soft over our point that we are trying to put across, that the true essence of what we are trying to say just melts away. Maybe we want to leave earlier to go somewhere with a friend and instead of saying could we leave a bit earlier, we say maybe we could leave a bit earlier, the weather might be bad, we could get lost and arrive late. At this point your desire to leave earlier is lost, the other person might say I have checked the route and weather and all is ok, at this point what can you say? Not much really and you end up not leaving any earlier.
If we are not prepared to put ourselves out there in a strong enough way then we won’t be heard, not normally because people don’t want to hear us but because we are not strong in our language. What we could say is can we leave earlier as I always like to arrive 15 minutes earlier so I can get myself sorted, or I don’t like being late it stresses me out and I would rather arrive a little earlier instead. These messages are clear and your answers you will receive back from people will be clear too, don’t be the snowflake when you ask for things, as your needs most often won’t be met. Unless you’re talking to another snowflake and they might say, oh I am sorry have I got the leaving time wrong, I must have put it in wrong postcode in the app, it must be my fault. Again, this person is dissolving and not staying strong, as they are taking on the responsibility of something they don’t need to hold. But the hail person would be, I have to leave at this time, they would demand it without even softening how they communicate this to you.
It’s time to find the balance, to be strong yet soft in your delivery of things and to be able to put yourself out there for your needs to be met. We all have to accept things aren’t always going to go our way, that’s life and compromise is essential to find true balance. But too hard or too soft just won’t work in what you’re looking to achieve. Self-assured people are both hard and soft and can ask for what they want in a calm, respectful way. Don’t be scared to put yourself out there and be true to why you need this, if we don’t, then how can people truly understand us. Being confident is about feeling safe to be who we are and that of course can be our vulnerable sides or the parts of ourselves which are a work in progress. There’s no need to worry about showing these more vulnerable sides as being confident doesn’t mean we are perfect at everything we do. Being confidence means we can accept the things we are working on, but we are able to be honest and honour who we are, not only to ourselves, but to other as well.
If you have something important you need to say, why not just think it through first and even put pen to paper with it. Think about the hail and snowflake analogy and look for the middle ground in how you can put this across. Often reading things back can help us see things more clearly as our mind is only used to doing these things in our heads, so reading will be activating a different part of your mind. This will allow the more rational and confident sides of yourself to help you find the right way to deliver this. Over time, as your confidence grows, this will become more natural and easier for you to do.
Practice makes perfect so keep up challenging yourself and you will surprise yourself in just how much your confidence will grow over time.
Thanks for dropping by Sara x
HYPNOSARA 