Archive for ‘Confidence’

December 2nd, 2009

Personal Development Singapore: Lonliness Disease?

I just read this while waiting at the airport for my flight to Jakarta:

“Participants are 52 per cent more likely to be lonely if a person to whom they are directly connected (at one degree of separation) is lonely,” the authors write.

At two degrees of separation, they were 25 per cent more likely to feel lonely. At three degrees it was 15 per cent and at four degrees the effect disappeared. This pattern – what the authors term the “three degrees of influence rule of social contagion” – also appeared in the obesity, smoking and happiness studies.

I think I’ve always known this to be true of many things other than just obesity, smoking and happiness. I believe that the social modeling instinct we are born with causes us to model the people and environment around us. Would you be surprised that millionaires hang around millionaires? Or that promiscuous people hang around other promiscuous people? Or depressed people mix more with depressed people than others?

After all, once you ‘learn’ this skill, you tend to have the capability to pass it on in your behavior and attitude, isn’t it?

We all have thought viruses. This points to one final conclusion – what are you interested in ‘catching’? Watch out for the people whom you hang around with!

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November 29th, 2009

Personal Development Singapore: Social Confidence

Ah, the wonders of the internet. After getting some mails, I find that many are concerned with the issue of social interaction, so I decided to discuss confidence in a social setting.

According to Carl Jung, we have two sides of our character – the introvert and the extravert. If you take this knowledge into account, you will begin to understand how social confidence is built.

Introversion-oriented people tend to stay in smaller groups, often speaking one-on-one with others and focusing a lot on their work related topics because that is what preoccupies them the most. Extraversion-oriented people will tend to speak randomly about a good number of things and often end up covering a broad number of topic areas in a social interaction.

If you are generally introversion oriented, it will mean you carry off a deeper conversation over a longer period of time in greater depth. However, it does not mean that you will be able to do this across all social situations, only people whom you are able to have some kind of connection with. Most introverts don’t feel comfortable in situations that dictate a broad number of discussion topics.

Generally, extraverts have a better capacity for socializing across different contexts. However, what’s the difference that makes the difference for them?

  1. Talking to think. Most of the time, extraverts say what is on their mind, and if they have a well-developed set of social skills, they will know what not to say so that they don’t just blather off everything they feel. This gives an illusion of spontaneity, but in reality, introverts are often not sure of the consequences when they share their inner thoughts.
  2. Connection with the outside world. Have you ever noticed that people who are introverts seldom, if ever, talk about their environment or the things that happen around them? To mimic what extraverts can do, you need to connect with the outside world and read broadly about things. When initiating contact with people, it’s easier to then pick a recent topic you’ve seen or read about that can create a shift in interest around you.
  3. Social awareness. This is a skill I picked up in my training as an NLP Trainer. If you are aware of what people need, who has been speaking or what has been of interest to others, you can start connecting other people and be the nexus of the party where people know you for knowing others. It’s not difficult to maintain awareness of others, as long as you are attentive to them, and truly interested in what they want to share (or at least, don’t ask about things you are not interested in listening to in the first place). If you need, you can even learn some memory skills to master the ability to remember people’s names  over the long term (which, I have mastered only to a certain level, I must admit).
  4. Emotional state flexibility. Ah, what would confidence be if it weren’t an emotional state you can control? Change the way you speak and carry yourself and you might find yourself being much better able to speak and interact with appropriate emotion. After all, you want to blend in with the emotion at hand. If people are all serious and you’re clowning away, you’ll be as out of place as a person in a situation that is humorous and you’re just serious.

Ok! There I have it – my top 4, from a very much psychological perspective. If there are further questions, let me know and I’ll furnish you with more answers where possible.

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November 27th, 2009

Personal Development Singapore: Confidence

Just recently, a fairly senior manager of a local company approached me and asked me a very surprising question. He asked how he could become more confident in front of his customers.

Now, mind you, this is a manager who has had over 12 years’ experience in the same industry. You would have thought he had the capability to achieve this by now! However, confidence is not just about a skill – it’s a state or a feeling that you need to experience.

So, what really goes on when you are not feeling confident? There’s a certain sense of uncertainty. You’re fearful that something might go wrong. Or, you start thinking of expectations that you can’t fulfill. Ultimately, it leads to a louder and louder nagging self-doubt which often messes up performance.

The simplest way to get rid of a confidence problem is to look beyond the problem. If you’re fearful of something, you’re likely to be afraid of the consequences and the embarrassment it might cause. What if it no longer caused you embarrassment but instead a way to learn from your experience in a fun and memorable manner?

Being in the public speaking industry, I’ve found quite a lot of opportunities to completely embarrass myself. You know, things that detract from the regular training style. You’re all well dressed, then you open up a marker that stains your clothes. Falling on stage! (luckily I haven’t actually done that yet) Or, you drop the marker cap, which jumps like a grasshopper across the room under your participants’ seats while you stoop down to grab it. Or perhaps you want to play a particular piece of music but the MP3 player was damaged… and the list goes on.

So, you’re afraid of approaching new people and speaking to them. Then, the best way to eradicate that fear is to do it, and find out the worst that could happen. Usually, nothing much does happen. The only thing then is to figure out what skill you’re missing. Can’t do the small talk? Can’t seem to fit the group? Well, it’s all about strategy, and you’ll have to open up yourself to more research.

What else might you know where people feel a lack of confidence? Post them here, maybe I could address them. :)

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