How to build self-confidence in order to be more assertive?

A common challenge many of us face in the daily grind is the ability to be assertive. There is a trepidation about moving forward and speaking up.  In the moment when we feel we want to speak up we instead tend to choke-up.  Many of us have become very adept at convincing ourselves to back-down and close-down.

This may play out when we need to have a difficult conversation with a colleague; when we feel it's time to give corrective feedback to a direct-report; when we want to speak up during a meeting to share our opinion; and a whole host of other situations. When it is time to step-up, we politely bow our heads and step-down.  It is only afterwards when the window of opportunity is closed that we kick and berate ourselves and quietly promise ourselves next time...

More than likely, although the situation will be different, the same elements will come into play and we will find ourselves hunkering down and clamming up.  This is a pattern that does not need to continue and can be broken.  Our lack of assertiveness can be due to a fear of conflict, upsetting people, looking stupid, feeling silly and so on.  Often you will find the common denominator to be a confidence issue.

Espen Bredesen's Playbook

Espen Bredesen is a world champion Norwegian ski jumper who competed actively from 1990 to 2000. Along with his list of accomplishments was winning gold and silver medals at the 1994 Winter Olympics at Lillehammer.  Ski jumping requires an individual to rocket themselves down a very steep incline, launching into the bright-blue air, while all the time believing that you will land intact and with some measure of grace at the base of the hill.  As you can imagine, confidence in one's abilities is paramount.

One of the techniques Espen Bredesen used when training was visualization.  The ability to use the full extent of his brain to not only visualize a competitive event, but to make it as visceral as possible - to completely immerse himself mentally in the situation.  The brain can not tell the difference between what is reality and what is imagined.  It is only the tiny aspect of our conscious mind that allows us to make this differentiation.

By visualizing himself at the top of the ski jump Espen Bredesen's brain actually thought it was happening.  The more detail he adds (i.e. the feel of the wind on his face, the tensing of his legs as he prepares, the colors and texture of his surroundings, the grip on his ski-poles etc.) the more real it seems to the brain. His confidence is high when the day of competition finally arrives and he finds himself at the top of the ski jump.  A large part of this is due to the fact that he had rehearsed so often in his brain that it laid down a well-worn neural pathway -  a strong sense of certainty of what was to be expected and what he needed to do.

Brain Skill One

We can take a lesson from Espen's play book.  One very effective tool is to visualize the meeting you are going to attend and the participants.  Run the meeting through the theater of your mind.  Who are the supporters and who are the antagonists? When might you have to share your opinion? How will you present yourself? As serious or informal? Add details and richness to the image.  When the actual time for the meeting arrives your confidence will be higher than if you had not gone though the visualization exercise.  With confidence comes a certain degree of assertiveness.

Brain Skill Two

A second technique is to reassess the pleasure and pain that you associate with being assertive.  Most times we will assign massive amounts of pain to speaking up and equal amounts of pleasure to staying timid and quiet.  The idea is to do a 180 on this.  That is, we need to reconfigure what we associate with pleasure and and what we associate with pain.

You can do this by articulating your thoughts on paper.  List the pleasure you will have by being assertive (e.g. I will feel confident; I will have contributed; I will feel I took the chance; people will know I have a voice and can speak up etc.)  Also you will want to list the pain you will have if you are not assertive (i.e. I will feel I've lost another opportunity; I will feel regret; I will have let another chance slip by to prove I can make a valuable contribution; people will start to question by value since I never seem to contribute etc.)

Brain Skill Three

A third technique is to simply search your memories for times when you were assertive and spoke up.  Keep your thinking on the lessons learned and the times when it paid off.  The simple act of recalling past events of past successes primes our brains for confidence and motivates us to be assertive.

Through visualizing how a meeting may play out; reconfiguring our pain and pleasure association; and reflecting on past wins has a significant affect on putting us into a confident and assertive mindset.

Curious?  Have questions?  Please visit me at MINDtalk