Psychology of Confidence

Confidence scientifically separates successful people from those who are not.

 

We are all fascinated by body language. I have often found myself searching pop psychology articles for hidden body language expressions that give insight into a person’s unconscious thinking. And in fairness, from people’s body language we do make sweeping inferences… Check this guy out for example -------->

 

 

 

 

 

Then this guy-------------------------------------------->

 

Who would you rather approach to ask for some change?

In the above examples you have made conscious decisions based on body language and expression. But, the problem is that in normal everyday life, we don’t react to body language at a conscious and aware level, instead we normally react to body language at an unconscious and unaware level.

It is one of the unconscious ways people will judge you. Studies show that it also has an impact on our chances for success (e.g. when being judged in social situations like an interview or meeting your partners parents).

Dr. Cuddy a lecturer from Harvard suggests that your body language shapes who you are. Simply, people make sweeping unconscious inferences based on your body language.

Coming back to confidence then.

How powerful and confident do these guys seem?--->

Not so much, this is because they are closed off, they have wrapped themselves up in insecurities because they (at some level) feel vulnerable. But the problem is that they are also communicating these feelings of insecurity to people around them, and they are unattractive traits which other people judge you by in social situations.

 

What about these guys now---------------------->

They are open and subjectively I feel they look confident.










This "V"sign ------------------------->
is also a sign of confidence and powerful celebration. Interestingly both blind and non-blind people do this in celebration. More than anything it demonstrates that body language is a form of communication we have evolutionarily inherited

 

Dr Cuddy, has demonstrated in scientific research studies that with confident body language, what she calls “power posing” (as we see in the pictures above) other people unconsciously view us in a positive manor. In a study conducted by Dr Cuddy, two groups of candidates approached an interview with contrasting body language.. The confident candidate always got hired (as you were expecting). However, what blows my mind, is that the confident candidate always got hired regardless of the person’s qualifications or experience. Simply, the power posing body language gave off the impression of passion and enthusiasm and interviewers found them captivating, comfortable, authentic and confident.

So is that it then? Just fake it? Fake your insecurities by blanketing them with positive and confident body language in social situations forever? Fake it till you make it? I personally feel that presenting myself in this way continuously would make me feel like a fraud. However, this is where Cuddy’s study excels. Dr Cuddy established that your body language shapes who you are. She demonstrated that “power posing” -- standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident affects our testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain (the brain chemistry that is associated with confidence and success) and actually makes us feel confident. What we are getting at here, is that by deliberately positioning our bodies in certain ways, our bodies can actually change our brain chemistry like an ordinary pill/tablet would. It changes our brain chemistry to make us feel more confident.

 This new way of positioning yourself is like training. It takes practice. Truth be told I tried it out for an assistant psychologist interview I had. This is going to sound really weird, but I was so nervous and felt that I had no chance of getting the job and that I didn’t even have the skills or knowledge to do it. So what I did was, just before I was due to go into be interviewed I went to the toilet, locked myself in the room and power posed in front of a mirror. Crazily, I started to feel more at ease, and comfortable in the fact that I could have a go at this interview…. I got the job and beat over 150 candidates for the position (most of whom I was told had more experience than me!).

This power posing is something I use each time I am nervous of a particular social interaction (e.g. meeting a girlfriends parents, or before giving a presentation). It’s made me feel a lot more comfortable in these situations. So I always feel better in myself. However, it’s other people saying that I look so confident all the time that really baffles me, because I still feel a little anxious. However this is diminishing the more I do it. And soon, with more practice and repetition, I know I will feel fully confident.

See Dr Cuddies TED talk here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc 

Components of Motivation Intensity

This is the second and last article on the components of motivation and concerns the final and most important concept regarding motivation..... “intensity”

As I mentioned in my last post, you will certainly never become successful in your chosen goal (whether that might be financial, sporting or relational) if you firstly don’t initiate a behaviour to achieve it (talk to that girl or enrol in that business management MBA). Secondly, when those initial feelings of motivation in achieving a goal dilute and become stale/boring, a person will the majority of the time give up or quit. However, separating the majority from the minority are those who can be persistent. These are the people that continue to go to the gym 4 days a week next month, the month after that, throughout the year and next year. They get results and usually achieve their goal.

However, if you want to be a highly successful person, and to further distance yourself from those who initiate a behaviour to achieve their goal; but more importantly reach a higher level than those who are persistent, you must have “intensity”. Another word for this final component of motivation is “productivity”.

A lot of people in the world search endlessly for some complex magical formula for why some people are successful and others are not. They look at themselves and think that their purposeful actions must be beneficial and they get frustrated when they don't see the results they want- and that successful people are getting. They always go to work, they work long hours and are persistent in achieving their goal when things get tough or boring. However a lot of the time they miss the most important ingredient of motivation- “intensity/productivity”. Here the idea is that, if you can consistently apply the most amount of effort to the best of your ability in the allocated time you have, your almost certain to be highly successful.

I guarantee that all of the most successful people in the world will tell you that time is the most precious and valuable commodity that exists. Time is a resource. But it is a resource like no other. You can't buy it, sell it, rent it or multiply it. All you can do is spend it.

And unlike other resources e.g. money, we all have the exact same amount of time. It's the only aspect of our lives where we are all truly equal. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes in a day.


And, the highly successful people of our world realize that they have an allotted time to perform a given task. Simply, they give it their absolute all in doing that task, no matter how small or large it is. They understand that going through the motions is the most disadvantageous thing, that you can do. It's not what you do, It's how you do it!


This is something that made sense to me during my Psychology MSc. Around half way into the year I was around 10^th out of 60 in my class regards academic achievement. But I couldn't understand how the students ahead of me were achieving higher marks than me in essays and exams. I was studying every hour god gave me. The students top of the class, while they put a solid amount of hours, were not making the same sacrifices I was making..... So one time whilst in the library, I spent 1 hour observing the guy who was top of the class. I quickly realised why he was top of the class. He was a fucking “machine”. He never took his eyes of his books. The concentration in his face was so intense it looked like he was in pain. He did everything so quickly yet effectively. He was so focused, that when a guy tripped over and fell flat about 10 meters away from him and the whole library burst into laughter, he never budged. I reckon he didn't even register it. He never checked Facebook, nor his phone, nor his email.... Within myself I then and there gracefully accepted his position in the class and internally thanked him for the lesson (he didn't know I was observing him).


“Intensity” is a highly difficult skill to acquire. I kept up the other two components of motivation (activation and persistence) throughout the year but “intensity” is something I couldn't and am still far from mastering. While I may have beat some really intelligent people in my MSc class thanks to the “machines” lesson and came 3^rd out of 60; The “machine” stayed top of the cohort. And I say well deserved.

Eric Thomas touched on this idea of “intensity”/productivity. He suggests that in order to master it, you need to make it a way of life. Intensity is something that highly successful people breath. They transfer it to all facets of life. So when your with your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend, make it special, don't just go through the motions! When relaxing or watching T.V. enjoy it, make it the best two hours of T.V. you have ever seen.

Finally, just remember, that personally mastering all three components of motivation isn't easy.....If it was easy, everyone would do it.

 

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This powerful and popular youtube video might help to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk56VxaeqEQ

Components of Motivation

This is the first of two posts on the Components of Motivation.

There are various definitions for the term motivation. But here, we are talking about the motivation to succeed. I can almost guarantee that if someone did the following three things I will discuss in the following two articles I post, he/she would be successful in whatever goal he/she wants to achieve. If I were to give any free advice in life it would be that “understanding motivation is the key to success”.

There are three major components to motivation: activation, persistence and intensity.

Here we look at Activation and Persistence

Activation involves the decision to initiate a behaviour, such as enrolling in a psychology class or driving to the gym.

Woody Allen once said “80% of success is showing up”. You might not agree with this initially, but just have a think for a minute. If you have ever been a gym goer you might get this. Sometimes thinking of that initial physical movement where you have to get off the couch and into the car can at times be more strenuous and stress provoking then the actual tough exercise you do when at the gym. You just gotta get there; everything will be fine and even enjoyable once you get into it. If that doesn’t make sense, think of going to work on a Monday. Life doesn’t seem worth living Sunday night, but come 10am Monday morning your right back in the swing of things and even joking and catching up with workmates. Just get to work in the first place and you can sort those negative feelings out later.

Following that we have persistence.

Persistence is the continued effort toward a goal even though obstacles may exist. It requires a significant investment of time, energy and resources.

In a moment when you feel really motivated (e.g. watching a YouTube video with impressive feats and awesome background music) you feel like you can take on the world. You really just want to get into things, start your blog or start your workout programme or whatever. However, this initial feeling probably won’t last more than 24hrs. That’s why the second component of motivation is so important. Persistence means that you need to keep working just as hard after those initial butterfly feelings dilute. You need to go to the gym again tomorrow and the next day, next week, next month and all year. Persistence then is about continuing down the path of success when things get stale, get boring, get uncomfortable, get hard, or there is a difficult obstacle to overcome.

Really persistence comes down to how bad you want to be successful. If you want something bad enough, then you will do anything to get it. I wanted a first in my Psychology masters. In order to do so I had to spend a year basically being a recluse. I rarely went out, rarely made phone calls and didn’t take any holidays. Almost every minute I had, I dedicated to study. I wanted a first, I was

persistent and I got it. It was really hard, but worth every single minute of work. Funnily enough when you’re on that sort of a buzz, that persistence buzz, in a sick kind of a way you start to enjoy it. Seeing the results roll in, feeling yourself becoming more intelligent and beating people in your class in exams/essays (really, really intelligent people; one girl had eidetic memory (photographic memory) and others received top academic scholarships). But my marks were always higher than theirs because I was dedicated/persistent.

But there are levels of persistence. It all comes down to how bad someone wants to be successful in their chosen goal. Eric Thompson (motivational speaker) spoke of Beyonce being on set once; three days had gone by and she didn’t realise she hadn’t eaten. She was so focused and so persistent in achieving her goal, that eating just wasn’t relevant. Eric Thompson is a guy that really got me to understand the concept of persistence. I remember watching a video on YouTube (link at the bottom) where he got a school class to try to imagine the air running out of their lungs as they struggled to surface above water. After a vivid description of what this painful feeling is like, he tells the class; “when all you want to do is be successful as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful. I’m here to tell you that no.1 most of you say you want to be successful, but you don’t want it bad, you just kinda want it. You don’t want it badder than you want to party, you don’t want it as bad as you want to be cool, most of you don’t want success as much as you want to sleep. Some of you love sleep more than you love success, and I’m here to tell you today if you’re going to be successful you gotta be willing to give up sleep. You gotta be willing to work off of three hours of sleep two hours… Some days, if you really want to be successful, you’re going to have to stay up three days in a row; because if you go to sleep you might miss the opportunity to be successful. That’s how bad you gotta want it.”

Eric Thompson acknowledges the fact that this is hard work. “Most of you won’t be successful because when you’re studying and you get tired, you quit. On all roads to success you have to go through pain. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Everyone would be a millionaire. But there is one thing I can guarantee you, if you can be persistent, if you can outlast that pain and outlast that discomfort. On the other side of it is success.

As the American Footballer Emitt Smith once said: “All men are created equal, but some work harder in preseason.”

In the next post we will talk about the final component (intensity). Intensity separates those who are good and those who are great.