One of the areas I found a bit of a mystery even after completing my coaching training was confidence. I still wasn’t really sure how to work with someone if they said they felt they had low confidence. I was nervous about stepping into counselling territory and damaging a client for life! I think it’s safe to say that most clients present with a certain amount of lack of confidence in one area or another. Today I’m going to share 3 tips to working on self-confidence with your clients. Self Confidence is so important. It’s the difference between living our dreams or staying hidden in the background. A big assumption from those that lack confidence is that they see everyone that appears confident is always like that. Confidence is something that is topped up. Even the most confident people have self doubt from time to time, it’s how they pull themselves up from it that counts. It can take the simplest of words to crush our spirits, to sow a tiny seed of doubt that can knock us for six. Paul McGee, in his book, ‘Self Confidence’ teaches that we don’t need to work on becoming a super confident person, we just need to focus on boosting our confidence by 10% It makes such a huge difference. What difference would a 10% boost of confidence make to your clients? It could be the difference between applying for a job and not. Often clients will tell you that they don’t want to become arrogant, their perception is that boosting their confidence will lead to them becoming hard versions of their former selves. By helping them to perceive a 10% change it doesn’t seem such a daunting step. If you imagine a staircase each little knock takes us one step lower, however in the same way each little positive comment/thought can take us up a step. As with any project you would break it down into small goals and the same can apply to confidence – get them to treat it like a project. What might be their very first step in moving forward with confidence? If a job was their goal then the very first step might simply be to buy the local paper or to get a new haircut. They don’t have to get to the very top immediately, or even at all, they can take one step at a time. 
Here are 3 tips to working on self-confidence with a client;
- Replace ‘I should’ and ‘I must’ with ‘I could’ or ‘I choose to…’
- Replace ‘I could never do that’ with ‘I may do that sometime’
- Replace ‘I can’t’ with ‘How can I ….?’
- Replace ‘I can try’ with ‘I will’
The key to this is not judging what they say to themselves, that will only make things worse. Get them to notice that they do it and correct themselves without judgement. The more they do this the easier it will become. You may even find them laughing in their sessions with you as they start to replace the negative words they’ve been using with positive ones. 3. Get Them to Keep A Journal Get them to keep a note of their mini achievements in a journal. A mini achievement could be something as simple as clearing a pile of paperwork or attending an event on their own. As they recognise their achievements it can really help build their confidence and make them realise that actually they’re not that bad! It’s all about momentum too, all of these little building blocks help to boost their self-esteem. If they like girly things get them to buy a really pretty journal that makes them smile when they use it. If not girly, or for guys, what about an online journal or a daily planner? Take them to a place of possibility – imagine what they could achieve if they boosted their confidence by just 10% What could you achieve with a 10% boost? Leave a comment in the post below, I’d love to know. Want to work on ways to build your coaching confidence, skills and business? I’m about to launch an online coaching club – to be kept up to date sign up for my newsletter below and you’ll be one of the first to hear about it. 
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