Confidence Works - Learn to be Your Own Life Coach
By Gladeana McMahon - A Sheldon Press book

Do you ever feel that life is passing you by? Have you tried to do things differently but ended up doing exactly the same thing? Do you find yourself wishing life could be different but do nothing to change your situation? Have you come to realize that you think in a negative and self-defeating style but don't know how to change your thinking to something more helpful?

If you want to get the most out of your life then this book is for you.

Learn how to:

• Take charge of your life and create the life you have always wanted.
• Increase your confidence ten-fold.
• Influence people around you so that they see you in a positive light.
• Be successful and happy.

The life-coaching skills in this book are all based on sound psychological theory and have helped many people take positive control of their lives. The message of the book is a simple one — if you are prepared to do the work you will see positive changes.

Contents

Introduction

• A Confident Manner
• Think Your Way To Confidence
• Confident Feelings
• Confident Acts
• A Confident Life Requires...
• What If I Need More Help?
• The End

You've no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself— and how little I deserve it.
W S. Gilbert, English librettist (1854—1900)

Have you ever felt like you're hitting your head on a brick wall? That whatever you do it's not good enough and that someone somewhere is playing a huge cosmic joke at your expense? If it's any comfort, I've been there and have the T-shirt and CD to prove it. Perhaps that's why I became a therapist — after all, we therapists are all supposed to be angst-ridden! As a fat and spotty teenager I thought my life was over. As a young woman who always seemed to choose the wrong men I was sure losing weight and plastic surgery were my only hope. I did try to do things differently but as I had no idea what to do I usually made things worse.

My saving grace was that I was good with people — little old ladies made beelines for me to tell me their woes. Taxi drivers would reveal intimate details about their life and then charge me for the privilege. Friends, family and work colleagues all seemed to think I was on constant tap for information and advice. By 23 I decided I might as well get paid for helping people and won a place on a counselling course. My personal confidence was so low I remember almost not turning up for my selection interview as I was convinced they would not want me. They did, and the next three years of my life became a wonderfully amazing, if sometimes painful, journey of self-discovery.

Now, 23 years later, my life is so far removed from that insecure and unhappy young woman that it's sometimes hard to believe she was ever me. So, what made the difference? The simple truth is that I learnt how to identify my problems and replace my ineffective coping strategies with a new set of life skills. As a therapist and life/ business coach I work with many people who feel insecure, inferior, unlikeable and unhappy.

I see clients who are convinced they cannot change because they have been born defective. All my clients are ordinary people who simply want to lead happier lives. They don't all want to be captains of industry but they do want to be able to get up in the morning and look forward to their day. If you are reading this book then it is likely that your life is not all you want it to be.

See if you recognize any characteristics of the people in the following vignettes.

Life coaching skills really do work
Julie
Julie was 31, divorced and had been living in London since she moved from the Midlands when she was 25. A successful personal assistant working for the chief executive of a well-known advertising agency, Julie described her position as one that was 'well paid, with a nice flat, car, a loving family and lots of friends'. At face value, Julie seemed to have the perfect life. However, Julie's personal life' was a mess — she always ended up with men who would treat her badly. Her latest boyfriend, John, fell into this category. A short period into the relationship he started to see other women behind Julie's back. Although she had managed to end the relationship on more than one occasion, she found herself constantly drifting back into his arms. Each time she told herself everything would be different, found an excuse to think this would be the case and, each time, she would end up hurt and despairing. It was as if she was on a self-destruct mission. Julie decided she had to do something about her situation and decided to book an appointment to see a 'life coach' — me.

During the following three months we identified a number of problems. Julie appeared socially skilled but often felt anxious and found herself wondering if people really liked her. Although Julie came from a loving family, her father was very strong-willed and had always made her feel as if she fell short of his expectations. She often found it hard to say 'no' to friends and family and then resented the situations she found herself in.

Using life coaching skills and with her active cooperation, I was able to help Julie develop a new understanding about her problem and new skills to change her life. These skills included changing the way she thought about herself and about the situations she encountered. Anxiety management and assertiveness skills helped her deal more realistically with the demands others made of her. She soon came to realize that she was repeating an early pattern of behaviour with John — namely, she was trying to please him, believing that if only she did the right things he would change and all would be well. This was exactly how she had behaved towards her father, always hoping that she would be able to please him and win his admiration. She soon came to see that this was an impossible and fruitless task.

As Julie became more assertive in her relationship with John, she realized she wanted and deserved something which John was unable to offer her — love and respect. This time she ended the relationship for good. About a year following the end of our work together, I received a letter from Julie telling me that she had been dating James for about four months and how well the relationship was developing, how different she was in her expectations and behaviours and how much more confident she felt about herself in general. Two years later I received a photograph of Julie and James on their wedding day.

Mike
Mike, a senior lecturer, came to see me because he was upset about not getting promoted to head of department. He had heard through the grapevine that he was seen as hostile and that this had been a key reason for him not getting the job. Mike saw himself as a hard worker, who did a good job and was always willing to assist anyone who needed his help. He could not make sense of the comments he had received. It soon became clear that Mike did not realize the impact his forceful personality had on others. He was task-focused, believing that doing a good job in itself was enough to gain promotion and the respect of others. He had never realized that people skills were just as important as task skills.

Mike had been in care when he was younger, following the death of both his parents in a road traffic accident when he was nine. His maternal grandmother was too old to look after him and he spent the next seven years being fostered by a range of short-term foster parents. He soon learned that academic success brought rewards. As he never stayed in one place long enough to make lifelong friends he never learnt the lessons of sustaining relationships and the need for people skills. Using life coaching skills we were able to help Mike explore the impression he made on other people and how he could influence other people's attitudes positively towards him. Social skills, such as using 'open questions' to make 'small talk' and thinking about what other people might want — the 'What do others want?' approach — helped Mike recognize what had been missing from his communication style with others. As he applied these skills, he reported better relationships with his work colleagues and, about six months after the end of his life coaching programme, he gained a position as a head of department at another university.

Jane
Jane had heard about me from a friend who had come to see me because of her anxiety at giving presentations. The minute Jane came into my consultation room it was easy to see her problem — she looked at the floor and not at me, spoke very quietly and seemed much younger than her 28 years. She told me she had been 'born without confidence' and did not know how to manage her life. I asked her what she thought confidence was. Jane replied that it had to be something to do with her personality and was probably a part of her genetic make-up that was missing. I asked her if she would be surprised to learn that confidence simply comprised a set of skills, techniques and attitudes that could be developed — and after some thought she said she was surprised.

Jane had avoided being an active participant in her own life, always believing she would get it wrong if she tried anything new. However, she also envied other people for their ability to get what they wanted. Using life coaching skills, Jane set about learning how to deal with her life more effectively. She learnt that avoidance is based on fear and that when fear is faced in a realistic manner it decreases. What was once frightening becomes normal. Much of Jane's fears came from the things she said to herself in her head — her 'self-talk'. By changing her negative automatic thoughts to realistic ones, Jane found she could take acceptable risks.

Success breeds success, and the more she faced her fears the more in control she felt and the more she achieved in life. In Jane's case much of the life coaching programme focused on changing her thinking style. Three months into the programme Jane gained a place at a local college to study massage — a dream she had always had but one that she thought beyond her. She had also increased her circle of friends and from spending nearly all her time at home she now had an active social life.

Life coaching skills
The three people above all have something in common — a lack of skills and a lack of belief in their own abilities. Life coaching skills enable people to achieve success personally and professionally. These skills fit into four main categories — creating and sustaining positive impressions, developing a healthy thinking style, managing emotions (our own and others) and managing behaviours.

Creating and sustaining positive impressions looks at the way we come across to other people and the range of skills required to influence the best impression possible. Developing a healthy thinking style focuses on how our thoughts shape who we are and how we behave. Managing emotions considers what emotions mean, how to manage our own and other people's and how to use them to best advantage. Managing behaviours is about what we do and how our behaviour helps or hinders us from achieving our life goals.

Life coaching is about developing a life strategy and a way of feeling better about who we are and the world we live in. Life coaching skills are not about finding a quick fix. After all, you wouldn't expect to get fit at the gym without a regular fitness programme. The same goes for confidence-building skills. If you want to get the best from them you need to make a commitment to yourself to practise these skills every day.

Life coaching skills are not a miracle cure for all the ills and disappointments that can come our way. However, people using these skills have found that they can minimize the distress caused by the bad times and increase the rewards and the frequency of the good times. It is a sad fact of life that bad things happen to good people — but many of us make a sad situation worse than it already is by the way we think, feel and behave.

The aim of this book is to give you control over your life, to provide you with the skills to live life to the full. It's always been my belief that 'you are a long time dead', so why not make the most of living? Many people regret not making the most of their life. Imagine how it might feel to wake up in 20, 30, 40 or 50 years' time only to regret all the things you wished you had done.

All the skills and exercises in this book are taken from cognitive psychology, in particular cognitive-behavioural therapy, which is regarded as one of the most effective forms of personal change.

The checklist in Table 1 will help you identify whether you are lacking in confidence.


Symptoms of poor confidence
People who suffer from a lack of confidence may also experience a range of symptoms and behaviours, as outlined below.


How did I get this way?
Many people spend their lives wishing they were different, envying other people or feeling bad about their lack of confidence. Many people believe, like Jane above, that they were born genetically lacking in some way. Confidence is learnt. From the time we are born we receive messages from the outside world and it is these messages that create or drain us of our confidence.

Parental influences
I have never yet met parents who purposely wake up in the morning thinking. 'How can I damage my child today?' Parents usually want to provide the best upbringing they can for their children. However, you cannot give what you do not have. If you think of childhood as a training course, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for about 18 years you can imagine that good trainers pass on excellent skills training during this time. If the trainers themselves are not adequately trained there will be gaps in their knowledge and these gaps will be passed on and even the best-trained people can still find themselves facing intolerable life pressures that weaken their ability to offer the love and care that a child may need.

If you were neglected or abused as a child, your view of the world will be coloured by your experiences. You do not need extreme experiences to damage your confidence. If your parents were kind but timid and anxious, or looked after you but were emotionally distant, if they never praised you or seemed to always find fault, then all these factors can lead to a poor self-image.

Exercise
Tick the boxes that apply to you in Table 2.

Other people
Apart from our parents, we are also influenced by relationships with other people. Brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, family, friends and teachers all influence our perception of ourselves. If you find yourself bullied, feel different from your sisters or brothers, have difficulty fitting in with your peers or are cared for by a relative who puts you down, these factors will also affect your confidence.

Exercise
Tick the boxes that apply to you in Table 3.

Other factors
Your place in society and external life events such as conflict also play their part. You may have grown up feeling isolated and alienated from other people, for example if your family was poor or lived in a deprived area. You may have experienced harassment because of your colour, religion or ethnic origin. Alternatively, you may have been rejected because of a characteristic such as being large, or small, or having a big nose or some other physical factor that makes you stand out from the group. The following chapters will provide you with the skills you require to improve your confidence.

Now that you have had the opportunity to consider whether you feel you are lacking in life skills, how this lack affects you and how it may have come into being, it is now time to move on. The next chapter introduces you to the first part of the rest of your new life.

About the author
Gladeana McMahon is a successful life and business coach whose activities are many and varied. She is GMTV's Website life coach and broadcasts regularly on radio and television and has been the resident psycho therapist for Channel 4's Espresso and agony aunt for Yes! magazine. She also acts as a counselling adviser to Channel 4's Big Brother and more recently as the life coach and counsellor for Channel 4's Model Behaviour. Gladeana is a BACP Senior Registered Practitioner and Accredited Counsellor, a BABCP Accredited Cognitive-Behavioural Psychotherapist, who is UKCP and UKRC (ind. Couns) registered. Gladeana's training includes Diplomas in Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, Crisis Counselling and Management Studies.

A prolific writer, Gladeana has written, co-authored, edited or contributed to some 16 publications, the most recent of which was Coping with Life 's Traumas. She is a part-time senior lecturer on the postgraduate and Masters programmes at the University of East London and is managing editor of Stress News, associate editor of the Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal and sits on the editorial boards of various professional journals. She is a regular speaker on the conference circuit and is co-director of both the Centre for Stress Management and Centre for Coaching.

If you recognize three or more of the above symptoms or behaviours then this book is for you.

If your answer to any of these questions is 'no' then this book is for you.