How To Be More Confident – A Step-by-Step Process for Becoming Truly Confident
Building Self-Confidence – Preparing Yourself for Success!
Rehearse It
I’m guessing if you’re reading these texts that you may not be entirely comfortable with asking for important things. If you’ve followed all the guidelines in these texts, you’ve given yourself the best possible chance-you’ve persuaded the other person they’d like to say yes, and you’ve made it as easy as possible for them. All you need now is a bit more confidence.
And confidence comes from knowing exactly what you’re doing. So before you actually meet up, rehearse and rehearse and rehearse what you’re going to say. Do it in front of a mirror, or with a friend if you can. Go over it until you really feel confident of what you’re saying, and have the right phrases or figures on the tip of your tongue.
You’re not trying to script this word for word. That could sound stilted, which would make you feel uncomfortable. You might script the odd few words but otherwise it’s the gist you’re clear about, and the actual words can come naturally. We need to make sure that even if you’re nervous or stressed or anxious or under pressure, you don’t miss out anything important that could make a difference to the other person’s final answer. So rehearse until you know that you can
- Remember everything you want to say, even under pressure.
- Recall your three key points.
- Recall specific phrases that you think will help make your case.
- Remember any vital facts and figures you may need.
Look, this is the moment you’ve been working toward for days, weeks, maybe months. You can’t afford to blow it all by screwing up your lines when you get there.
Rehearse Their Answer
Right, you’ve rehearsed your lines, but what about theirs? What are they going to say? And actually, how can you have rehearsed all your lines without knowing how they’ll react? Well you haven’t, of course. You’ve rehearsed your opening gambit-you’ve practiced how to put your case across. But after they respond you’ll be clueless. You’ve no idea what they’re going to say, so you’ll be completely unprepared. If this is something big, they’re hardly likely to say yes right away, are they?
They’ll want to talk about it, ask questions, suggest alternatives, I don’t know-anything might happen. Well, not quite. It’s true that you don’t know exactly what they’ll say, but you do have a pretty good idea of the options. After all, you’ve already thought through why they might say no, and what would help them to say yes. So if they don’t give you a yes, they’re almost certainly going to come up with one of the objections you’ve already considered.
So you can actually prepare for this, too, by rehearsing the counter-arguments you’ve prepared to their objections, until you’re as solid on those as you are on your initial request. By the time you’ve thought through all the options, you’ll find you’ve rehearsed their lines for them as well as your own. How thoughtful of you.
Don’t Go on About It
So you’ve finally made it to the all-important meeting. You’re sitting across from your boss-or whoever-and you’re actually asking for what you want. You’re making a clear case, putting across your three key points, and showing him why he wants to say yes.
When you get to the end of your rehearsed spiel, you pause. They’re thinking about it. They don’t react at once. So you take advantage of the pause to add another point, and then another, and another… Stop! Rewind! No, no, no-once you’ve said everything that needs to be said, shut up. Wait for them to speak next. The onus is on them, so if he doesn’t feel uncomfortable, you shouldn’t. The thing is, when you start speaking again the very least you do is interrupt their train of thought when they should be thinking about whether they can say yes to you. That’s bad enough. But you could damage your case even further. Apart from irritating them (and we want them in a good mood, remember), you could confuse them with extraneous information. You’ve spent a lot of time making sure you are being clear and succinct, so don’t risk becoming muddled and lengthy after all.
You might even put your foot in it inadvertently: “…and it won’t jeopardize the TMK contract either.” Ah, the TMK contract. The boss had forgotten about that. Now you mention it; they’re not so sure it won’t jeopardize it. Hmmm. Maybe it’s not such a good idea after all…. You see? If you don’t open your mouth, you can’t put your foot in it. Right, that’ll do. I won’t go on about it.
Get the Essentials on Paper
You’ve asked your boss, or the committee chairman, or the bank manager, a big question. They’re going to have to think about it. Maybe talk it over with other people, or even get approval from someone more senior. Of course you won’t be there when that happens.
So how are you going to make sure they do justice to your request? What if they forget the salient points? Fail to quote those crucial statistics that really clinch the argument? Get the baseline figures wrong? What indeed?
There’s a simple way around this. You just need to take a written summary to the meeting with you and hand it over. Keep it to less than a page, laid out well with headings, bullet points, and lots of space. You know, so it looks easy to read quickly or get the key points from just by scanning. You’re supposed to make this easy for them, remember. No one’s going to bother to read a full sheet of close-typed text.
Think how reassuring that is. Whoever they talk to, or whenever they decide to think about their decision, you can be confident that they have all the facts and arguments they could need at hand, and you know they’re accurate because you supplied them yourself.
