When people come into our space, or we go into theirs, there are a few things that can happen to you, particularly with people who lack confidence. You might…

• Go quiet and say very little, retreating into yourself hoping that you’ll not be expected to do or say very much.
• Make excuses and leave as quickly as you can.
• Listen and ask lots of questions, in the hope that no one will ask you anything that might reveal something of yourself.
• Sweat, go red, shake – and other symptoms of trying to hold back your fear.
• Some people even go into talk-overdrive mode and just don’t stop talking at all.

Whatever the case, it’s really unpleasant and it’s really hard to stay present and focused on where you are, plus people aren’t going to find you approachable at all.

Over the years I’ve realised that actually for me, there’s a reluctance to allow people to feel me, that somehow, if I allow myself to open and really show up as myself, that I won’t be accepted or will be perhaps rejected. It’s really nonsense when considered in a logical way, but we’re not really logical people!

I’ve found that sometimes, it’s as simple as reminding yourself that you’re ok and that it’s ok to feel vulnerable around other people. In fact, the only way you really get to show up and be your real, authentic self is to step into that place that feels vulnerable.

Experience teaches me that showing up fully is the same as not being affected by what other people think of you – whether that’s good or bad! In fact, there is a part of you that will try and close down a good experience of this! You’ll know what I mean if you’ve ever had that experience where you notice that people are really engaging with you and enjoying your company, then suddenly you feel really self-conscious!

At the end of the day, try to enter into each and every encounter with people with the intention of allowing them to really feel you, to show up and be counted or to give as much of your true self as you can. If you make that a practice and take it steady, you’ll soon find that people describe you as approachable and can’t wait to be in your company.

Other articles you might be interested in from around the web

• On Confidence (joethepeacock.blogspot.com)
• Confidence From Inside Out (switchedondevelopment.co.uk)

I had a comment recently on my post about how to get more confidence without doing anything different. Briddick commented to the effect that he realised that striving for more confidence wasn’t the solution – that actually, his ego had made him believe he wasn’t good enough and when he overcame that, the confidence was there.

The vast majority of people who come to me for help are seeking more confidence. When we begin to look at their circumstances and their life “story”, they always say things like, “If only I had more confidence, I wouldn’t have this problem”. They present themselves with a solution, which is simply to be confident. The truth is that they are chasing a red herring!

More confidence is a red herring…

Confidence is something that is always with you – it just lies buried. Of course I accept that it’s possible to build confidence over time, that it comes from little steps and achievements. However, to build confidence in this way, you have to also accept that your confidence can be knocked, diminished or destroyed by events in your life. What’s really happening behind the scenes though is that your self-belief is being nourished or starved, depending on the circumstances, events and feedback you receive. So you are never in control of your confidence at all – it’s totally dependent on things outside your control… not a good relationship to have with it.

In order to put you in charge, you have to find a way to accept that you are worthy and have value – in other words, create a sense of self-belief that is unshakeable. I’ve written previously on the power of being able to connect to your belief that you can adapt, learn, grow, change and take on new abilities. This is one of the keys to getting this right. If you believe that you are capable of learning something, even if you can’t do it yet and you know it will be a challenge for you, then you enter into it with a much higher level of confidence than if you don’t have that self-belief.

Simple exercise…

For the next few weeks, start each day by telling yourself that you are able to learn, grow, change and develop yourself and your skills. Find a sentence that feels good to you and repeat it at least 20 times each morning (more if you can and more often in the day as well), e.g:

• I am adaptive and easily learn new skills
• I am quick to learn and take change in my stride

If you’re here to find an article about how to improve your confidence without having to do anything, then I’m pretty sure you’ll be disappointed! There’s nothing that can be achieved without changing the things that you do in your life! I get asked time and time again how to build confidence and the bottom line is that there’s only one way. Taking deliberate action is the only way to improve your confidence.

If you can get into the habit of taking of facing your fears, then gradually you will begin to build confidence in yourself and your ability to do things that are outside of your comfort zone. Courage is the thing you need, true confidence is knowing that you can tap into your courage whenever you need it.

So you can’t improve your confidence without doing anything different?

You aren’t going to wake up one morning and suddenly feel like you can go and do these things! You can certainly learn some tricks, techniques and other useful information that will help you, but ultimately, you have to go out and do these things! There are so many situations where you might want improved confidence, for example:

• presentations
• dating
• making friends
• talking with people you don’t know
• interviews
• speaking up/expressing your truth

Practice means getting it wrong…

An inevitable part of improving your confidence is getting it wrong. The good news is, sometimes you’ll get it right straight way and if not, then it’s never as bad as you think and if you’ll learn something from the experience, the next time you’ll be stronger and more capable.

So, remember that the longer you put it off, the longer it takes to get rid of that unpleasant feeling you get every time you think about doing it. If you are serious about become someone who can improve your confidence, then get on and do the things you don’t feel like doing!

What is the Drama Triangle?

The Karpman Drama Triangle is part of transactional analysis (TA) which models human social interaction. It shows us three different positions that can be adopted when two people communicate with each other. These are the Victim, the Rescuer and the Persecutor. Essentially, at any time during a conversation, the two people involved are behaving in a certain way, dictated by the role they have adopted in that conversation.

For example:

Joe comes to Sally with a problem he is having with his work. Joe begins the conversation in the Victim corner of the drama triangle. Sally, being a nice person, decides that she wants to help him and adopts the Rescuer role in the triangle. For a time Joe is happy in the victim role and doesn’t show any signs of shifting towards a solution to his problem. Sally is getting increasingly frustrated, and might jump to Persecutor and start shouting. It’s also possible that she continues to rescue and then Joe, getting fed up with not getting what he wants from Sally (which is an acknowledgement that this is a serious problem) jumps to persecutor, forcing Sally to go to victim where Sally says, “I’m only trying to help you“.

It’s a wonderful play and it goes back and forth with someone being in the victim role and the other being in one of the other two roles. You can read much more about the theory by visiting the Wikipedia link under the image at the top of the post.

The drama triangle and confidence…

So onto the main point of the post – how does an understanding of the drama triangle help us with our confidence in one on one situations? Well, the first thing you need to do is to observe the drama triangle in action – either from your own experience, or if you are lucky enough to watch it happen in front of you. Notice how people take on which role – what do you see in their body language and style of communication that gives you the clues?

You can tell a lot about a person from this information – when someone comes to you to initiate a conversation, you can tell straight away what they are trying to do… if they are coming as rescuer or persecutor, they want you to be the victim, whereas if they are coming as the victim, they want you to play one of the other roles.

There’s a place in the centre of the triangle which you might call the adult place – the confident, assertive person. It’s where we have our meaningful and successful conversations. It’s much easier than you think – once you identify where the other person has taken up residence, you can decide on how to respond.

How to react to the drama triangle roles…

To the victim, you ensure you do not support them in their self-pity – avoid shouting and answering all the problems. Sometimes it’s best to reflect the problem back to them, that way they feel like they’ve been heard and there’s a chance, they might come out of their corner and join you in the adult place.

To the persecutor, you understand that they are trying to make you feel bad and somehow get one over on you. A line like, “you seem really angry about this Joe” can work wonders there. Follow up with, “Let’s see if we can’t talk about this calmly and get something done.”

To the rescuer, this person is trying to show you how much they can help, or how good they are… possibly, they have an over developed need to help people. Sometimes, it’s best to say, “You know what, I appreciate your help, but I’d really like to work this one out for myself. I’ll come and find you if I get stuck.” Basically, do whatever you can to move this person out of their role.

As for your own role… ensure you don’t start off in any of the corners of the drama triangle! The one to watch out for if you are lacking in confidence is the victim (and occasionally the rescuer).

If you want to know more about transactional analysis and the drama triangle, there are loads of great free resources on the web.

I’m sure if you are a nice person and make it your mission to help people, that you’ve encountered some people who are incredibly hard to help. You’ve given them some glaringly obvious advice and pointed out some of the mistakes and poor choices that they are quite clearly making… yet, somehow, they fail to accept or even to see it all as clearly as you. The truth is, some people just don’t want to be helped… It is quite impossible to help people like this!

The helping people frustration…

So what normally happens is we try to fix, or if we’re really skilled in helping people, we might use some techniques and questioning to help them to see things from a different perspective. You know what, sometimes, it’s much better to take a step back from your own need to help people and look at it a different way. While this play continues, (you know the one where you’re helping them and they are making excuses and saying “yes but” repeatedly) all you are really doing is colluding with them and giving them more reasons to stay the same and to continue with the poor choices and mistakes.

In trying to help people, sometimes you make it worse…

Read the sentence above again. You are often keeping people in the place where they are stuck! Every time they come up with an excuse or reason why your ideas won’t work, they are literally digging in, making it harder for them to ever get free. Sometimes, if you manage to come up with a really clever way of getting them to see the situation differently, they will take it in, they may even say something that seems like a positive step forward, but then after a few seconds you’ll see the shutters come down as they discard, delete or distort what they’ve just realised.

I can remember conversations with people where this has happened several times – each time I used to get more and more determined to break through to them and make a difference to their life…

The biggest problem of all was in that last sentence… I wanted to make a difference to their life – unfortunately, they didn’t! Often what we want for people is not what they want for themselves.

So when you try to help people, look out for the warning signs… if they aren’t willing to consider your advice, I’d suggest you tell them that you can’t help them because you don’t believe they want to change. It might sound harsh, but ironically, that might be the one thing that actually helps them. If they want to stay the same then it’s their choice entirely – save your energy for those situations where you can help people.

There are times in your life when things don’t seem to be flowing, basically, you are feeling stuck. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but often it’s accompanied by a knowing that you “should” be feeling ok. If you look at your life, you’ll find that there are generally not that many obvious reasons for feeling stuck. It’s more of a dissatisfaction with your life than anything else.

The feeling stuck collusion…

One of the first things I suggest to people who feel stuck is to take a good look at the people around them… the people they surround themselves with. When you look at this, more often than not, you are surrounded by a whole bunch of people who are also having this same feeling of being stuck. Many psychologists and motivational gurus have observed the phenomenon of how your friends and peers are normally in the same place (or sometimes worse) than you.

It seems like it’s a comfort zone thing. It’s much easier to manage in life if the people around you think the same way and have the same experiences, worries and troubles as you do. That way, we think we’re normal when we’re feeling stuck! The truth is, if you want to break out of this place, you are going to have to find other people who have done that very thing and then spend as much time with them as possible. You become like the people you spend the most time with.

Feel stuck? Stop the pity-party…

This has very strong implications… none more than the fact that you are going to have to place a little distance between yourself and the people you are currently surrounded by. It doesn’t mean you can’t be friends, but it does mean that you will have to step away from the pity party that you have colluded between you to create. So you can be friends, but don’t wallow in the same pool of self-pity that you’ve been swimming in for so long…

The easiest way to destroy this feeling of being stuck, is to find people who are completely flying – preferably in your field. If you can hang onto their shirt tails, you are going to stop:

• Justifying where you are and your decisions
• Making excuses for why you can’t do this or that
• Being a victim and start taking responsibility for your life
• Settling for what everyone else settles for – the “world view” of how you should be and live your life

By hanging out with people who are happy and motivated, you’ll pick it up by osmosis! Change the people around you and you’ll stop feeling stuck.

Honestly! It really is easy to talk to people! We’re just in the habit of making small talk really hard for ourselves… here are a few reasons why:

• Worrying about what other people think of you
• Hating the awkward silences that accompany the dreaded “Small Talk“
• Talking to people involves thinking up meaningless questions and talking about the weather for hours
• We don’t have a strategy

No wonder we can’t talk to people…

With all that weighing us down, there’s no wonder we find it so difficult to have a conversation with someone! I mean for a start off, we’re spending precious energy wondering what people are thinking as we’re chatting to them… You know what? They’re wondering the same (unless you’ve chanced on one of the rare people who doesn’t care less) – especially during small talk!

Small talk is the key to your success here… now I’m not planning on giving away all my secrets here… but I’d like to share with you the most important of all the keys to successful conversations when you talk to people…

It’s not about talking to people, it’s about listening to people…

Yes that’s right, the thing we are really worried about isn’t even the skill we need to employ to create a good impression on someone and to have a decent small talk type conversation. You see, when you talk to people, all you should really be doing is listening, understanding, feeding back and asking questions. Occasionally, you might have to answer one of their questions, but on the whole, it’s one way traffic you are looking for.

Basically, follow this format:

1. Ask a question
2. Listen to what they say
3. Translate it into your own words and your own understanding
4. Feed back to them… “So what your saying is that…” or “What I’m hearing you say is…”

People love this attention – it doesn’t even matter if you don’t understand it right away – so you can still talk about football and other things you find dull. If you don’t get it, but you have a go and feed back to them, they’ll delight in explaining it again to you in a different way. Once they’re in delight, you have a friend for life!

Let the other person do all the actual small talk… you deal with the questions…

Start with your classic questions:

• Questions about them: Where are you from? What do you do for a living? Do you have any hobbies?
• Weather questions: Are you enjoying the nice summer weather? Wow, there’s been a lot of rain lately? It’s cloudy again, isn’t it?
• Other old faithfuls: What do you think of the [insert politics here]? What about [insert famous celebrity's gossip]?

The big problem here is that it’s so dull… when we talk to people we don’t want to get stuck in weather or the latest celebrity or political scandal for very long…

So when you talk to people, you need to get a bit deeper – that’s where the good stuff lies!

The easiest way to do it is to make an observation about the person, or something they have said. So if they say, “I’m a lion tamer” – you might have something to go on… ask them whether they enjoy what they do… if they say yes, then ask them what it is they get from doing that. If they say no, then ask them what they’d rather be doing instead – and then what they think they’d get from that!

An interesting article: Ten Tips to Talk About Anything with Anyone (psychologytoday.com)

Create yourself a little plan of action a bit like this one:

1. Initial opening question or remark
2. Find something where there seems to be either a common interest, or something you are genuinely interested in knowing more about
3. Ask some feeling related questions – what do they enjoy about it – or make some observations – that must be so rewarding for you
4. Rinse and repeat until you find something that they love to talk about – then it’s really easy… just hold onto your concentration and keep listening!

There’s so much more that I can teach you about this, but for now, start simple and begin the process of practicing it! You can’t get good or learn small talk (how to talk to people) without actually doing it.

One of the main challenges in being a nice person is the inability to say no. It’s amazing how often people get themselves into all sorts of undesirable activities, simply because they are in the habit of saying yes to everything. The truth is that by being unable to say no, you are going to end up with a lot of unnecessary stress, extra work and a huge lack of respect from the people around you. Yes you heard that right – a lack of respect…

Saying yes all the time…

Often the underlying reason that we feel unable to say no is that we are driven by a need to have people like us… this creates the mistaken belief that people will like you if you say yes to them. In fact, this is quite a long way from the truth. They may like the fact that you say yes, but in reality they are using you because you are the easiest target if they have something that needs doing, or need someone to go somewhere with.

It’s quite hard to accept that people are going to use you – this places you very firmly in the victim role. So, by always saying yes, you are choosing to be a victim and the easiest way to step out of that place is to begin to say no more often.

It’s easy to say no…

Saying no really doesn’t have to be so difficult. How many people in your life have said no to you? How many of those people have you subsequently stopped talking with because they said no? So how come it’s so hard for you? What’s the worst that can happen?

To be honest, the worst that can happen is that people will start respecting you more because you are taking control of your life. Ok, a few people in your life might not like it when you stop bending over backwards for them… but actually, do you really want those people in your life anyway?

So take it steady… there’s no need to go and say no to everyone about everything! Make sure you take it gently – particularly with people who you are very close with – they will conspire against you if you upset the apple cart too much! Start by saying no once, make it something you really don’t want to do! Gradually, you’ll find it’s really not that difficult to say no.

This article is about visibility and is from the Build Work Profile Series:

• 1st Part - First Steps to Raising Your Work Profile
• 2nd Part - Positioning and Your Work Profile

I have a really important point to make about visibility in the work place. First of all, if you are the quiet type (which to be fair, you probably are if you need help with this issue!), then don’t expect miracles to happen overnight. It is definitely possible to increase your visibility, however you are going to have to do it in a slightly different way than suddenly being loud and gregarious. Hopefully, that should be a relief!

It’s not necessary to be the loudest, or the most vocal to make it in an organisation – although it often might seem that people like that do make it, it’s probably more to do with the fact that the people who would be good at the job (i.e. you), don’t step up and identify themselves… so it’s a case of there being no-one else for the job!

So how do you improve your visibility without having a personality transplant?

Here’s where you have to get clever – you need to know when to speak up and make your impression. Most people who strive to be more visible in the work place will go for frequency and volume. To be honest, it annoys your boss as much as it annoys you, but you’re not doing anything to make them pick you!

Speaking up doesn’t always mean agreeing with everything that is being said. In fact, one of the best things you can do is to listen and ask a summing up question – e.g. “What I’m hearing you say is that… [insert your own version of what they've said]… is that right?” Chances are they are going to say yes or no at this point!

If it’s yes, you’ve just won a little visibility for yourself… if it’s no, then they will explain it again to you in some more detail and you can then do the same again. Obviously, don’t use exactly the same words… “Ok, so you mean that… [insert new version of what they've said]?”

Basically, you repeat this until you get to the “yes, that’s it”. This is possible even in meetings, although it’s best to try and pick out one (preferably the most important) thing in the meeting to do this on! Otherwise, pick it up afterwards and you’ll be demonstrating that you “get it” – which is part of raising your visibility!

For most job promotions (although not all), you need to be seen as someone who can lead and influence people. You see, there’s only so far you can get in any organisation on your technical ability – which for most people is their comfort zone of not having to deal with the real problem in most organisations… the employees!

The real secret to increasing your visibility at work is to position yourself as someone who can lighten the load, not of the work, but of the people in the team. Meaning, you have to get good at understanding and leading people. If you were a boss looking for someone to step up in your organisation, would you pick someone who was great at the technical stuff, or someone who could take away a percentage of the headaches that the people in the organisation cause you?

The secret to visibility…

Your boss is looking for someone who can:

• Lead and motivate a team
• Communicate with anyone
• Make people do what they want them to do
• Take away the headache of dealing with all those people in the team

If you can learn how to meet these needs, you are going to land any job you want (obviously you will need experience in your industry or field too).

My strongest tip now would be to go and get a copy of How To Win Friends And Influence People from Amazon. It’s a book I’ve recently re-read and I must say it contains everything you need to know in order to increase your visibility at work.

This article is about positioning and is from the Build Work Profile Series – you can the other parts:

• 1st Part - First Steps to Raising Your Work Profile
• 3rd Part - Visibility in the Work Place

Positioning really takes time and practice, but it’s so important for your work profile. It’s to do with making sure that you are on the right project at the right time and in front of the right people saying the right things at the right time. It can be very frustrating – especially if you are stuck on a project, or if you always do the same kind of work and there’s little scope for finding work in which you can shine.

Positioning is not about taking on everything…

Do you get that? It’s not about taking on everything – if you are going to get this right, then this is a vital step. Saying yes to everything only leads to a lack of respect and that will firmly fix you where you are currently. Your manager or boss are never going to recognise you as someone ripe for promotion if you are the person who they can rely on to take on any job they give you. For them, you are simply the “I’ll just give it to them” person and all the while the people around you will be rubbing their hands together in glee at the fact that they have to do less than they otherwise would, plus, they are much better positioned to be promoted than you.

Positioning is all about balance…

If the work isn’t something that you have to do, and if you can’t see how it will raise your work profile, then ensure that you have a full work schedule in order to be able to politely decline it. Here’s some simple rules about saying no:

1. Always tell the truth. It’s much easier than having to remember what lie you told to whom.
2. Always have documented evidence of your proof – for example, “I’m sorry I can’t help you, I have to do [insert important task here] and [insert more important tasks here].” Now either show them, or point to your to-do list with all these things written down. Or if it’s a future thing, show them your diary.
3. Keep repeating the “I’m sorry I can’t help you, I have to…” over and over until they get the message.

Ok, so that’s cleared that little mess up. Now onto the actual positioning.

How do you do it?

Well, to be honest, it doesn’t have to be that difficult to get your positioning right – you simply have to begin by assessing who you want to be at work. Please be realistic in this process, however, your dreams of being top dog are useful too, so keep half an eye on them too. Once you have established this next step, sit down and write down all the qualities that you have that will help you, then list down all the qualities you feel you need to work on, then finally, write down the things you think you need to do lots of work on. Start working on them all, even the good ones!

Next, you need to start looking for opportunities to put your face out there in the company – whether it’s in front of your boss, your director or your company’s clients. A good way to begin is to make sure that you speak up in every meeting – bring one comment or useful idea every time. If you need one-to-one meetings with people, make sure you book them in the diary – they will not happen by themselves!

So much of what we do as a default position is to wait around for the big finger to come along and point at us to indicate we are the chosen one! It’s never going to happen unless you are really lucky, but even then, it’s all to do with your positioning!

Other interesting Articles from the web:

Do You Want to Impress Your Boss? See 15 Proven Tips

Whatever you do, ensure you understand that you don’t get recognised as something before you are being it in your mind and to a degree in your actions. The golden rule is to think and act like you have already achieved it – obviously, be respectful to people and managers etc, but have the right mindset and the positioning piece of building your work profile is a done deal.