Confidence through creative thinking.
I recently hosted a Salon Series talk as part of the European Union-funded Gendered Innovation Living Labs research project. This community is for women in academia who are interested in running a business, primarily based in Coventry, UK, and supported by Coventry University. The theme was Building Confidence and Beating Imposter Syndrome. You can find more details of GILL here.
We hosted it at the stunning Telegraph Hotel, Coventry, and it was a great start to the year.
The session focused on building confidence and replacing unhealthy, toxic understandings of ‘success’, ‘knowledge’, ‘growth’, or ‘motivation’.
The space we created was safe, confidential, and fair. Everyone could share however much they wished, and whatever personal stories were shared stayed in the group.
After a short introduction, I led conversations where we could learn from each other’s views and experiences. I captured the session via mindmaps, and, with the groups’ consent, these have been anonymised and designed into a helpful visual resource shared below in this post.
What is confidence?
So, where to start? For me, the first place always consists of the basics of what we are discussing. What is Confidence? So, we began identifying the first things that come to mind when people think about confidence.
We then explored various answers and understood the deeper reasons for them. I have collated the discussion into a colourful mindmap, which is displayed below (if viewing on your phone, rotate and zoom in and out).
Some wonderfully valuable aspects of confidence were shared. The main point in this area is that it genuinely and profoundly affects us all; it’s linked to our identity, motivation, and, in many cases, a sense of worth.
The perception of confidence is not necessarily what you think. Some people seem confident and struggle, while others are quiet and seem unconfident but are the most self-assured.
One of the most significant points is that confidence is essential in business, relationships and life. It’s the cornerstone of decision-making, communication and navigating the world.
Everyone in the session raised their hand when it came to experiencing Imposter Syndrome, which is a massive part of acknowledging how pervasive it is and that we are not alone. This can be half the battle when tackling these feelings.
Perspective and perception are the keys to understanding and change. I guided the participants through some activities to help them remove their emotions from feelings of imposter syndrome and start reflecting on more of the facts and expertise they bring to their professional situations.
One of the members also created a picture of how she perceived the environment for confidence to grow, as shown below.
How to build confidence?
The second part of the session was centred around building confidence, how people thought you could, where people had become more confident, and where confidence-building pitfalls exist.
The conversations made it clear that the most valuable things in life take work. There is no quick fix for feeling completely confident. From the discussions in the session and my own experience, it’s clear that it starts with understanding who you are and being confident in your actions.
Build your authentic empathy.
In the session, I recommended a few activities to start this process. I have shared them below for you to follow and action for yourself if you want to. Feel free to capture and explore these as creatively as possible, use different-coloured pens, doodle the answers, or choose unusual papers to write on. I recommend picking your favourite colours for everything.
The main objective of these activities is to add as much information out of your head as possible. The more your brain explores and positive repetition or reinforcement sets in, the better (founded by neuroscientific research).
Remember to keep a physical connection between the hand and the mind, so keep those pens handy and try not to slip into your phone notes or laptop keyboard for these tasks.
The three-pronged approach to build your confidence foundation.
Activity One - Stabilisation in Strengths - I love utilising personal SWOT analyses to consider your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for my clients and myself.
However, I suggest you focus on understanding your strengths for this activity. Consider what you are naturally good at, what you enjoy, those moments in life when you lose track of time, and when you are most content.
This is a work-in-progress activity, and I suggest continually adding to it. Ask loved ones and colleagues, mainly people you trust, what they would consider your strengths, and listen to and accept why they say these things.
Activity Two - Your Story Gemstones - Think about the time you are most proud of. Take the time to understand what you did to play a part in that and what and why that moment was so important to you.
If you can think of additional milestones and stories, flesh them out, doodle them and consider the main contributing factors that got you there and what you would like to take to future opportunities.
Activity Three - Value Lemons - This is a staple of my development support. I recommend that everyone undertake these thought exercises regularly to understand and thoroughly implement their values in life. After all, if you don't know your values and the direction you want to take your life, you will, by default, be working for someone else’s values and vision.
Consider areas of life that annoy you. Bullet point all of the areas of life that make you angry. Think about at least 5 to 10 points. Don’t worry; you won’t be in this headspace for too long, but this process is necessary to identify what is most important to you.
Now, take each point and think about the opposite of that anger point. Making lemonade out of lemons… These are your values.
What’s next?
By understanding these activities, you can reframe your thoughts and perspectives about who you are and what you stand for. This, in turn, becomes a solid foundation for building your life and making informed decisions that will delight the inner you.
Photograph by Trevor Price of TV Trev
I hope you find these activities helpful. I welcome any feedback on how to strengthen the processes for people in the future.
I work with clients to develop creativity and well-being-fueled leadership and team-building training. I am also setting up a health and wellness business partnership, where creativity is utilised as a versatile and accessible tool for well-being and self-understanding, which I am very excited about. I look forward to sharing these opportunities.
Soon, I will also publish research I conducted last year with the support of Coventry University on barriers to well-being support for people over 45, especially regarding creative-based activities. So watch this space.
If you are interested, if you have anything to say in this area or if you need any support in these areas, email me at donna@thedpa.uk.
I hope you’re enjoying the rollercoaster of life.
Stay balanced.
Donna <3
