Understanding Confidence and Motivation

What is confidence and where does it come from?

Confidence is fundamentally about being accepted. It can be situationally based or cover a whole gamut of experience.

It can be understood as the belief that we will be accepted, at least by some and at least eventually. For this to happen, we subject ourselves to being judged and this often provokes fear.

Where does confidence come from?

According to Claude Steiner and Eric Berne who developed the theory of Transactional Analysis ‘all people are born princes or princesses, until their parents turn them into frogs’.

This might be an oversimplification but it contends that all human beings are born with the potential to be happy, mentally healthy, well balanced human beings.

The change comes in the form of strokes both positive and negative from parents and other significant figures in a child’s life. It is these strokes which help to form the beliefs or scripts each of us have about ourselves, others and the world in which we inhabit.

Strokes can enhance confidence and self esteem or can create wounds which we carry into adulthood.

If we are constantly told as children that we are worthless, we are likely to grow up feeling worthless and in situations where we feel we are being judged we expect to feel and therefore lack confidence.

Strokes are not only verbal; abandonment, not giving time, showing favouritism, all impact on our sense of self.

Motivation is linked to whether our focus is success or failure. If we anticipate failure, the first set back we experience we will subconsciously accept we have achieved our goal of failure and therefore the activity ends.

If our focus is success, barriers will be seen as a minor set back, something to be overcome and we will continue until we achieve our goal success.

Some people are predominately toward motivators. These people have a vision, a goal. They bounce out of bed and seek opportunities and people who can get them closer to their dream.

‘Away from’ motivators live on the snooze button, putting off the inevitable until it becomes too painful. When the going gets tough the ‘away from’ people get going. Deadline junkies operate best under pressure as soon as they get space and the opportunity to catch up; they take their foot off the gas until the pressure builds again.

For most of us, we have circumstances where we are confident and circumstances where we are not. Most of us have an anticipation of success at least some of the time and this enables us to move forward and grow.

For those who carry the wounds of their childhood and often adulthood, confidence and motivation may elude them. In order to develop confidence we must address these damaging life scripts, allow people to recognise and understand these scripts and where they come from.

By working with individuals to overcome these barriers we can enable disadvantaged people to reach their potential and overcome the wounds of the past.

Empower offers a ‘Confidence Building and Motivation’ training course available for request on our training notice board or to be bought and delivered in-house for your organisation. Click here for more details.

This entry was posted on Monday 11th June 2012.