Overcoming Negative Thinking: This Is What Confident People Do

In case you can’t watch the video, here’s the transcript. I talk about overcoming negative thinking.

I want to share with you, on this video, the most common question that I get asked on my confidence courses. A lot of people I meet on the courses tell me that they struggle to do things they want to do because they worry about the consequences. When we talk about why they worry, they tell me a voice starts up in their head whenever they’re challenged, whenever they feel outside their comfort zone. When I ask them what that voice says, they tell me things like this…

“I might look stupid.” “I might get asked a difficult question.” “People won’t listen to me.” “I might make a mistake.” “I might embarrass myself.”

I would say… “I might embarrass myself,” is the most common one I hear.

This presents a real problem for some people because if you let it get the better of you, if you let that voice get the better of you, it stops you doing things, and that has a massive impact, both at work and also socially.

Is negative thinking stopping you doing what you want to do?

People tell me, at work, they know they miss opportunities because they don’t do things that they could do.

If their boss asks them to do something and they stop themselves doing it because this voice starts up, that’s so frustrating. They know they should have done it and then someone else does it and that person gets the praise for it, or the promotion.

Or, socially, if you’re at a party, you want to talk to people. Yes, of course you do. You want to talk to people, you want to socialise, but it’s hard because, well, this voice is telling you, “Oh, it’ll be embarrassing because you won’t be able to keep the conversation going or you won’t know how to start the conversation.” It presents a real problem.

Have a look at this line. Just imagine this is your life on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis. This is your life as it moves on. And, of course, just like everybody, you have good times. These are the good times. And you have times when things don’t go according to plan. This happens to us all. The difference is that people who are truly confident deal with these with a positive frame of mind.

What do I mean by that?

Well, think about this…

This is your day, every day. This line represents your mindset on a daily basis. So every day things go well- there are always things that go well. And on occasions, things don’t go so well. I’m drawing a line down the middle because, as I say, this represents your mindset.

How a confident person copes with negative thinking

So, a confident person, when something doesn’t go very well, gets very quickly back over to this side in their mindset. So the person accepts that things, on occasions, won’t work out as planned, and gets quickly back into a positive frame of mind. So in other words, a confident person exists here, so exists at this level on the crests of the waves in their mindset. They think positively, and that’s hugely important because the reality is, on occasions, as I’ve said, things don’t work out, but confident people bounce back quite quickly. That’s what they’re able to do because they’ve worked out how to get back to this frame of mind.

How a pessimist deals with negative thoughts

A negative person, a pessimist, a person who thinks rather negatively about life, hasn’t worked out how to do that, and as a result, they exist there and that’s not helpful if you’re trying to be confident. Confidence must be accompanied by a positive mindset because that way, when challenges face you, you approach them positively. So a challenge becomes a challenge, not a massive, great problem, which it might well do if you exist here because once you’ve had a good situation, which we all do, if you’re a negative thinker, you’re back down there quickly, and that’s not good.

Staying positive and overcoming negative thinking

So Step 1 of my Confidence Plan is all about making sure you’re able to quickly go from there over to there. I’ve got loads of techniques that are really going to help with overcoming negative thinking.

It’s very important that you can deal with that voice within because it’s damaging. It causes you to doubt yourself. As I said already, it stops you doing things you know you should do, and how frustrating is that? So Step 1 is all about staying positive and overcoming negative thinking.

Some people think Step 1 of my Confidence Plan should be about the physical side of confidence. Well, that’s important, too, of course it is. You need to know how to engage people at meetings. You need to know how to speak in a confident way. You need to know how to use your body language. That’s all hugely important but that comes later in the plan.

For me, Step 1 of gaining confidence has to be to do with this… dealing with your mindset. If you let the voice within talk you out of doing something, you can be the most charismatic person in the world, but you’re not doing it because your voice within told you not to, so you stopped yourself.

So that’s why Step 1 of my 4 Step Plan to Confidence is all about maintaining a positive mindset and overcoming negative thinking.