3 verbal habits that tell you a person is confident

PCC ICF level coach, head of the “Coaching” direction at the online school “Psyhodemia”

“Spoken words are thoughts clothed in sound, and those, in turn, are a consequence of the work of our thinking. From this chain it is easy to conclude that behind the usual words, which we do not pay attention to ourselves, it is possible to see how we think and treat ourselves.”

1- Stories about ourselves

When looking at the verbal habits of confident people, we want to start with the stories we tell about ourselves. If I ask you right now what kind of person you are, what are your most striking traits, what would you say? “I’m an optimist.” “I’m a nerd.” Or in general, “I don’t have any strong traits. I’m just average.” That’s the story we tell ourselves day in and day out.

That’s the way our brain works. It’s very important for it to make sure it’s thinking the right thing. So day after day, the brain looks for confirmation of the story and studiously ignores the counterarguments. The seemingly simple phrase, “What do you mean, I’m an introvert?” – becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The more often he says it or thinks it, the more he focuses on finding evidence of it. Of course, the more diligently the person ignores evidence that he or she might actually be different. This phenomenon is called a givenness attitude.

It can be contrasted with a developmental attitude. This means that you do not make global conclusions about yourself, but state a fact. Instead of “I’m an introvert,” say, “I have trouble speaking in public so far.”

If right now you’re thinking, “Well, I’m really an introvert,” believe me – it’s not a fact, it’s just a judgment. Let’s say you took the appropriate test. It showed that you belong to this type. It is worth understanding that no competent test will not call a person an introvert, but will indicate the result on the introversion scale.

2. locus of control

The second thing that makes sense to pay attention to in speech is the locus of control, which is known to many people. This is a mechanism that a person uses automatically to determine the sources of events in his or her life. Internal locus of control implies one’s own responsibility, external locus of control implies shifting it (for what happens in your life) to others.

Popular literature on effectiveness teaches that successful people should have an internal locus of control. But if we look at the research on self-perception, we see that confidence is positively influenced by an internal locus of control on positive events: “I achieved these results because I’m good at what I do” instead of “My friends just helped me”. And for negative events, the external locus of control would be “It didn’t work out because my partners failed” instead of “It didn’t work out because I didn’t try hard enough”.

Think of one positive event in your life and one negative event. Why do you think it turned out the way it did? The first thing that comes to mind will be an indication to you of whether your habitual thoughts are growing your confidence or, on the contrary, destroying it day by day.

Of course, it’s important to mention here that everything is good in moderation. If you are convinced that good things happen because of you, and all the bad things are the fault of others, it can lead to not the most pleasant consequences. The only upside is that you’ll come across as a person absolutely convinced of your own brilliance.

3- Feedback to yourself

There is one more habit that I would like to tell you about. It’s about how exactly you give feedback to yourself. Every session with a coach starts with questions: how is the client doing, what worked and what didn’t?

Obviously, a person doesn’t always manage to accomplish everything he or she has planned. There are victories and defeats. But how differently people talk about it!

Examples of such dialogs

– How’s it going?

– It’s bad, I didn’t do anything again. “A” didn’t work, and “B” didn’t work. That’s terrible!

– What about “C”, “D”, “D”, “E”, “G”?

– I did all that, but A and B didn’t work!

Or vice versa:

– How’s it going?

– Fine. “C,” “D,” “D,” “E,” “G” – I did it all! I feel like I’m making progress!

– What about “A” and “B”?

– I decided to focus on something else. “A” and “B” on hold.

Let’s not get into whether it was really important to do A and B. Our job is to compare and evaluate the focus of attention of these two people. One of them looks for what works out, and in doing so, builds the foundation of his self-esteem and confidence day after day. The other, on the other hand, devalues the results by focusing on the shortcomings.

Our speech manifests an internal monologue with ourselves that we conduct out of habit. but the good news is that you can work with it.

3 tips to become more confident in yourself

1. Keep track of who you think you are. Do you want this story about you to become a reality? If not, which one would you like to tell about yourself?
2. Pay attention to the contribution you make to your successes, and leave enough credit to circumstances and other people in failures. Negative experiences should be learned from, but only within the framework of understanding what you would do differently next time.
3. Focus on what you are good at. Not only will you start to grow in results, but you’ll also gain confidence.