Junto: The power of a good team

How much more could you achieve with a good team around you? Who out there could inspire you to new thinking and levels of success? Which individuals could support you in your self-improvement? Who could you support in their self-development? How can a junto help?

These are all excellent questions to consider under the ‘who’ section of The Right Questions Framework. If we want the best chance of fulfilling our dreams, then we are going to need help. This can come in many forms but having a specific group to assist you is invaluable. This is where a junto comes in.

“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” – Oprah Winfrey

What is a Junto and what do they do?

A Junto is a group of people who unite for a common purpose. This makes them like a team, but a junto often sits outside formal working arrangements and may span various occupations or sectors.

Benjamin Franklin’s Junto – The Leather Apron Club

The most famous example of a junto is the Leather Apron Club, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1727 and based in Philadelphia. Franklin’s junto was all about improvement; the group sought to develop themselves and their community. They did this by meeting regularly, but informally, over a drink to debate important matters of the day. Every member also produced an essay (which could be on any subject) every three months to read to the company for further discussion.

The Junto had around twelve members of diverse backgrounds and professions. For example, Franklin’s Junto included merchants, surveyors, poets, mathematicians and master craftsmen. This provided a rich cognitive diversity; a catalytic combination for thinking innovatively.

The evening debates were of a Socratic nature, where there was a genuine desire to find truth, rather than win an argument. The junto had rules to enforce the positive nature of the dialogue and used poignant questions to start the discussions.

Questions for mutual betterment

The meetings centred around a specific question that gave a topic focus for the event. Here are some examples taken from Franklin’s autobiography:

1. Have you met with anything in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physic, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge.
2. Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
3. Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
4. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto or any of them, can procure for you?
5. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?

These questions give a feel for the breadth of topics that Franklin’s Junto considered. In my experience, similar, open questions are a great way to spark lively conversation when working in a group coaching, workshop or junto environment.

What is the right number of people for a junto or mutual improvement group?

There is no perfect number of people for a junto, but when forming any mutual improvement group, it is worth considering the mechanics of communication. In essence, if you want meaningful conversation, you must limit the number of people involved.

Consider this: How many interactions would it take, if you wanted every individual in a group to speak to every other team member? Any guesses for a group of 4, 8 or 12 people? The answer can be surprising, as the attached diagram illustrates.

We might not easily calculate these exponential increases in connections, but we feel them intuitively. Think about the last group dinner you attended. How many people were there, around the table, and how well could they interact?

There is a reason why weddings and conferences often use circular tables for eight people. It is a manageable number. Next time you are at a function, party or networking event do a little experiment. Count the number of people who are in each huddle. Then watch count the number in the group when it has to divide to carry on meaningful conversation.

In my experience, discussion groups – whether at a party or in a group coaching context – generally peak at eight people. You might have more in a junto but that can take account of not everyone being present on every occasion, or that you might need to split into smaller groups to have a meaningful discussion.

How do you pick the right people for your team?

When picking the people for your junto or team consider these questions:

1. What is the key purpose or themes of the junto and why would someone want to join the group?
2. Bearing in mind your answer to the first question, who do you know in your network who would be most interested in joining?
3. Who could help you most with your self-improvement?
4. If you could pick, two, four or eight people to meet with regularly and discuss interesting matters, who would you go for and why?
5. How can you ensure the team is cognitively diverse? Which different characters, perspectives and interests could or should be represented?

You might also want to use the 4Cs from the section on picking a life coach or guide. You can consider:

• Character. When forming a junto, you want people of good character. Members need to want to genuinely support each other.
• Competence. The junto should be diverse and represent several different skills and competencies, but everyone should be competent in their communication skills and have good emotional intelligence.
• Chemistry. People don’t all need to be best friends but there should be mutual respect. Quality interactions rely on the ability to meet comfortably and the trust to share intimately.
• Confidentiality. Discussions, especially when people share personal information, should remain confidential. Members should not share anything without another’s consent. At the very least meetings should be held in accordance with the Chatham House Rule. Namely that:

“When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.”

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Master the tool: picking the people for your Junto

Take some time now to consider who you might invite to your junto. Take at least ten minutes to go through the 5 steps listed above, giving you a couple of minutes per step.

Do you want further help finding and joining a Junto?

Coaching groups often form the basis of a successful junto. This is because they form around a common purpose with all members being interested in self-improvement. Coaching groups are rarely from the same work team or organisation so there is often good cognitive and experiential diversity present in such groups.

If you would be interested in joining a coaching group or junto, please do send me a message via the contact page.

Life goals (when chosen correctly) are beneficial as they give us a target with direction and focus. We use goals to initiate about change in ourselves and the world around us. They are a tangible measure of action, improvement, and achievement.

Goals are more than just a good productivity hack. Setting and achieving self-development goals supports good mental health by giving us a sense of purpose and then triggering the release of positive neurotransmitters such as dopamine when we succeed. What’s more, goal setting is related to having a growth mindset. We need to set and fulfil targets to remain in learning mode and continue our personal improvement.

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.” — Andrew Carnegie

How to select the big life goals

Setting and achieving goals can be highly beneficial, but we do have to set the right type of goals. We need to set ourselves targets that stretch us (forcing us to grow) but they do need to be achievable. Goals can be bold, such as the Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) advocated by Jim Collins (author of Good to Great), but however big the idea is, it still needs to be broken down into actionable steps.

Therefore, if we want to benefit from all the benefits of goals — the productivity gains of setting them as well as the positive effects of achieving them — then we need to set what I call Goldilocks goals. These are goals that are not too easy but are also not completely unrealistic.

These Goldilocks goals can be ambitious, right on the edge of what we might believe is even possible, but then we must employ the important next step, that of chunking the goal down to make it manageable. For example, we might set ourselves the goal of climbing Mount Everest but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of intermediate tasks we need to complete in order to succeed.

“I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.” Michael Phelps (Olympic Gold Medallist and World Champion Swimmer)

The need for focus when achieving personal growth goals

Achieving challenging goals takes focus, and here I can speak from experience. For example, I set myself the target of completing several arduous mountain races which required single minded application over the course of several years.

In 2017 my target was to complete the CCC race in the Alps, one of the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc (UTMB) courses. The route is a partial circumnavigation of the Mont Blanc massive. The path goes continually up and down, traversing the steep mountain trails; up over high passes and then back down into deep valleys, only to start climbing once again.

By the time I got to the checkpoint at the 50 km mark, it was getting dark. I had been running all day and felt exhausted, but I was still less than halfway around the course. The start had been in Italy and the final destination was the town of Chamonix in France, but at that point, I was still in Switzerland. With so far to go it was very tempting to just give up. I needed real discipline and focus to keep going.

As I left the checkpoint, I switched on my headtorch and immediately a bright, comforting circle appeared before me. I used it to first check my map, identifying the next check point, and glancing again at the end point, my goal.

I willed my stiff legs into movement and started off. My torch created a pool of light that I was running into. My focus narrowed to that small, enlightened patch of path as I got into a rhythm, despite my protesting muscles, and I encouraged myself on. All I needed to do was to keeping running into that light and I would achieve my goal.

“I don’t care how much power, brilliance or energy you have, if you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there, you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants.” — Zig Ziglar

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The Right Questions Torch Tool: Focussing on the self-development goal

If we want to achieve our big life goals then we need determination and focus. When it comes to The Right Questions Framework, and the conceptual tools that we pack in our bag, then we can think about the torch as something that helps us with that focus. A lamp has many uses, and is an essential item to pack for most adventures.

On our journey, just as like in my race, it is the metaphorical headtorch that helps to light our path, giving us the clarity to push towards our goal. To help gain that greater clarity there are some exercises we can work through.

Step 1: Clarify your life goals

Here are some questions to work through to help you hone your life goals. These questions are based on coaching tips from Michael Neill in his book Supercoach. They are questions that I have found particularly helpful, both for setting my own personal goals and for helping people I coach as they set their life goals.

Answer each one in turn, brainstorming as many goals as possible at this stage.

What things should you achieve?

In other words, what do you feel duty-bound to do? What do you feel is a responsibility or a necessity to achieve?

Which goals are logical?

Another way of asking this question would be, what is the rational thing to progress to? What would be a natural thing to achieve if you follow the course you are presently on?

Which goals give you déjà vu?

Which goals are always on your list and never seem to go away? What goal have you always wanted to do but never succeeded in?

What goals would somebody else set you?

If you asked your best friend or a family member, what sort of goal would they set for you? Think about your spouse or partner, what would they say should be your goal?

Which dreams express your deep wants?

Which goal reflects the deepest desires of your heart? What would give you the greatest satisfaction to achieve?

What would you ask for from your fairy godmother?

If you could wish for anything, what would that be? How about three wishes? What would you ask for?

What are your happy wants?

Which things do you want to achieve that will make you happy? Which ideas make you happy even just thinking about doing them?

What are your naughty wants?

Which goals do you have that you have never told anyone about? What would you like to achieve but have been too embarrassed to share with anyone or too scared to try?

What do you think “if only” I could have achieved?

When you look back in life, what do you wish you had achieved? If you could turn back the clock what would you have done differently?

Step 2: Prioritise your life objectives

After answering all the questions above you should have a long list of ideas and dreams. The next task is to prioritise these goals and work out which one you want to achieve first.

This is where the torch tool helps to spotlight the goals that are the most important so you can focus on them. We can use this tool in conjunction with other tools from our toolkit, combining the information we have from the other ‘why, where and what’ exercises.

Now answer these questions to help you narrow down your goal selection:

• Combine with the compass: Which goals are aligned with your personal values?
• Think about the photo: Which dream, if you did not achieve it, would you be most disappointed about?
• Consider your map: What target would best support your life purpose or overall vision?

Step 3: Focus on your most impactful goals

Finally, make the decision of which targets you are going to focus on. To do this, when considering large life goals, I would recommend that you pick no more than three big goals, and you also decide on which is the primary focus. As with a torch light, we can only focus on a certain amount with any clarity, so the more we concentrate our viewpoint, the more likely we are to achieve our objective.

“By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands — your own.” — Mark Victor Hansen

What do you want to achieve in life?

There are lots of approaches you can take to figure out life goals. You may already keep a bucket list of things you want to do but sometimes it is helpful to think about what we want to achieve using different tools. Each new approach can generate new ideas or give further insight into earlier thinking.

Your desire might be to unlock your purpose in life or just to generate ideas for goals you want to achieve. Either way, this set of questions can help you to create and explore your aims, desires, and dreams.

How to figure out life goals

These questions are based on coaching tips from Michael Neill in his book Supercoach. They are questions that I have found particularly helpful, both for setting my own personal goals and for helping people I coach as they set their life goals.

Go through each question in turn and write down as many ideas as you can against each one.

What things should you achieve?

In other words, what do you feel duty-bound to do? What do you feel is a responsibility or a necessity to achieve?

Which goals are logical?

Another way of asking this question would be, what is the rational thing to progress to? What would be a natural thing to achieve if you follow the course you are presently on?

Which goals give you déjà vu?

Which goals are always on your list and never seem to go away? What goal have you always wanted to do but never succeeded in?

What goals would somebody else set you?

If you asked your best friend or a family member, what sort of goal would they set for you? Think about your spouse or partner, what would they say should be your goal?

Which dreams express your deep wants?

Which goal reflects the deepest desires of your heart? What would give you the greatest satisfaction to achieve?

What would you ask for from your fairy godmother?

If you could wish for anything, what would that be? How about three wishes? What would you ask for?

What are your happy wants?

Which things do you want to achieve that will make you happy? Which ideas make you happy even just thinking about doing them?

What are your naughty wants?

Which goals do you have that you have never told anyone about? What would you like to achieve but have been too embarrassed to share with anyone or too scared to try?

What do you think “if only” I could have achieved?

When you look back in life, what do you wish you had achieved? If you could turn back the clock what would you have done differently?

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How to prioritise your life goals

After answering all the questions above you should have a long list of ideas and dreams. The next task is to prioritise these goals and work out which one you want to achieve first.

Here are some more questions to help you narrow down your selection:

• Which goals are aligned with your personal values?
• What aim would best support your life purpose?
• Which achievement would have the biggest positive impact on your life?
• Which dream, if you did not achieve it, would you be most disappointed about?

How to achieve life goals

Once you have prioritised your list of goals and chosen which one (or more) that you want to achieve, the next step is examining the goal in more detail and developing a plan to help you to succeed.

There are other tools that can help you with this such as stating your goal as a SMART task and making sure it is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Another technique, common to coaching, is using the GROW model. Here you state your goal, then look at the reality of your situation and what your starting point is. Then you consider the options or obstacles that you face in achieving your mission, then work out the best way forward and commit your will to fulfil your dream.

Good luck with achieving your life goals!

I have had a fascination with philosophy, and particularly with Socrates, ever since winning the book, A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, as a prize at school. As someone passionate about personal development, and as a professional coach, it continues to amaze me how many important themes, such as self-inquiry, question technique and ethical decision-making, can be traced back to the thinking of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Socrates and the importance of self-improvement

Arguably, Socrates was the father of personal development as well as Western philosophy. He is most associated with the Greek aphorism, “know thyself” and is quoted as saying,

“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom”

Socrates

This premise is echoed in personal development literature, such as Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which starts with mastery of self before moving onto success in the public field or in the leadership of others.

It is somewhat tautological to say that self-improvement should start with self, but it is a point that is often overlooked. All too often, when setting goals, we choose to focus on people around us. This might be in making unhealthy comparisons (a particular problem in the age of social media), blaming our situation on others, or endlessly seeking to fix everything around us, without doing any home maintenance.

To know that we have progressed – in whatever field we want to develop – we need to be able to manage a process of improvement. As the adage goes, “you can only manage what you can measure.” That being the case, when setting a goal, you need to define the start-state as well as the end-state. Self-examination should therefore be the first step of productive personal development. We start by working out where we are now. And the most important aspect of this self-examination is to identify the motivations, beliefs and ideals that inform our behaviours.

Socratic ethics, virtues, and values

Socrates, in his dialogues, sought to seek out and test the foundations on which people based their ideas and actions. He also believed there were right and wrong actions, good and bad decisions. In other words, he sought virtuous behaviour and ethical decision-making.

Socrates believed in an objective good, a standard of right and wrong. This contrasted with the Sophists who treated truth as relative. The Sophists were more concerned with eloquent debates and winning arguments; it was less important whether what they were arguing for was true or not. Today a Sophist might be compared to an unprincipled lawyer who is willing to defend anyone for the right price, or a rotten politician who is willing to say anything to bolster their position. Few of us would claim to know objective truth but fewer still are comfortable with such extremes of relativism. Most people prefer to have principles to live by.

Are there immutable and irrefutable principles? It is an excellent philosophical question and one that is still being asked. Socrates did not claim to know, or presume to dictate, the standard of absolute truth, but he always strove to find it. I think that is a great place to start. We can imitate the likes of Socrates by having the humility to admit we may not know the truth and that we are imperfect people. Add to this a curiosity to seek out the good and a determination to change, and we find ourselves describing what today we call a growth mindset.

We might not have thought of it in these terms before, but this search for truth is – in philosophical terms – about ethics. It is about making the right choices. If these choices are about acting beyond pure self-interest, then we are also talking about virtues. And there is the rub. A lot of what we desire might be purely selfish; it may even be base or wrong. Self-examination can require us to be brutally honest with ourselves about what we value and why.

Integrity and leadership

Leadership also starts with self. If you cannot lead yourself well, how can you expect others to follow you? That is why leadership itself is a development journey akin to broader self-improvement; it is a path of learning much more than it is a role or title. Which ones again leads us back to the need for self-inquiry and the need to ask some questions.

If you compare lists of leadership traits, probably the most common trait you will come across is integrity. In my military career, it was certainly considered the most important of leadership traits as a failure of integrity was the quickest way to lose credibility as a commander.

Integrity is about walking the talk; about acting in accordance with the standards that you set. But this begs the question, what is the right standard? In theory, a bad boss could have integrity of a sort if they acted in accordance with their ideals, even if bad ones. So, integrity must be coupled with the idea of good leadership, not just effective management. And hence we find ourselves back in the realms of ethics, virtues, and values again; as we need to know our principles to act in alignment with them, and the precepts we follow should be good ones.

Socratic questioning

Similarly, to Confucius and Buddha, Socrates’ style of pedagogy was through inquiry. In other words, he taught by asking questions. In this way, I like to think that Socrates is the grandfather of coaching as well as philosophy and self-improvement!

Socrates developed the elenchus or Socratic question technique. The aim of this technique was to clarify someone’s position on a subject and then question the foundational assumptions of the idea to test its logic. The technique has been adapted and used in diverse fields such as debating, legal cross-examination and coaching. If you are curious about the world and like to understand ideas and test beliefs, then it is an important tool – even if just to use in everyday conversation.

“The highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.” 

Socrates

In this context, we can use the same process to question ourselves. If we do not have someone to help us, such as a coach or counsellor, we can do some self-reflection. Using a journal or taking notes can be helpful in this process. Here is a simplified way to use the Socratic method when using it for self-examination:

Reflect

Reflect upon a statement or a decision that you have made. Some of the most insightful statements and decisions to investigate are the more negative ones. For example, we might choose not to do something, saying “I can’t do that!” Hold that thought or write it down.

Refine

The next step is to refine. Here the context of the word refine is like that of refining precious metal; the aim here is to expose our thinking to the flame, to burn away untruths and remove the impurities from our thinking.

To do this we must examine the assumptions that have informed our words and actions. If we don’t think we can do something, why is that? What is the belief or feeling that underpins this? Some assumptions are reasonable, some are simply false. The purpose of this stage is to sift what is true from what is not.

Re-state

Once we have examined the thinking behind our statement or decision, we can re-state it, bringing in our new knowledge. If there was a false assumption identified, it might be we can turn the statement on its head. We might be saying “I can” instead of “I can’t”.

Repeat

The next step is to further examine the new statement. Are there further assumptions that need to be identified and tested? In this way the process is like the 5 Whys interrogative technique; we keep on asking the questions until we get to the fundamental issue. As we delve ever further into our thinking, we should be able to identify the core beliefs that shape our thinking, the standards that drive our behaviour and the values that inform our decisions.

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Know thyself

Socrates commitment to enquiry, truth and ethics got him into trouble. He was nicknamed the gadfly; an annoying biting insect, by self-important and self-proclaimed wise people. They did not like to be exposed by Socrates as his questioning revealed their fallacies and undermined their position. He so challenged the beliefs and norms of his day that he was sentenced to death. His integrity was amply demonstrated in his unwillingness to back down in his search for truth.

Revealing the truth can be uncomfortable and maintaining our integrity often comes at personal cost. Self-inquiry can be a humbling process, but it is a vital one if we truly want to be happy in who we are and successful in what we do.

So, be prepared to be confronted with some brutal facts as you begin your self-examination. And don’t just make it a one-off, instead, develop a habit of challenging your own thinking. For all of us, whether in leadership positions or not, this process of reflection is a vital part of self-improvement.

Be like Socrates and seek to know thyself.

How self-assured are you? Are you confident of your success, in your life, work and relationships? If you are unsure, then you are not alone. 85% of Americans suffer from low esteem, according to research by Dr Joe Rubino. This lack of confidence affects more than just our feelings, it impacts our earnings too. Best-selling author Barrie Davenport observes that,

“One of the main obstacles to financial success is low self-confidence.”

Further studies, such as those highlighted by Francesco Drago, have shown that more confident people earn more. In fact, they earn a lot more; it can amount to thousands of extra dollars a year. Not only that, (and arguably more importantly) having greater confidence improves our relationships and overall wellbeing.

So, confidence is a big deal. The important question then becomes: can we improve our confidence, and if so, then how?

Can you become more confident?

Isn’t confidence just a character thing? Surely you either have it or you don’t? That is what many people think, and, indeed, some people are naturally more confident than others. But that does not mean that our self-esteem levels are fixed. We can learn to be more confident.

The evidence is there but I can also speak from personal experience. When I was younger, I was not naturally a confident character. I was introverted, very sensitive to how people perceived me, easily embarrassed, and I did not like to take the lead. Now, having been in various senior management positions and done a lot of public speaking, this comes as a surprise to people.

One of the things that helped me build confidence in my younger years was acting. School plays allowed me to take on another persona. When I put on a mask or costume, I felt I could become a more self-assured version of myself. I later came to realise that I could do this without having to step onto a stage. Without knowing it I stumbled on a truth that Dr Ian Robertson has explored in his book How Confidence Works.

How Confidence Works

Dr Robertson’s research has identified the two critical psychological elements of confidence, which he calls ‘can do’ and ‘can happen.’  The ‘can do’ part is the intrinsic belief that we can do something. The ‘can happen’ element is the assurance that our actions can make a differ our given situation.

The combination of these beliefs can lead to four different states of mind:

• Can’t do/can’t happen. This is an apathetic state where a person believes they are not good enough and anything they did would fail anyway. In other words, they have a fixed rather than a growth mindset. This state of low self-esteem is also linked to low dopamine levels which further dampens energy levels. For example, if someone wanted to lose weight but did not believe they had enough willpower, and that even if they did, then changing their diet would not work anyway, then they would be in this can’t do/can’t happen mindset.

• Can do/can’t happen. Here the belief is that an individual can act, but that any effort would be wasted as it would not change the situation. As well as undermining confidence this state can lead to resentment and be expressed by anger at a situation. Using the previous example about losing weight, here a person might believe they can change their diet, but it would not have the desired effect. They might blame their own body, the diet itself or some other factor.

• Can’t do/can happen. Here a person might believe that something is possible but just not for them. A goal becomes something that other people achieve but the individual’s low self-esteem holds them back from trying. Past failures can invoke this state of mind. When it comes to the example of losing weight a lot of people find themselves in this situation. They have tried to get fitter, and have struggled to achieve lasting success, and this has led to a mindset where they no longer have the confidence to try.

• Can do/can happen. This is the optimal state of high confidence. It combines the self-esteem of an individual, confidence that they can do something, along with the positive outlook that a situation can be changed. Using the dieting example once again, in this mindset a person would believe that they can change their behaviours – such as what they eat – and that the resultant change would lead to achieving their goal of losing weight.

5 factors that affect confidence

Dr Ian Robertson goes on to highlight five things to be aware of to improve confidence, these are language, attention, memory, imagery, and posture. By embracing the positive aspects of these factors (and limiting the negative ones) we can get into the can do/can happen mindset. Let’s look at each one in turn:

Language

Words are powerful and the words we use of ourselves, both internally and externally, really do matter. Humility is good but not thinking too highly of yourself is not the same as thinking too little of yourself. Negative self-talk, things like “I am not good enough” or a pessimistic outlook such as “things never change in this organisation” undermines the can do/can happen state. Confident language, both internal and external, needs to be positive, even if that is just “I can learn to do this” or “I can make a difference, no matter how small.”

Attention

Our attention is important because we move towards whatever we choose to focus on. It is like driving, you must fix your eyes on where you want to go, even (and in some ways most importantly) when you feel we are skidding out of control. As in life as with driving, if you focus on the obstacle, you are more likely to hit it. Instead, we need to give our attention to positive feelings, thoughts and where we want to go.

Memory

Memories can either help or hinder us. Remembering past successes and positive experiences can get us into the can-do/can-happen mode. If we have done something successfully before we can recall that moment and think “I can do this, I know it.” Equally, we can undermine our confidence by bringing to mind our past failures. This is why sports psychologists spend so much time helping players learn to quickly leave behind the last bad stroke, kick or ball, to stop that memory from undermining the next serve, pass or play.

Imagery

Similarly, to memory, visualisation can be very powerful and is a power harnessed by top athletes. Even if we have not done something successfully before, we can make new connections in our brains that hardwire us for success by rehearsing the events in our minds. Visualisation not only new neural pathways it also prepares our bodies for physical activity. But, if we choose to focus on the negatives and all the possible things that could go wrong, it will have the opposite effect.

Posture

As we have seen with memory and imagery, our psychology affects our physiology. This works the other way around too. How we use our bodies can positively or negatively impact our confidence and feelings in general. Many people know non-verbal communication cues such as crossing your arms in front of your body. This closed body language indicates a defensive mindset. But it also creates a defensive mindset. If you stand tall, pull your shoulders back and look people in the eye, your brain will interpret the physical signals. The result is that you will feel more confident.

How to develop your confidence

Scientific research demonstrates that we can all improve our confidence. If we get ourselves into the can-do/can-happen mindset we can think and act differently. To help us, we can use positive language, attention, memory, imagery, and posture to reinforce our feelings or confidence and set us up for success.

Tennis legend Venus Williams summed things up well in her New York Times interview in 2018:

“I feel that I owe my own success to my belief in myself and have found that confidence can be learned and developed. In fact, my own self-confidence is something I work on every day, just like going to the gym or training on the court.”

So, take a leaf out of Venus’ book and work on your confidence today and every day. Become a more confident version of yourself and enjoy the benefits. Confidence can bring wealth and success at work, but also it enriches relationships and will help you to be at peace with yourself.