Treating Low Confidence with Hypnosis

Low Confidence is an issue which affects most people during their lives. Though many like to present themselves in public as though they are very confident; for many this is just a symptom of many of the messages about being able to cope which we have been given in our youth.

Confidence depends on what we are doing

Confidence is something which is not fixed, at times we have high self esteem and at others we have little confidence. We can be very confident about one thing and lack confidence about doing something else. For example you may be confident about driving a car but be fearful about driving a lorry.

Unnecessary Pressure to feel confident

This misunderstanding of how we experience confidence can put unnecessary pressure on someone because, instead of allowing someone to be honest about their confidence, they are told that they are just being silly or in a more macho environment they are not even able to say that they are not confident.

Self fulfilling prophecies

Doing any task when you experience low confidence, puts added pressure on you. If you feel confident and expect to perform well, the outcome becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. “I am good at this. I will do great,” becomes the norm.

The same is true for when you feel unconfident. The idea that you are not able to do a task, that you will make a mistake becomes a reality. This becomes a self-perpetuating cycle and so practise makes imperfect and reinforces that you cannot do something.

Low self esteem can come from a single traumatic event, the long standing messages of an individual or a combination of events, resulting in a person avoiding discovering their own true potential.

Throughout my entire career I have been working with people who have experienced issues around confidence and self esteem. When working with people with low self esteem I work to help the individual recognise their own potential, identify a safe and appropriate arena where this confidence can be nurtured and support the person to recognise and explore their potential.

Hypnosis and other tools

There are lots of ways of building self esteem, this site will suggests a host of different techniques and approaches that I use and you can adopt to nurture your self esteem and allow your confidence to grow day by day. Alongside these techniques, can can use hypnosis for life long changes.

What can you do to treat low confidence?

Treatment for low confidence is really effective and usually takes around 4 hours to make a significant difference. Treatment includes a mix of changing how you think, both about the task that you struggle with but also how you think about your self plus a strategic analysis of how you go about the task that you feel lacking in confidence with and offering more effective techniques for you. The typical things that you can find help for on this site and via therapy include low confidence around exams, driving tests, relationships, the workplace, dealing with others.

The specialist tools I offer include assertiveness training, which includes learning language techniques to stop people make yo do things that you do not want to do. language techniques to get what you want without getting manipulated or frustrated, public speaking skills, dealing with personal put downs by others and negative ways of talking about yourself. Other techniques include, CBT, NLP, Hypnosis, planning skills, amongst many more.

Need instant confidence for driving test or exams? Use hypnosis.

Hypnotherapy is very effective at helping deal with self esteem and personal performance issues. Hypnosis is used frequently to support someone to sit a driving test, sit academic exams and to give presentations. At a more general stage, it is very effective at helping someone to boost their underlying confidence, sense of themselves and ability to value themselves in the world.

Build Confidence with a success diary

Build Confidence and self esteem by keeping a diary of some of the positive aspects of your day. This is a great way to reflect on your day whilst focusing on the great things that you have achieved.

RECALL YOUR SUCCESSES
It is common when people have low self esteem that they only notice and recall the things which remind them that they are not successful or worthy of praise. By keeping a simple victory diary, only recording things, that have gone well today, that you have done that you are proud of and things that they have learned today, your self esteem will grow and grow.

Create a success diary that is personal to you

TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR SUCCESSES
If you use a paper diary, start as you mean to go on have pride in your successes by getting a journal or diary that you really want to write in that represents your personality and physically feels nice for you to hold and use.

Build confidence by being specific about your successes

You may consider a special pen to your write your entries in. The diary is intended to record your successes and the things that you have done that you are proud of each day. How you record them is up to you but put feelings in your diary express how you felt about each success. Be specific as it is intended to remind you about things that matter to you and you are proud of.

Build confidence by keeping a record of these types of successes

In your success diary, record:

Things you are proud of that you have achieved.

Things you have done today even if you did not achieve perfection

Nice things you have done for yourself and for others.

Goals that you have set yourself and progress on there goals

Feedback from others. Feedback from others can often tell us more about our progress then we are able to identify by ourselves. This is especially true when we focus on the outcome instead of the progress were are making and if it is a big goals such as loose a lot of weight or to step back from an addiction.

Success diaries can hugely impact your success when you are making big changes.

KEEP FOCUSED ON YOUR GOALS
To help you meet your change goals the diary should include any personal goal targets that you have made progress on. When dealing with self confidence and self esteem a key area for development centres around how you communicate with others, if you use your assertiveness tools and if you express your own needs clearly so that you get your needs met. Using the diary to record progress and allowing you to reflect on the next small step to reach your target will help you to make long lasting permanent changes in your life. The diary will also help grow your self esteem and motivation by being a record of how different your life has become.

Revisiting success is essential for self esteem as it raises awareness to your successes. This process is a way of re-programming your brain to seek and find positivity in your life.

Beat Low Self Esteem by finding positivity every day.

Low self esteem can undermine any thoughts of changing, even before you have done anything to try to change. One of the simplest and easiest ways of growing your confidence is learning to be positive and pat yourself on the back everyday. The One Thing You Have Learned Technique is a cost free tool which I teach my clients to value themselves and put the foundations in place to start those changes as soon as they come into therapy.

This simple out of trance hypnotic technique helps you see and experience the world in a more positive perspective, which in turn gives you the drive and self esteem to take on the challenges which have held you back so far. Each day find time to positively reflect, by asking yourself to identify one thing you have learned plus one thing you have done well.

Find positivity in your day

By making time to find positivity in your day, your thinking will become more positive and still remain realistic giving you the mental resources to make positive changes and the resilience to maintain those changes when times get difficult.

Reflective techniques do not have to be arduous. This technique is really effective at identifying the things that you should be proud of every day. People with low self esteem and a negative view of themselves have learned to reject or ignore anything that they could and should celebrate about themselves and this simple and easy to maintain therapeutic tool is excellent at reigniting that passion for valuing yourself and building your self esteem.

Self esteem is an essential ingredient to successful changes, whether you want to beat addictions, lose weight, address a depressive condition or want to end self harming.

Use tools that help you reflect on your successes honestly

Challenging your low Self esteem using by growing your own confidence is vital to find the emotional resources to keep your motivation going for the full 66 days in order to reach your goals. During that period there will be knocks to your confidence or your plans and it is the ability to source the resilience to keep the changes going.

Using the One Thing I Have Learned tool forces you to recognise that your day has helped you to grow. When people first use this tool they anticipate learning something very big or an academic type of learning. The purpose of this question is to be aware that had you not been present in the world today then you would not have learned something that you learned today. This can be as simple as someone’s name, their age or a hobby that they have. The tool is to recognise that unique to this day you have had an experience that you can share with others. This tool therefore allows you to have a point of personal growth but also gives you something to talk about to others as you grow your social resources.

One thing I have learned technique

After answering the One Thing I Have learned question you should answer The One Thing I Have Done Well question, which is again, unique to you and again it's purpose is to notice your own place in the world. The things that we can celebrate about ourselves should only be things that we value so if we have turned up on time, an issue for some addicts, have kept to our eating plan, an issue for those on weight management plans, or asked someone a question, a target for those who are working on their social anxiety then we can use that to celebrate our success today.

To further support this work these positive events can be added to our success diaries and can be integrated into goal setting and small step approaches to change.

Repeated practise of these tools will rapidly grow self esteem and build the resilience and confidence to work on other more demanding life issues.

Boost Confidence by being kind

To boost confidence and raise your self esteem there are a whole host of techniques to adopt. A simple and enjoyable way of changing how you feel about yourself can be achieved by helping others. Helping others, whether by a small act of holding a door for someone or a more significant one of helping them through troubled times is a major way of growing self esteem; which in turn is vital to have the resources necessary to deal with any challenges when making major lifestyle changes.

Self esteem is all about how we feel about ourselves. One major contribution to growing self esteem is how we are able to improve the lives of others.

OFFER A HELPING HAND
By helping others, in any capacity, from being an anonymous helping hand to coming to their rescue when there is a major crisis, improves how we see ourselves and value our contribution to the lives of others.

Self esteem is enhanced because you will get immediate feedback about how they valued you at this point. However, there is self esteem development stemming also from the knowledge that you did a positive action which supported someone for all the right reasons.

ADVICE AND ENCOURAGEMENT
Helping others can range from giving someone advice, encouragement or advice to doing something. If you are shy you can use social media like email, or Facebook to offer advice so despite this shyness, you are able to build your own self esteem. See Shyness for more support.

MANY WAYS TO SHOW KINDNESS AND BOOST CONFIDENCE

Another way of helping others and also boost confidence can be doing something nice which is not necessarily solving problems but just showing kindness like preparing a meal for friends or babysitting.
Whatever you do, make sure that you are doing it because you want to and not for negative reasons such as trying to impress others.

AS you do more for you and share your talent, accept yourself and talk kindly to yourself then you will find that you will improve your confidence in yourself, and also give a boost to everyone around you. Enjoy knowing that your positivity will be infectious and others will benefit from your improved wellbeing so .....

1: Be kind to yourself.

2: Talk kindly to yourself and others.

3: Do things that you really want to do and step back from things that are not right for you.

4: Help and enjoy helping others. Do this on your terms or your are vulnerable to burning out.

5: Reflect on your day and find the successes in each and everyday. Use an attitude of gratitude to help you do this.

Self Awareness

Self awareness is vital for growing self esteem and getting control of your life back. How can you change anything if you are not aware what needs to change or what effect that behaviour has on you and others?

This process of reflecting about how you think, feel and behave, alongside the feedback you get from others allows you to reflect on your progress and you are able to build new strategies to keep your change plans on track.

To get started you could decide what you would like to become. This could be confident, calmer, less angry, more honest about your true feelings, more relaxed, happier etc. Then, as you interact with others you could ask for feedback and ask people how they feel you are doing. Listen to the feedback objectively, ask how they suggest you could adapt, reflect on whether that suggestion could help you and try it.

Implementing change is difficult, so if you get feedback or notice that you revert to an old way of doing things. Stop yourself, mid-sentence or after you have done the thing you are learning to change. Apologise, explain that you are doing things differently then replace that behaviour with the target behaviour.

For example: You may want to become calmer. You may get feedback that you raise your voice. This upsets everyone including you. You notice you have raised your voice to someone. As soon as you notice, you apologise, explain that you are not happy but despite this you did not intend to raise your voice; and then, go on to explain your thoughts or feelings in a calm manner. If communication is an issue for you use the assertiveness techniques to take back control. This will very quickly help raise your self esteem as you will learn to take control and responsibility for your behaviour instead of having regrets about what you do, without ever managing those feelings.

Get Feedback to Develop Self Awareness

Feedback is essential to self awareness. People will give you feedback about your behaviour and your performance all the time, even if you do not realise it. Feedback is the response people give to you about any interaction that takes place. To make best use of feedback you must first decide what feedback you have been given. It is easy to assume that feedback which is positive is correct whilst any negative feedback is something which is built on the prejudice or negativity of the person giving it. The best way to have accurate feedback is to ask for it and encourage as open a dialogue as possible and use the information to make personal changes.

To build as honest and specific feedback as possible you should ask directly "Is there anything that you did which you would change and anything which you would like to maintain?"

Also you could ask people "How did my behaviour make you feel?"

This will given people a chance to have a clear picture of what needs to be changed and also how your behaviour impacts on others

Sometimes getting feedback is painful and difficult to hear to use reframing techniques to see feedback as always useful and productive. If you receive feedback that you have done something wrong view it as being aware of what you still have to work on to reach your target. As long as you are actively working to make changes you will find that you will reach your goals.

Use part of your day to reflect on your goals and how much progress you have made on them. This will allow you to identify any displacement activities going on which are undermining your change plans.

To further enhance this use the One Thing I Have Learned and keep a success diary too.

Beat Low Esteem with Spirituality

Low esteem comes from a poor sense of self, sense of not being worthy, capable and low expectations of how others see you. To change this anyone with low self esteem needs to feel complete and have a life with purpose. Self esteem rests on feeling fulfilled. This fulfilment is based on life being in balance and many of your needs being met. The website has different ways to address each personal need. Some of the issues to raise self esteem include more social contact, learning assertiveness, changing the negative message that yo say to yourself as well as meeting one of your basic needs of feeling spiritually connected to your world instead of just a observer. This does not mean specifically god or gods, though for some it does, but a much broader personal sense of being a significant member of their world.

What does being spiritually connected really mean?

What spirituality means here is a deeper sense of connectivity to the world that you live in. There are a range of ways that someone feels spirituality connected with their world. For some people it is having ties with their own family and especially their children. This allows them to feel connected with their own children but also connects them with their own ancestry and their own connection to the world they live. They are also able to feel connected to future generations and feel connected beyond the here and now and have a deeper sense of belonging in their world. to raise your won self esteem you could reconnect with your family, spend more time talking and listening to them or you could go and research your local history or family history. Feeling connected is vital, so you could just connect with your community just by volunteering. You know what is right for you.

Beat low Esteem by reconnecting with nature

Some people feel connected spiritually by connecting with nature. You could meet your spirituality needs by walking in the country, climbing mountains or watching wildlife. For some people, who feel connected with nature they experience the extremes of the season with relish. So maybe take a Walk in the rain, snow, wild winds and feel a sense of connectivity by the might and power of the forces of nature during floods, gales or the serenity of a sunset.

Make time to fulfill your spirituality needs to beat low self esteem

Other ways in which people feel spiritually connected include religious connectivity and meet their spiritual needs through reading religious texts, performing and participating in religious observances and having a shared religious identity.

To prevent low esteem there is a need to recognise how your own spirituality needs can be met and to find time in your life to meet those needs.  Being able to meet your own spiritual needs helps build personal motivation and resilience during crisis.

Confidence Hypnotherapist in Sheffield

As a hypnotherapist in Sheffield I have worked extensively with confidence and self esteem and am able to support you to grow your confidence too. I am aware how lacking in confidence can have such a massive impact on the lives of many people I have worked with.

GET  WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF LIFE
Low confidence leads to people not expressing what they want out of life. This results in dissatisfaction with relationships, or even failing to start relationships due to fear of rejection or a sense of not being good enough for people that they have feelings for.

IMPROVE YOUR EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS
Low confidence also impacts on the employment prospects of people, with some failing to apply for roles which they are well suited for or find the interview process too daunting.

This can lead to lifelong dissatisfaction with their careers or being stuck in a role which saps motivation, drive and a desire to use their skills and potential.

My work has been instrumental at supporting clients have the confidence to move forwards in their relationships and go out and meet new people or restate the terms of their current relationships so that they feel happier.

CONQUER PUBLIC SPEAKING
Within employment I have supported people to speak up in meetings, give presentations, speak to their managers about getting a pay rise. With some people successfully moving on from their current roles, some moving to new locations and others progressing to more satisfying roles within their organisations.

STOP FEELING LIKE A FRAUD
Another way in which low confidence has impacted on my clients has been with the "High Achievers" who appear to have demonstrated their ability by having good relationships or good careers

Yet within themselves, some high achievers feel like they are frauds and that they will be found out any time soon. This group are very good at rejecting support and instead direct their attention to constantly striving to do better, unconvinced that they are worthy of the praise, salary or respect that their ability and effectiveness generates.

Treat negative thoughts and feelings with hypnosis

Hypnosis can help you  to identify the origins of any negative feelings and once identified can offer direct treatments to allow you to accept yourself and free you from the pressures and worrying about the opinions of others and instead be yourself.

LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT
Through simple self esteem building techniques, including developing assertiveness, learning to self appreciate and to live with realistic expectations I will support you to be less hard on yourself and have the confidence so you can live the life you want and deserve.

Wide ranging experience to support your needs

Prior to my work as a hypnotherapist in Sheffield, I have worked in a range of roles, including teaching, working with children who run away from home and supporting those learning to live in recovery from alcohol or drug addictions. My career has given me extensive work supporting people who have low confidence and during that time I have developed many techniques to allow you to grow your self esteem and give you the support to adopt these skills away from the therapy room so that you can live independently.

As a highly skilled, patient and caring hypnotherapist in Sheffield, my kind and respectful approach will allow you to grow in confidence throughout your treatment.