0900 – Confidence And Self-Esteem

2023.06.19 – 0900 – Confidence And Self-Esteem

·        Lack of confidence – most of us have a fear of failure, but we can only survive and thrive by putting ourselves in a situation in which we are tested, and you can’t easily replicate being on air without actually being on air. You’re also more likely to experience performance anxiety if by nature you’re a ‘worrier’ and tend to get anxious or upset in everyday situations

·        Lack of self-esteem – that we subconsciously seek immediate approval from the non-existent feedback loop, our perceived vulnerability – who we are, what we have to lose by making a mistake. Modesty is a virtue but self-effacement can be debilitating. Respect yourself, your subject and your audience to help you heighten the conviction in your communication of your unique perspective or experience.

You may have an unhappy memory of a previous performance – which may itself have been because of some of the issues here, but maybe you didn’t cope (or weren’t helped to cope) in the best way, told it was “experience”, “a learning curve” or “these things happen”. None of which are terribly helpful. The incident may’ve led to comments by colleagues or threads on social which’ll be around ‘forever’, leading you to mull, muse and ruminate and giving yourself a metaphorical kicking. Not the greatest ingredients for confidence.

We may be uncomfortable with how we sound or look. We hear ourselves differently from how others do, and evolutionarily, seeing ourselves in any way other than a reflection can still be disconcerting.[1] Additionally we don’t usually see ourselves close up and in HD, and the famous line that “the camera adds ten pounds”[2]. But remember, how you look and sound are only a surprise to you. Everyone else has known you like this for years, and they still accept you, know, like and trust you…

[1] Seeing ourselves on a monitor is not like a reflection that we are ‘programmed’ to accept. For millions of years, we only saw how we looked in a reflection in still water, and then in mirrors. It was only comparatively recently in evolutionary terms that we saw ourselves from the perspective of how others see us, via still and then video cameras. 

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/cameras-can-make-you-look-fat-2016-7?r=US&IR=T

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.