Podcast transcription 

John Campbell  0:03  

Welcome to the inspired and active podcast. This is where we offer hints and tips and advice on being more active and connected to the outdoors. This is where we interview inspirational guests to share their their focus and their ideas. And this is where we really want to try and work with you and give you help to be more confident as a parent and as a, as a coach, to your children, and others to help develop them to be the best that they can be. My name is John Campbell. I’m a coach and a parent before and I want to show and share and discuss ideas with you. To help us all make a small difference in this world today, we want to kind of encourage the appreciation of what’s around us. Hope you enjoy the podcast. And let’s get into the composition. Hello, everyone, let’s go to the bank another inspired in that podcast. I hope you’ve had a great week, I managed to get a couple of days away this week, up to a place in central Scotland called Aviemore having more will stand up anywhere in the world is a place for any outdoor adventure. Anyone who loves getting out and trying different things. We went there we did some Hill walking, did some climbing. We did some open water swimming. Well, my wife did at least we did some mountain bike trails, some running trails, we even played some amazing golf, they’re, they’re really everything going within Aviemore. So I’d recommend anyone who fancies coming to Scotland make sure they put having more on their to do list as places to visit. So as a great couple of days, but it’s good to be back. And today I want to talk about confidence in my coaching and working with a lot of people I really see confidence or self confidence as the critical element which can make the difference between someone who is really successful, or someone who is just going through the motions now I believe self confidence in in you will really allow you to grow and develop. And it’s important for our physical health and psychological point of view, it’s all about feeling better, it’s all about taking that task on and feeling as if you can achieve it certainly in the outdoors confidences is very important. You’ve got to be confident in yourself when you’re outside. And you’re trying different sports as for example, if you were doing a serious heel walk, and and you really, were feeling a wee bit out of your comfort zone, you have to have an element of self confidence. And you’ve got to be able to believe in yourself to actually know that you can do it. It’s important you have the self confidence. And I want to talk about that for the next 10 minutes just understand how we can build our self confidence and how important it is in all aspects of our life. Today, I want to bring out five, five key areas I want to focus on all about self confidence and what we can do. And one of the issues we have with self confidence is people are always comparing ourselves with someone else. And with social media with so much out in the press, it’s really easy just to have a look at someone and say, Oh, I’m not as good as them, I can’t do that because I’m not able to be because I’m not as fit as them or as strong as them. And that’s really wrong. That’s that’s a really negative way to look at things. So we mustn’t compare ourselves. That’s one of the key things I would say to any of my athletes or anyone I’m coaching as you are you do not compare yourself to everybody else or anybody else. So the first element of building yourself confidence I would like to bring out is trusting in your own ability, and trusting in your own judgment. This, again is very important in their doors, if you’ve got to make a call on a direction and navigational call or if you come to an obstacle like a river and you have to cross it, you have to make a call and it’s you have to be really, really just make your own call, make a judgement and carry it out. And what we see in people self confidence is you don’t want ever to feel people cannot lose the confidence cause the fear of failing and it’s really important that you take a failure as as a learning exercise and you build on it Do not be scared of feeling because you really need to remove that in terms of building your own confidence. Self Confidence is feeling sure of yourself and your ability not not to be in any way. Kind of arrogant or superior. But you must have an inner knowledge that you are capable and you can do this.

Now how do you how do you build that because people will say To me, well, I’m just not confident enough, I don’t have the self confidence to do that. So the next aspect is you really have to have this positive thinking you have to be an optimist. Now people say to me, I’m too big an optimist and, and you just feel as if that will happen. And you but that’s positive thinking now taking on a challenge, as part of creating this positivity and kind of building your own ability. And it’s, there’s, there’s often no easy, easy road, there’s no way a challenge can always happen. You have to always be looking for a solution. And that’s, again, a bit of your own ability, but have confidence in yourself as you can think of a solution, you can always look at a problem, look at a challenge. And think of a solution. And and how did you get to a solution? Well, ask other people, don’t be afraid to share experiences and discuss with somebody else. Maybe again, taking the outdoor kind of analogy. If somebody has already done these claims done these Walkden, these canoes, done these expeditions, just ask them what they thought and build your own knowledge. But it’s your judgment is your ability is your understanding. And it’s your positive nature, that that will come across, it’s very well known that what comes at you is coming from you if you’re a good example of this, if you’re out with a group, or maybe you’re leading your family or a team, and and you are are nervous about something you’re showing your nervousness you’re showing you, you are not quite sure of maybe a direction or where you’re going that the whole team will then play back to you your nervousness, what you exude, you’ll get back. And that is really important. So showing self confidence, feeling self confidence, and people around you will will also feel that energy and positivity in going forward. So as a positive optimist, really, you have to be solution focused, you must not be afraid to feel you’ve got to try things and and learn from it, you have to be a good communicator. And that gives you self confidence. And being a positive optimist, you have to be able to communicate your feelings, and really be motivated. And sure that motivation to other people, you’ve got to have an infectious behavior. And having that behavior, that motivation, that communication, and that solution, focus gives you that success mindset. And that really gives that self confidence to to go forward. And it’s so important. So the second piece is to be a positive optimist, and keep that positivity, the third of the five areas I wanted to cover, as well let’s let’s take a quote from Norman Vincent Peale. Action is a great restore and build it in confidence. inaction is not only the result, but the cause of fear. Now, what that is saying is, you really have to take action, to build yourself confidence. And if you’ve got a challenge in front of you, there’s no point in saying, well, I can’t do this, you’ve got to take action, so that it’s really important to accept a challenge and have belief in yourself be this kind of active optimist, and take on that challenge. Now some people have different methods to take on the challenges and to take the action. Now, Todd Herman, are gonna coach and someone who wrote the book on alter ego, has a really, really good approach to this. And I think this is somebody I just wanted to share. Because sometimes you’ve just got to go into your imagination zone, you’ve got to believe you can succeed you have got to kind of envisage success. And if you’re not feeling confident, and maybe one thing you can do is start have playing that imagination game. Start thinking about what superpowers you would need to achieve this challenge. Now, that does sound sounds a bit strange, but we all dream we all imagine, if you were Superman, if you were a Wonder Woman, if you were the best golfer, the best whatever. Whatever the challenges in front of you, what, who would you have to be to accept that challenge and start just considering yourself in that role of superhero. And you can start having this dream imagination game and building your confidence. Just create an alter ego for yourself. I do recommend that whole

idea of creating your alter ego that Todd Herman has in his book is it is a good read, and it’s well worth it but create your own kind of superhero, your own imagination. I did this myself, I look at myself and I know where we’re struggling and some are my My superheroes and people I have in my alter ego, that there’s gonna three people and and it’s all and it’s all around just envisaging those three and I’m quite happy to share them with you just to give give you a really good example. So I’ve three people I built into my alter ego one is David Attenborough the famous naturalist and broadcaster and I can admire his is respected is confident and his natural nature. Our second one is Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, and what his I admire within his treats is his visionary ability, his his thinking, his taking action. And finally, the third in in my alter ego that I kind of uses beyond Borg who the famous tennis player, and he was so skilled and so focused, and he always brought as a game to anything he did so so really, between the three of them, I can envisage your Howard Steve Jobs at Howard, David Attenborough or Tyrion Borg actually take on this challenge. And I would then get in my own mindset that I can do this, there’s no reason so all of us go into this zone, don’t be afraid to use your imagination, to move to use this kind of Alter Ego trick to build up your confidence as you move forward. But the most important thing there is you must take action, there is absolutely no point in going around looking at challenges.

Whether it’s your own your own personal challenges, challenges your own personal life, or, or challenges when you’re out and about in the outdoors. It really doesn’t matter if you’ve got to have that confidence and taking action and making it happen. The fourth element of building your own self confidence is what I what I call the imagination game. It’s really replaying in your own mind a vision of your success, you’ve got to visualize what success will look like, you’ve got to see yourself as achieving, you got to see yourself in that positive light. And that is so important to set your own goals, set your own targets, and just always having the vision of how you could be successful, what would it feel like to be successful? What steps would you would you take to be successful, and that’s all about having the vision of success. And that’s the fourth thought of the really important aspects about building yourself confidence. The first was trusting in your your own ability and judgment, that the second was being a positive optimist, and that positivity, keeping it with you all the time. The third was accepting the challenge and taking action. And really, I’ll add to that be be prepared or into action. It’s all about being feeling confident that you can take the action on and you can be successful. And the fourth that we’ve just discussed there is is playing the imagination game is replaying the vision of success in your own mind, always saying I can do this and this is all linked to the positivity. So they’re the four steps. The final step is slightly different from those four. But equally, equally important to me confidence if you if you take and are constantly taking exercise, you will feel more confident your whole well being will rise. I truly believe if you’re taking exercise on a regular basis, whether that’s walking, running, cycling, canoeing, anything swimming that just gives you that regular routine, the habit of exercise will give you confidence in yourself. I’ve seen it so often as as my my kind of athletes or my own children get fitter and they have their own confidence they feel better, they feel able to take on the next challenge. There’s nothing worse when you feel lethargic, you feel down and and that just doesn’t give you that self confidence. So exercise is is the fifth aspect I would really encourage everybody to consider when they’re trying to build their self confidence. So I wanted to finish with just a few exercises you can take on to look at how you can build your self confidence and the first one is to really note down the treat you want What do you actually want to build within your confidence and and lock them down on basically a piece of paper. Or even even better start getting to know yourself and starting a journal. Now just journalizing is a really a really good way to kind of listen to your own thoughts. And that’s what this is all about. Just understand yourself. So start writing down things you’ll you’re You’re appreciating concerns you have where you’re finding it difficult. Get to know yourself, and using just a journal will really help help you do that. And secondly, don’t be afraid to play this imagination game in your own head. It’s all about what are what are you envisaging? How are you seeing success, and just give off that sense of confidence and that positivity. And really speak to people communicate and show with the positivity and your own self confidence will build. And you will have a much stronger ability to go forward and take on that challenge. And you’ll just believe in yourself. I just wanted to finish with a quote that I’ve always admired when it comes down to confidence. And it was from Walt Disney. And he said, somehow, I can’t believe that there are any heights, there can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret seems to me can be summarized in four C’s, they are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy. And the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe it in all the way implicitly and unquestionable. So hopefully you can build yourself confidence. Just go out there, give it a go. And really, thanks for listening.

And I’ll be really interested, as always, for any comments about this podcast, and just about the topic of confidence. Thank you, and I’ll speak to you next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai