Increase self-esteem - Three practical tips for confident appearances

Without reasonably stable self-esteem, successful communication, and especially speaking in front of an audience, is not an easy thing. It doesn't matter whether there are only three customers sitting in front of you, or whether the hall is full of audience, a certain amount of self-confidence and inner security are particularly required for confident performances. But not all of us are naturally equipped with the material that makes some contemporaries seem irresistible: self-confidence and high self-esteem. But how can self-esteem be increased?

A scene from my everyday coaching life: The LinkedIn profile photo shows an energetic woman in her mid-thirties looking straight into the camera. On the phone, she tells me that she successfully managed an important area of the family business for many years. And now, after the sale of the company, it would have been taken over by the new owners in a new function, but also in a leading position.

I would have been recommended to her as a coach. The topic she urgently wants to work on with me has to do with the meetings at owner level. As confident as she feels as a manager towards her employees and project partners, she does not cut a good figure in the important meetings with the new owners. She felt a strange insecurity despite the best preparation, mistrusted the effectiveness of her own arguments, in short: the self-doubt that suddenly erupted during these meetings gnawed at her substance and destroyed her security and security. Sovereignty . It is time to change that. Otherwise, it would not be able to maintain its position in the long term. We start the coaching.

Increasing self-esteem, is that even possible?

Such a deeply imprinted characteristic of a person can hardly be influenced in the short term, you may now object. With this article, I want to prove the contrary and provide you with three practical tips to convince confidently and confidently at your next speech! But first things first. Let's start with an inventory:

How is a lack of self-esteem expressed?

Maybe you know this "there is simply no flow". While disturbing and inhibiting thoughts spread in the head, an indeterminate malaise irritates the body. And since every inner insecurity is directly reflected in personal behavior, the mimic, gestural and tonal expression changes at the same moment and shows a lack of Self-worth .

The discussion partners or listeners are now presented with a whole range of body language , vocal and linguistic fuzziness. Now it is urgent Increase self-esteem !

 

The main effects of lack of self-esteem are:

• Unclear wording
• Beat around the bush
• Too many details
• Argumentation by leaps and bounds
• No clear red thread
• Low voice
• Defensive posture
• Hectic gestures
• Erratic body expression
• linguistic softeners such as "actually, it would be" etc.
• Annoying so-called "Discourse particles" (ah, um)

With all of the above characteristics of lack of sovereignty and low self-esteem, you are violating one or more of your listeners' basic needs. You probably know the consequences from your everyday life: unexpected skepticism about good ideas, some dismissive faces in the group, derogatory statements and unnecessary Objections .

When it comes to confident performances, what effects of lack of self-esteem are particularly critical?

This question is best answered from your audience's perspective. So let's analyze what the most important needs of your listeners are, which you should satisfy as much as possible through your appearance.

These are the most important needs of your audience:

• Acknowledgment: Do your listeners feel personally addressed?
• Esteem : Do you also formulate critical topics in an appreciative way?
• Excitation : How much curiosity do you provoke with your contribution? How much life energy do you exude when you speak?
• Clarity : How well and how quickly can your audience recognize what it is about and what your concern is?
• Management : How well accompanied and guided to a recognizable goal do your listeners feel?
• Structure : Have you prepared a goal-oriented outline?
• Comfort and well-being : What do you need to take into account specifically so that your audience can listen easily and feel comfortable doing so?

You certainly never intentionally violate the needs of your listeners. And yet, especially as listeners of Presentations and lectures often the effects.

So what's behind self-doubt and low self-esteem?

To feel that oneself is valuable, regardless of one's own achievements, is not something that is placed in everyone's lap, and each of us is placed in our laps. The events and imprints of our first years have often left notches and restrictions in our self-worth. Even the best and most expensive coaching cannot undo this. What can quickly help to increase self-esteem?

The first step of self-development towards even more sovereignty must be a kind of stocktaking before you concretely start developing new strategies for thinking and acting as alternatives.

You should ask yourself these questions to question your self-esteem concept and increase your self-esteem:

• Self-concept: Do you define yourself strongly through your work? Do you derive most of your self-worth from your achievements or does your self-worth grow more from your inner strengths?
• Basic assumptions: How do you evaluate yourself and your actions? Your inner evaluations control the filters of your perception (bias, distorted information processing). This feeds your automatic thoughts (inner dialogue)
• External image: When you think of the people around you, how accepted, observed, questioned or even rejected do you feel by them?
• Self-efficacy expectation: When you think about the moments before a performance, a decision or a speech, how confident are you about your effect?

Three easy-to-use steps to quickly increase your self-esteem when speaking

1. Observe yourself

In which moments of your everyday life do you want to score points and convince with your statements? Whether you're checking change at the supermarket checkout or contradicting a colleague's inappropriate statement, daily life offers you endless precious moments every day to recalibrate your self-worth.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• In which moments I feel small or less important than others?
• What specifically triggers this sensation?
• What feelings do I feel?

Write down your experiences. Next time in a similar situation, what will you do a little differently to get a better, more satisfying result and boost your self-esteem?

If you compare yourself to self-confident people:

• With whom do you compare yourself specifically when it comes to strong and confident appearance goes?
• When you compare yourself to self-confident people, do you make yourself small? Does this even strengthen your lower status?
• Or do you take the opportunity to recognize good features? Are you inwardly ready to follow good examples? Do you then put small changes into practice?

2. Watch out for self-sabotage

Sometimes let's outsmart ourselves , and unconsciously prevent our further development. How can you tell if you too are taking a step forward and two steps back from time to time? Just ask yourself the following three questions:

• Do you sometimes avoid effort, only to be able to attribute your failure to a lack of effort? (Self-esteem protection)
• Do you sometimes start preparing too late, or do you build in other obstacles in order to be able to attribute your failure to the obstacles afterwards? (Self-Handycapped Behavior)
• Do you sometimes set unrealistically low goals to alleviate the fear of not achieving enough? (Defensive pessimism)

If you have just nodded inwardly while reading one of these questions, take action against it. Identify a specific occasion and act confidently, even if you have to pull yourself together and consciously overcome your inner shyness.

3. Replace these three telltale features of your language and way of speaking

Have you ever thought about how strongly your way of speaking affects your own state of mind and self-confidence? Because without us realizing it, our own ears always listen when we speak. And our body perception is specialized in getting the information from our posture for switching good feelings on or off.

Therefore, pay attention to the following three tips to increase your self-esteem and to speak confidently and confidently quickly:

Start strong – instead of shaking uncertainly

Start your sentences more often with "Um...", "Njaa ..." or "So ..." ? If you want to speak with strong leadership, start your sentences effectively with the clearly pronounced first word of the sentence instead!

Use these tips:

• Start suggestively: Secure the Attention of your audience by starting your speech with a strong suggestion. Use the highly effective formulas for this: "If you ...", "Suppose you ..." or "Maybe you have..." . For example: "If you, dear customer, have pointed this out beforehand ..."
• Put strong words at the beginning: Gain full attention again and again with strong words at the beginning of the sentence: "Yesterday ...", "Tomorrow ...", "Today ...", "Proven ...", "Guaranteed ...", "Advance ...", "Now ...", "Currently ...", "First...", "Comfortable ...", "Effortless ...".

Keep speaking strongly – but without plasticizers and subjunctives

• Relativieren Sie Ihre eigenen Aussagen durch sogenannte “sprachliche Weichmacher” wie"actually", "in principle" or “Vielleicht sollten wir …”?
• The often heard subjunctive (the possible form) also strongly devalues what is said and shows your indecision: "would like, could, wanted, should, should, would have"!

These two alternatives will help you increase your self-esteem through strong language:

• Do you want to explain a matter in a strong and understandable way? Instead of beating around the bush, throw a clever question about the problem, wait a moment for the reactions – and then answer your own question.
• Have you realized that you weaken your statements too often with softeners and subjunctives? Instead of saying “Ich möchte …/ könnte …/ sollte …”but it's better to make it simple: “Ich will …/ Ich werde …!”.And if you are currently "actually" or "in principle" just repeat the sentence and turn it into a clear statement!

Finish strong with an unequivocal prompt

How often do interesting posts end with uncertain phrases like “Danke für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit!”or unspecific appeals such as “Und deshalb sollten wir dieses oder jenes tun!”. Don't destroy the good impression of your speech with a weak ending! But even more important is:

Especially with your last sentence, don't give up the lead!

Ask yourself specifically in advance:

• What realistic reactions do I want my audience to make? What immediate goal am I pursuing with my speech?
• What exactly should my listeners say or do immediately after my last word? Should they ask questions that remain open? Should they express the last remaining reservations so that I can dispel them afterwards?
• Don't say "Are there any questions?"! Instead, take your listener's thoughts in a productive direction by saying something like: "If you have now heard from me XXX, what open questions do I still have to answer for you today so that you can take your next steps?"

Read also:

• Perform confidently – but how?
• How you are guaranteed to have your say in the meeting!
• Learning Rhetoric: Why Garland Sets Are Particularly Annoying

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If you've read this far:

What do you think now? Do you now think it is as easy as I am to increase your self-esteem for confident performances? If I was able to make a contribution with this contribution to convincing you confidently and confidently at your next speaking appearances, I am particularly pleased!

Let me know in the comments: What tips do you think are particularly useful? What strategies do you know for even more confidence and self-confidence in appearance? I look forward to your thoughts!

Yours sincerely,

Arno Fischbacher

 

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The author:

Arno Fischbacher is a business voice coach and rhetoric expert, speaker and author. He prepares executives and employees of the top companies in Germany and Austria for negotiations, presentations and media appearances. Fischbacher is the author of several books, past president of the German Speakers Association (GSA) Austria, chairman of the European Network of Voice Experts, stimme.at.

If you would like to learn more about specific training opportunities with Arno Fischbacher, make an appointment here free information talk.

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