Last time something scared the crap out of you, how did you react?  I don’t mean meeting a bad man in a dark alley or having your plane lose all power and plummet towards the Himalayas (in those cases you have my permission to go right ahead and crap yourself), but the things that happen or the things you want that threaten to rock you to your very core.

These are the things that might propel you forwards in life and bring about something amazing, or equally might be a huge screw up and leave you feeling like life has cast you in the role of “Biggest Dufus Ever”.

The good news is that there are things you can do to manage how you react in those moments, and there are strategies you can employ for building your confidence before you attempt something that scares the crap out of you. Here are just a handful…

Suck it in, then jump.

This is like the moment before you jump from a bungee platform.  There you are, standing right on the edge, nothing between you and gravity but the decision to step forwards.  The hairs on the back of your neck stand up, your stomach churns, your breath quickens and your mind is a thrashing din yelling “Stop!” at you.

Then what happens?

You pause.  You quiet your mind by focusing on your experience in that very moment in time.  You might decide to focus on how your breath feels in your mouth, your chest or your belly as you breathe it in and let it go.  You might decide to focus on the sensations in your feet on the platform and the tactile pressure on your heel, the sensations in your toes and the feeling of your shoes.  You might decide to open up to the sounds around you, letting each sound find you like a microphone picks up sounds as they happen.

What you need to do is to get out of the chaos of your automatic fear response; to create a gap between event and reaction where you can make a choice that serves you well.

You say to yourself “This is as scary as it gets, but it’s okay.  I’m here, and I’m okay.  I can do this, I really can.  I’ll be just fine, and it’ll be amazing.  Get ready for it, here I go.”

You ready yourself, suck it in and make a choice to go for it, getting that burst of courage that takes you forwards.

Find the right words so that you can feel this burst of courage in your body; you get a physiological response to the fear – a sense of energy, vigour or power that propels you forwards.

Make your parachute ahead of time.

It’s not much use to wait until you’ve jumped out of the plane to start weaving your parachute. Call me crazy, but I’d suggest it’s a better option to weave it ahead of time and have it ready to go before you even get on the damn plane.  I’m nothing if not wise.

So this is about prepping your self-confidence ahead of time so that it’s in decent shape for you to get going.

To do that there’s one thing to understand first: that your confidence works just like a muscle.  The more you use it the bigger it gets, the less you use it the smaller it gets.  If you need to lift boxes all day long then the muscles that help you life those boxes will grow in response to the need.  If you need to climb stairs all day then the muscles that help you do that will grow in response to what’s needed.

Exercising your confidence muscle is how you have your parachute weaved before you jump out of the plane, and this kind of confidence becomes a deliberate choice based on what you know without doubt – “I know I can do this“.

It’s knowing how far you’ve already come and – based on the facts – recognising that you’re more than a match for the challenge in front of you.  This strategy allows you to move forwards with a conscious, learned sense of your own self-confidence.

Don’t Give a Hoot.

Being hootless means that you know that your happiness isn’t dependent on getting the things you want.

It’s the feeling that you can live your life fully without struggling, striving or suffering, simply by engaging with what matters and not giving a hoot about the outcome.  All hootlessness and true confidence require is that you can chose your behavior with implicit trust in that behavior.  This isn’t the same thing as having implicit trust in the outcome, no siree; it’s trusting that you can play a damn good game and deal with whatever comes at you.

This is pretty fucking cool.  Pardon my French, but I get kinda passionate about this one.  Think about it with me for a second – if you have an implicit trust in your behavior, what does that mean?

It means you’re free to make choices based on what matters to you.  It means you can stop worrying about the crap that doesn’t matter and you can move free from fear or doubt, for the simple fact that you know you can trust yourself to deal with anything that happens.

Freedom is simply moving forwards with true confidence.

This strategy means that even though fear might still be there, it loses its power to control you.  It’s just another part of your experience; neither right nor wrong, neither bad nor good.

I’m interested – what techniques have you used before and what are you avoiding because it scares the crap out of you?