July 6, 2010

My Big Revelation about Improving Self-Confidence

My understanding about confidence and how to improve it, especially in relation with people skills, has evolved slowly but surely most of the time. But every once in a while, I had big leaps forward, rooted in personal revelations about self-confidence.

I want to share with you a big revelation I had a couple of years ago, which I think is very relevant for anyone interested to improve their confidence and skills with people. It came to me from some experiences which created a boost in my confidence that took me by surprise.

The Story

I had been going through a period of figuring out what I wanted exactly in life, what was important to me, and then acting on that knowledge. It wasn’t easy, especially the part about acting on it, but I decided that it was a noble cause so I stuck to it as much as I could. Eventually, I reached a point when:

  • I was living healthy lifestyle;
  • I was working in a field in which I was helping people develop;
  • I was only dedicating the amount of time I wanted to my career, when I wanted;
  • I had close friends that I considered to be very cool;
  • I was more honest and straightforward than I had ever been;
  • I was continuously learning and growing;

I didn’t make any of these things happen to improve my confidence. I did it because they seemed normal manifestations of my most important values: health, developing others, balance, friends, honesty and personal development. I wanted to live a life aligned with these values.

But, as I achieved this and I became aware of it fully, I also got this empowering sense of self-respect and self-confidence. People would start telling me that I stand differently, that I walk differently, that something has changed in my attitude. They would ask me if I had won the lottery or something, because they couldn’t understand it. But I did. Understanding what was happening is the big revelation I’m talking about:

Living a life by your own values is a major confidence booster.

The Explanation

When you live the way you want, when you live in harmony with what you think is important, your confidence naturally and visibly improves. You feel proud, you feel you’re life is meaningful and of the highest virtue. But when you don’t, even if you have things others may envy, you feel like a fraud which is just waiting to be discovered.

The bad news is that many people do not live their lives by their own values. In a way, you could say they are not authentic. Having been on both sides, I now realize why this is happening: in order to live by your own values, you need to fight with enemies like: social stigma, inertia, fear of failure or procrastination.

These enemies can put huge pressure on most of us to live the sort of lives that probably are not the kind we want. Faced with this pressure, many people abandon the fight or they never really engage in it in the first place. They prefer to choose the comfort of living their lives in the ways easiest to them.

I find this to be very sad, and I constantly make a point in my articles, communication coaching and trainings about how much you miss out when you don’t live your life by your own values. It’s one hell of a way to sell yourself short!

As you do live your life by your own values and you’re fully aware of this, not only that you improve your self-confidence and from there your people skills, but you get this appealing shine in your eyes.

Those around you will often detect this shine subconsciously and wonder: “What’s up with him/her? Has he/she discovered the secret of eternal life or something?” In a way, you did.

Image courtesy of hcii

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , 11 Comments
May 16, 2010

Empathy vs. Sympathy: The Big Distinction

Here is one distinction I make which I notice helps a lot of people. It makes it easier for them to take the best decisions in communication and in social interactions with others, and it assists them to improve their people skills. This distinction is between two similar sounding concepts.

Empathy: the ability to understand, perceive and feel another person’s feelings.

Sympathy: the tendency to help others in order to prevent or alleviate their suffering.

These are not exact, dictionary definitions and it seems there are no universally accepted definitions for empathy and sympathy in psychology. These are rather the way I operate with the two concepts, in order to emphasize a couple of key aspects. Here are these aspects:

1) Empathy is always good, sympathy is contextually good.

Understanding the feelings of other people means to access very precious information which you can use in multiple ways.

However, feeling the need to help others is something which from one case to another can be good or bad. Sometimes it can mean honor and building bridges, sometimes it can mean lying, being fake, sacrificing your own needs, not letting others learn on their own and other pointless people pleasing behaviors.

2) You can have one, without the other.

This is the most important part. You can have sympathy with only a vague understanding of the other person’s feelings. You can also understand exactly how bad a person feels and still be capable of not helping her.

You can be a highly empathic person and still have your freedom to act in they ways you think are best, whether they involve helping others or not. You can have empathy and have options at the same time.

Let’s say a friend of yours invites you to their birthday party. While you would like to go, in the very same day there is a conference in another town that you would like to go to even more than the birthday party.

Having empathy means that you understand this will make you friend feel hurt, maybe even a little angry. Having sympathy only as an option means that although you understand this, you can still say no to their invitation and go to the conference instead of the party, without feeling bad. This example is something that actually happened to me recently, and the conference was my choice.

Why is this distinction essential?

It’s essential because when it comes to people skills, many believe that the ability to be empathic and the tendency to have sympathy are the same thing: If you have empathy, you have sympathy. If you understand how badly a person feels then you can’t help but help them in some way, even if rationally you know it’s a poor decision.

As another implication, since many people believe empathy and sympathy can only go hand in hand, they also think that in order to not have sympathy, you have to sacrifice you empathy. You have to become ignorant and numb.

Also, they often believe that they automatically have a lot of empathy because they tend to help others all the time. All of these ideas… are incorrect.

When you have a good understanding of the fact that empathy and sympathy are related phenomena but they go in separate boxes, you can learn to have empathy without always having sympathy, and you take your people skills to the next level.

PS: I now blog and share advice over here. Connect with me.

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 19 Comments