I think one of the most common requests I receive as a personal coach is to help people build up their confidence. If people feel more confident they do more things and consequently get more from life, so this seems to make sense.

But if you've read another of my articles, you'll know that I believe that confidence doesn't actually exist, although lack of confidence does!

It's strange that while confidence is a natural state of being, people don't believe they have it. Of course there will be people and situations where it needs a bit of a boost, but most of us spend our lives in 'comfortable and familiar' territory where this shouldn't be necessary.

I believe that the reality is that those people are lacking confidence. Over many years, negative feelings have built up through a conditioning process and by the time they reach adulthood' they've taken it upon themselves and that conditioning has become self-imposed.

But rather than embarking on an analysis I'd like to find a solution for them and anyone else who needs it.

Before I do I have a quick aside: Because you understand the cause of something doesn't mean you have a solution. If you trip on a rug and sprain an ankle, you know the cause. But how do you heal your ankle - by tripping back over the rug? Of course not, you apply a cold compress, rest it, and possibly get it checked by a doctor if you're in doubt.

I hope that explains the difference between the cause and the solution because it's just the same for lack of confidence. However many hours you spend analyzing it to discover the cause, it won't help you to acquire the confidence you want.

I want to move on now to explore habits - what they are and how they work for us. Let's take a simple example from the thousands of useful, positive habits you have. When you leave your house you automatically lock your door - right? Do you remember instances when you've walked away and suddenly thought "Did I lock it or not?" Chances are very high that you did because you were on auto-pilot!

What about a life-saving habit such as leaping onto the pavement just as a large vehicle is bearing down on you at great speed? Why would you do that when there's nothing to say that pavements are safe? The answer is that this is something you've learned that's become a habit. This habit could save your life. Many habits are good to have.

So the question is - how do you acquire good habits? And the answer is - repeat the same actions over and over again and it will become something you do automatically - a habit! If there's some emotion attached to the habit you'll learn it faster and, once learned, it can be difficult if not impossible to unlearn - but let's test that!

As an example try this. Clasp your hands in front of you and see which thumb rests on top. Left or right it doesn't matter - just notice it. Next, switch thumbs so the other one is on top. Doesn't it feel odd? That's because you're not following your habit.

While just changing the position of a thumb won't change anything in your life, you can figure that if something that simple feels uncomfortable, it's bound to be difficult if you're trying to change something as important as negative habits that are not serving you.

Having demonstrated this particular exercise so often now, it's an arbitrary thing for me which thumb is on top. I no longer feel strange because I've pretty much broken the habit. And the good news is that you can apply similar techniques in order to build your habit of being confident.

So let's look at the reason why your lack of confidence has become a habit. Chances are that during your lifetime, as situations have arisen, you've made a choice not to be confident about them. That may seem a harsh statement to make, but what I mean is that subconsciously you may have chosen not to take opportunities as they were presented. Perhaps in your head you decided you couldn't possibly do it, or it wouldn't work, or you wouldn't really enjoy it. Whatever it was, it was more an excuse than a reasoned decision.

If you repeatedly decide not to take up opportunities that arise because for some reason it doesn't feel good, that starts to become a habit. So - you start to turn down everything and this is the beginning of laying down your negative habits. Confidence is surely about saying 'yes', not 'no', to things?

As the years pass you tend to automatically fall back on old habits whenever opportunities arise. (Remember the energy it takes to resist a habit, even if it's just the position of your thumbs?) You opt to stay with the familiar instead of exploring new ideas and grabbing opportunities, until you're in the situation where, as new things do crop up, you don't have the confidence to even try them. Is that a surprise?

The good news is that, if you want to, we can reverse this process and get you started on the route to having confidence instead of lacking it. This we can do in two parts:

We need to start by interrupting your old, negative habits - and saying no is a habit of being un-confident. This is a simple process which requires you to be kind, gentle and accepting of yourself. You need to understand that change takes time, but at least if you're aware of that you may allow yourself to take whatever time it needs. How long that will be isn't easy to determine, but I will say that it will be weeks rather than hours.

The starting point is the next time you're aware of feeling unconfident; a time when you really want to say no to some new experience or you choose not to do something different from what you normally do. At this point I'm only asking you to be aware of this event and what you chose to do.

Now let me warn you that this will probably happen about ten times a day, and I want you to be aware of it each and every time. Include the smallest things - like when you choose the same dish you always have at a restaurant, rather than trying something new. Again - I'm not asking you to change it, just be aware of it. I'll explain why this is so important.

What most people begin to report is that, after a little while, they begin to notice they're doing it - during the incident. As they're studying the menu and seeing different dishes, they become aware of their feelings and the fact that, once again, they're going for the 'safe' option. I'm only asking you to be aware at this stage. It's important you don't change what you do but keep doing the same as usual.

In this phase, the point at which you notice has changed from after the event to during it.

As time goes on you'll realize that you're becoming aware that you're choosing to lack confidence earlier in the process. In fact it's now nearer the beginning of the incident. But don't forget - this is still an exercise in observation and I'm asking that your choice remains the same.

Ultimately you'll reach a point of awareness before the incident, and now you do have a choice. Since you're conscious of your thinking patterns prior to the habitual response taking over, you have the choice to follow your old habit or not. This is a part of becoming mindful of your own thought processes.

This is one of the numerous reasons why mindfulness is such a powerful technique. It helps people to deal with lack of confidence, stress, procrastination and other major life issues. It's also the reason I use it more and more with clients, as it enables them to take control more quickly and permanently than by me 'using techniques' on them.

Now that you understand the process in the above exercise, let's look at some theory.

We all have degrees of change we'll accept and degrees we'll resist. Some peoples' limits are high, some low. In the exercise, all I requested was that you were aware. By asking that you didn't make any changes you were able to stay below your resistance level. That's the part that will allow your mind to let the new process in. These are only small changes and they will occur because they're not threatening who you are. The only change being requested is awareness.

As I said at the outset, there are two processes that can be used. The one I've demonstrated is designed to interfere with old habits that are creating your lack of confidence. Now let's look at how we build new habits of confidence.

I'll save you the time of working out what the next step is from the information I've already given you, and instead, lay it out here for you.

I'd like you to identify the most minute, tiny, imperceptibly small area that you can say 'yes' to when you've said 'no' in the past. I want a change that's so small you won't even think of resisting it. Let's say you just sit in a different chair at meal time or to watch television.

I know that there'll be people who feel they need to really challenge themselves, even push themselves to the limit. But let me give you a warning: while there's a place for that, that isn't the way to go about it if you want long term changes to habits. Whatever you resist persists. All you will do by forcing, fighting and trying to overcome is, in effect, to strengthen the negative habit.

You need to trust what I say on this please. The real power is in the fact that the thing you're doing is small, almost insignificant.

So now let's return to the business of building new habits.

When you find yourself comfortable and familiar with small situations like these, then you can move on, gradually, to ones that are slightly larger. In that way you'll build from a strong base of positive habits.

Give yourself the time working up to the major areas in your life where you feel you want to make changes. It could take a year or more to get to that point but by giving yourself this time you will be ensuring the changes are permanent.

Simple tricks and techniques which give you confidence are temporary and will eventually wear off. Worse still, when that happens they also bring a sense of failure, and that too becomes a habit which prevents you from moving forward.

So the most precious and worthwhile thing you can possibly do for yourself is to allow the time it will take to make these permanent behavioural changes.

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