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September 2007 Newsletter: Missing a
shot?
This
Confidence newsletter is sent each month to subscribers of
www.yourmostconfidentself.com from Kate Burton and Brinley Platts,
the authors of "Building
Confidence for Dummies" and creators of the Your Most Confident Self
website.
Missing a shot?
“Her shots are going to be lethal.” I question my own power.
Then I stop and look. Eight yellow balls on the ground cannot lie. All of my
shots have landed safely over the net. All of hers have fallen short. The first
rule of tennis is: “Get the ball over the net.”
“What are you missing here? “ I ask myself the question I’d ask any client. Then
I begin to focus and acknowledge that I do know something about this game, after
all. Twenty years of steady practice, week-by-week, rain and shine have honed my
muscles. Unconsciously I know how to play this game and play it my own way. What
I lack in technique and the latest kit, I make up for in mental resilience. I’ve
learnt to stay calm when the going gets tough: it’s only a game, and there’ll be
another one coming soon.
Life on the tennis court provides lessons beyond the match.
I’m reminded of a career coaching conversation earlier in the week with a client
about the NLP concept of deletion. My client, a talented young manager, was
failing to acknowledge his most valuable talents and belittling his successes.
In everyday life, we learn to delete information as an important strategy to
safeguard information and sensory overload. Sometimes that means we put the
‘best’ filter on, and at other times we don’t. It’s rather like inserting the
appropriate metal discs on a food processor. The right sized disc allows for
easy mincing or shredding. The wrong size chews the food up and leaves an
unpalatable mess to clean out.
As you build your confidence muscles, you will raise your game and hit greater
challenges. When you do, stop for a moment and question the filters that you are
choosing. Here are some tips as you become more curious:
- Put the challenge you face ‘out there’ by stepping back for a moment as if you
are observing yourself playing this game.
- Ask yourself: “What filter am I selecting? “ Is this one deleting too much
information or chewing it up in some way that’s not valuable for me?
- If you were to pick a more appropriate filter, what shape would it be? Does it
have a colour or sound attached to it or a particular feel?
- What other question can you ask yourself, to make the filtering run smoothly?
In our work as coaches, Brinley and I encourage people in all walks of life to
become their most confident versions of themselves. You’ll find plenty of ideas
and tips when you dip into our book (this is currently on offer at £7.79 instead
of the normal £12.99 on Amazon. You can get the 40% discount by following this
link:
Building Self-Confidence for Dummies Offer.
This month too Romilla Ready and I will complete the first draft of a sequel to
NLP for Dummies. Phew…so the new Neuro-Linguistic Programming Workbook for
Dummies will be out on Amazon in February 2008 and we’ve had fun creating more
self-paced exercises to play with. In fact, I’ve just spotted that it’s on
Amazon for pre-ordering – that’s confidence for you!
By the way, we’ve been writing this newsletter for 18 months now and it’s been a
privilege to have your feedback. If you want to read any of the back issues,
they are all on the web site. We’d also love to have your personal stories and
challenges to build into the newsletters. So, do please share with us your
experience of anything that makes the difference for you in your own game of
self-confidence.
Here’s hoping for an Indian summer this September.
Best
wishes
Kate and Brinley
brinley.platts@btinternet.com
Building Confidence for Dummies by Kate Burton
and Brinley Platts
Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies by
Romilla Ready and Kate Burton
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