INCREASING SELF CONFIDENCE THROUGH NLP
This method to increase your self confidence is based on the NLP Swish pattern, which is used to “swish” between a negative thought pattern and a positive one.
Be careful when you apply this technique on yourself, go slowly at first, learn the steps, do them as slowly as you can, and then speed up.
The main key to success with the Step by Step method to Increase Your Self-Confidence is speed. The faster you can perform the main steps, over and over again, in one single session, the more powerful it will work for you.
Here are the steps:
Step One: Create the unwanted self-confidence image
Think of a time in your life when you felt bad about yourself, when you were really resentful toward yourself. A time when everything seems to be your fault, when you couldn’t figure out why you turned out the way you did. When you could only remember your faults and weaknesses, when other people came hard on you, when they put you down or made you feel miserable about yourself. A time when you definitely felt an extremely low self-esteem.
The first step here is the only unpleasant step in the whole process, this is where you mark the type of experience you do not want in your life. It will also be the last time you experience it ever.
More than in other techniques, it is extremely important that you chose a disturbing experience, one that makes you shiver today when you think about it. You might have been insulted, put down, disregarded or anything else. It is good for the moment, because you’ll learn how to get rid of the bad feelings for good (that’s good right?).
Step into the experience. See what you saw back then. Hear what you heard, the same words, tonality and sources. Feel what you felt, it is perfectly normal to feel pain, just remember that you do that for a change.
Notice where exactly in your body the bad feeling starts, where is it located? Intensify it, make it stronger to check exactly its location.
Notice the images that you see while you’re feeling this feeling. One image might be more repeatable than the rest. This is your cue image, the one that we’ll swish soon. What sounds are associated with this image?
Make a mental note for yourself of that image and associated sounds and background feelings, and move on to the next step.
Step Two: Dissociate
Now that we want to move on to better things, you have to step out of that extreme experience of low self esteem.
Stand up. You heard me! Stand up, move around, open your eyes, blink faster, move your facial muscles, wave with your right hand, stretch your left, lift your right knee upward, say your birthday date out loud (I can’t hear you…), thing of green, now think how does a UPS truck look like, now think about what you ate for breakfast today…
Ok, that’s enough. You’re dissociated from the step one (unless you cheated). Let’s move on to the next step.
Step Three: The Self-Esteem You Deserve
Now you’re going to create an image that represents the strong resourceful and positive self esteem you’re about to own.
How would you look like if you had a very strong self esteem? How would you talk, what would your voice sound like? How would you dress, walk, run, drive? How would you feel in new situations, when you own a high self esteem?
That image is the near future image of you, the person who has solved that big issue of low self esteem. He or she doesn’t care about who made his self esteem low when they were younger. He or she can’t tell why their self esteem is high - it is just so.
That image of near future you has a very special “known” within it. It’s near. It’s near future. It’s near future you! That image is of a person who knows you are about to become that way, it is the new path to walk through. You’re doing it now, can you notice?
Build that image right in front of you, make it life size, bright, colorful image of you - a person with so many resources and abilities and self esteem, that can face the hardest challenges, that can conquer it all. A person who has plenty of choices in life, and if he can’t find enough - he creates them!
Look at that image, let yourself feel compelled towards it. Feel attracted to it, feel how much you need - must - should - could be that way. This is important. If you cannot feel it at the moment, go back and make the image stronger. Make it larger, brighter, more powerful. If you saw that image of you the same way you look at people you admire, what would it look like?
Put a mysterious smile on that image of yourself. Imagine you can her him think - “I feel good to be me”. Imagine the tone of voice his internal dialogue is using. “I feel good to be me”, feel how much attracted you feel toward this person, how much you would want to feel this way too. Drive those words around you, in a stereo like effect. He feels good to be him, which is actually you.
Step Four: Nail the New Self Image
Make a mental frame around that image of you with the high self esteem. Shrink it so it becomes a tiny little picture in the open space in front of you. Don’t let it stand there quietly! Make it sparkle. It flashes to you… I sparkle, therefore I am.
We’re going to practice the critical step of the Step by Step Method to Increase Your Self Esteem - it’s not Step Four, it will be here soon, step four is the training before the big change.
Take that sparkling little dot in the distant space in front of you and jump it right back to its previous size. Big, live size, colorful, feel good to see and hear the words your image of your self is saying… remember… “I feel good to be me”… stereo effect, mysterious smile.
Quickly, no time to waste. It should take you less than a second, because you have already constructed your image. What’s your birthday date? It didn’t take you long to remember right? Same way here. Less than a second, mate.
Open your eyes for a moment, close them, think of a black screen. Now see that high self esteem image again. Shrink it again so it become a tiny black dot blinking in the distance in front of you. Now back to normal size. Now again shrink it, expand, shrink, expand… Excitement! Put your heart into it, come on - Tiny picture, blow it up in front of you to live size colorful stereo effect mysterious smile…
Good. Move on now.
Step Five: The Change Begins
Shrink back the high self esteem image and place it right in the middle of the horrible disturbing image you’ve discovered in the beginning.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you now - we’re about to mess around with the bad emotions and make you feel wonderful about being you.
Step Six: Twist & Shout - Do The Swish!
Shrink the negative image quickly into a tiny gray dot in front of you, and at the same time…
No time! Quickly, blow up the tiny dot into the full life size image of your high self esteem, covering all the negative image. Make it larger, brighter, stereo - “I feel good about me”, mysterious smile… You know the drill. Quickly.
You ought to do the two movements simultaneously. First image shrinking quickly, second image grows up during. Quickly. Less than a second for the whole thing.
Put the negative image in front of you, there’s a black blinking dot in the middle of it (if you forgot - it’s the positive high self esteem image). Now move quickly, SWISH them - shrink the first one quickly, and as you do enlarge the tiny dot into the full size high self esteem, along with the sounds and feelings it holds.
Got the idea? Good, it’s getting better. To make sure you do it quicker, say SWISH. Say it aloud, I don’t care if people look at you strangely, I did it too a few times. Put the negative image up, there’s a black blinking dot in the center of it. Say SWISH, and by the end of saying it quickly, the negative image is shrinking and the positive one is blown up to its normal size.
IMPORTANT: Do not swish the images back! Do not shrink the positive image after you’ve swished it. Open your eyes right after you’ve done the swish, saw the positive image colorful full size with stereo sound “I feel good to be me”. Open your eyes, blink a second, and close them again.
Now snap your fingers (getting complicated? Good, you learn fast) as you say SWISH.
See the negative image with the blinking dot on it - say swish while you snap your fingers - swish the images. Quickly, quickly - we’re on a tight schedule here!
Let the good feelings of the positive image move all over your body. Yes, you can smile, you’re half way through.
Step Seven: Enough Practice - To The Change!
Ok, we played a bit, now let’s play harder.
Open your eyes, move around a bit. Close your eyes, imagine a blank screen, and we’re starting the real change.
Do the swish - 10 times - as fast as you can, powerfully, with as much emotions, enthusiasm and determination that you can invest within it. And no, you do not need a technique for enthusiasm first - your negative image that might made you cry once or twice about your “lack of luck” in life would be enough of a reason to feel enthusiastic and determined enough to destroy it completely.
Move it, soldier! Do the swish 10 times. Remember: Negative Image - Black Blinking Dot - SWISH & Finger snap - Big colorful positive image stereo “I feel good to be me”, mysterious what? - Open eyes, close eyes - blank black screen - back to the beginning. Good!
Go for it. Again. Faster. How fast can you go? Move!
Done it ten times? Good. I’m proud of you. Let’s make the juice even juicer…
Step Eight: How Much Pleasure Can You Handle?
Self esteem affects every single detail in your life. I didn’t say it before, because I didn’t want to make you nervous. But now that you have a strong self esteem, it should be a pleasant information for you.
What I want you to do now is to make sure you squeeze all the juice you can from pleasure in your life. That’s not essential but it’s much more than just having a high self esteem. And it’s easy to attain, in just a couple of minutes from now…
Our goal now is to attach that new pleasurable compelling image of high self esteem to everything in your life. Memories are the triggers, so we’ll attach it to the past. New situations in life are triggers, so we’ll attach it to the present. Goals and plans are more attainable and they serve as triggers to action, so we’ll attach that image to your future also. How fast can we do it? How about 25 seconds…
Reach out with your hands and grab the strong image of high self esteem, just like you would grab a big mirror. Grab it, lift it and notice something new: there are thousands of thousands of high self esteem images behind it! Oh my god, they were hiding all that time to surprise you! Isn’t that wonderful? Images that show you successful in everything you do in life, strong, committed, powerful, happy, thrilled, excited, pleasurable… Let’s see how much pleasure can you really stand.
As you lift the image, all the other images are lifted with it. Smile to yourself, take some momentum and throw it up high above you. Everything spread out in the open air above your head. A split of a second later, and they all fall down and spread all around you. In front of you, as represented by the future there are thousands of them covering the ground. Just around you, present a couple of thousands more, and around you as you look back on your past time line hiding behind your back, are thousands more.
Imagine them, each one is framed with a blinking shiny frame, yelling for attention! How amazing it’s going to be facing challenges in your future where all your mind can remember is how powerful you are, how strong, how much pleasure can your mind stand that way? Images behind you rule the earth and cover and hide the small weak negative images, they rule them, they control the past now, they blink for attention, anywhere you look. Because as you try to find a negative memory, all the blinking positive images interrupt the search, they yell for you - Look at me! “I feel GOOOOOOOD to be me!”.
Play around, pick one up, see the mysterious smile, hear the stereo effect voice around you, see the image as it grows and getting brighter. That’s the way.
And at last, now imagine yourself tomorrow waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, and see all over the place those images blinking and yelling for attention. There might be a mysterious smile on you, that people will notice in the upcoming days. Don’t tell them where you got it.
You can open your eyes now and look around you.
Step Nine: Test or Toast
You’ve done it. If you have truly invested your all in the Step by Step Method to Increase Your Self Esteem, you are now a high self-esteem person.
To prove it and to come to closure about it, lets test it.
Take a moment (not too long) and bring back the negative image from step one back to mind. How do you feel? Can you even imagine that picture at all? Is it harder to construct it again, are the feelings fade and weak? Don’t stress yourself too much, because the whole point is to make it impossible to feel bad again.
Toast? If you can’t remember the negative image clearly or you did but didn’t feel bad again - you should celeberate for it!
cheers!
Rajeev.V
From India
This method to increase your self confidence is based on the NLP Swish pattern, which is used to “swish” between a negative thought pattern and a positive one.
Be careful when you apply this technique on yourself, go slowly at first, learn the steps, do them as slowly as you can, and then speed up.
The main key to success with the Step by Step method to Increase Your Self-Confidence is speed. The faster you can perform the main steps, over and over again, in one single session, the more powerful it will work for you.
Here are the steps:
Step One: Create the unwanted self-confidence image
Think of a time in your life when you felt bad about yourself, when you were really resentful toward yourself. A time when everything seems to be your fault, when you couldn’t figure out why you turned out the way you did. When you could only remember your faults and weaknesses, when other people came hard on you, when they put you down or made you feel miserable about yourself. A time when you definitely felt an extremely low self-esteem.
The first step here is the only unpleasant step in the whole process, this is where you mark the type of experience you do not want in your life. It will also be the last time you experience it ever.
More than in other techniques, it is extremely important that you chose a disturbing experience, one that makes you shiver today when you think about it. You might have been insulted, put down, disregarded or anything else. It is good for the moment, because you’ll learn how to get rid of the bad feelings for good (that’s good right?).
Step into the experience. See what you saw back then. Hear what you heard, the same words, tonality and sources. Feel what you felt, it is perfectly normal to feel pain, just remember that you do that for a change.
Notice where exactly in your body the bad feeling starts, where is it located? Intensify it, make it stronger to check exactly its location.
Notice the images that you see while you’re feeling this feeling. One image might be more repeatable than the rest. This is your cue image, the one that we’ll swish soon. What sounds are associated with this image?
Make a mental note for yourself of that image and associated sounds and background feelings, and move on to the next step.
Step Two: Dissociate
Now that we want to move on to better things, you have to step out of that extreme experience of low self esteem.
Stand up. You heard me! Stand up, move around, open your eyes, blink faster, move your facial muscles, wave with your right hand, stretch your left, lift your right knee upward, say your birthday date out loud (I can’t hear you…), thing of green, now think how does a UPS truck look like, now think about what you ate for breakfast today…
Ok, that’s enough. You’re dissociated from the step one (unless you cheated). Let’s move on to the next step.
Step Three: The Self-Esteem You Deserve
Now you’re going to create an image that represents the strong resourceful and positive self esteem you’re about to own.
How would you look like if you had a very strong self esteem? How would you talk, what would your voice sound like? How would you dress, walk, run, drive? How would you feel in new situations, when you own a high self esteem?
That image is the near future image of you, the person who has solved that big issue of low self esteem. He or she doesn’t care about who made his self esteem low when they were younger. He or she can’t tell why their self esteem is high - it is just so.
That image of near future you has a very special “known” within it. It’s near. It’s near future. It’s near future you! That image is of a person who knows you are about to become that way, it is the new path to walk through. You’re doing it now, can you notice?
Build that image right in front of you, make it life size, bright, colorful image of you - a person with so many resources and abilities and self esteem, that can face the hardest challenges, that can conquer it all. A person who has plenty of choices in life, and if he can’t find enough - he creates them!
Look at that image, let yourself feel compelled towards it. Feel attracted to it, feel how much you need - must - should - could be that way. This is important. If you cannot feel it at the moment, go back and make the image stronger. Make it larger, brighter, more powerful. If you saw that image of you the same way you look at people you admire, what would it look like?
Put a mysterious smile on that image of yourself. Imagine you can her him think - “I feel good to be me”. Imagine the tone of voice his internal dialogue is using. “I feel good to be me”, feel how much attracted you feel toward this person, how much you would want to feel this way too. Drive those words around you, in a stereo like effect. He feels good to be him, which is actually you.
Step Four: Nail the New Self Image
Make a mental frame around that image of you with the high self esteem. Shrink it so it becomes a tiny little picture in the open space in front of you. Don’t let it stand there quietly! Make it sparkle. It flashes to you… I sparkle, therefore I am.
We’re going to practice the critical step of the Step by Step Method to Increase Your Self Esteem - it’s not Step Four, it will be here soon, step four is the training before the big change.
Take that sparkling little dot in the distant space in front of you and jump it right back to its previous size. Big, live size, colorful, feel good to see and hear the words your image of your self is saying… remember… “I feel good to be me”… stereo effect, mysterious smile.
Quickly, no time to waste. It should take you less than a second, because you have already constructed your image. What’s your birthday date? It didn’t take you long to remember right? Same way here. Less than a second, mate.
Open your eyes for a moment, close them, think of a black screen. Now see that high self esteem image again. Shrink it again so it become a tiny black dot blinking in the distance in front of you. Now back to normal size. Now again shrink it, expand, shrink, expand… Excitement! Put your heart into it, come on - Tiny picture, blow it up in front of you to live size colorful stereo effect mysterious smile…
Good. Move on now.
Step Five: The Change Begins
Shrink back the high self esteem image and place it right in the middle of the horrible disturbing image you’ve discovered in the beginning.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you now - we’re about to mess around with the bad emotions and make you feel wonderful about being you.
Step Six: Twist & Shout - Do The Swish!
Shrink the negative image quickly into a tiny gray dot in front of you, and at the same time…
No time! Quickly, blow up the tiny dot into the full life size image of your high self esteem, covering all the negative image. Make it larger, brighter, stereo - “I feel good about me”, mysterious smile… You know the drill. Quickly.
You ought to do the two movements simultaneously. First image shrinking quickly, second image grows up during. Quickly. Less than a second for the whole thing.
Put the negative image in front of you, there’s a black blinking dot in the middle of it (if you forgot - it’s the positive high self esteem image). Now move quickly, SWISH them - shrink the first one quickly, and as you do enlarge the tiny dot into the full size high self esteem, along with the sounds and feelings it holds.
Got the idea? Good, it’s getting better. To make sure you do it quicker, say SWISH. Say it aloud, I don’t care if people look at you strangely, I did it too a few times. Put the negative image up, there’s a black blinking dot in the center of it. Say SWISH, and by the end of saying it quickly, the negative image is shrinking and the positive one is blown up to its normal size.
IMPORTANT: Do not swish the images back! Do not shrink the positive image after you’ve swished it. Open your eyes right after you’ve done the swish, saw the positive image colorful full size with stereo sound “I feel good to be me”. Open your eyes, blink a second, and close them again.
Now snap your fingers (getting complicated? Good, you learn fast) as you say SWISH.
See the negative image with the blinking dot on it - say swish while you snap your fingers - swish the images. Quickly, quickly - we’re on a tight schedule here!
Let the good feelings of the positive image move all over your body. Yes, you can smile, you’re half way through.
Step Seven: Enough Practice - To The Change!
Ok, we played a bit, now let’s play harder.
Open your eyes, move around a bit. Close your eyes, imagine a blank screen, and we’re starting the real change.
Do the swish - 10 times - as fast as you can, powerfully, with as much emotions, enthusiasm and determination that you can invest within it. And no, you do not need a technique for enthusiasm first - your negative image that might made you cry once or twice about your “lack of luck” in life would be enough of a reason to feel enthusiastic and determined enough to destroy it completely.
Move it, soldier! Do the swish 10 times. Remember: Negative Image - Black Blinking Dot - SWISH & Finger snap - Big colorful positive image stereo “I feel good to be me”, mysterious what? - Open eyes, close eyes - blank black screen - back to the beginning. Good!
Go for it. Again. Faster. How fast can you go? Move!
Done it ten times? Good. I’m proud of you. Let’s make the juice even juicer…
Step Eight: How Much Pleasure Can You Handle?
Self esteem affects every single detail in your life. I didn’t say it before, because I didn’t want to make you nervous. But now that you have a strong self esteem, it should be a pleasant information for you.
What I want you to do now is to make sure you squeeze all the juice you can from pleasure in your life. That’s not essential but it’s much more than just having a high self esteem. And it’s easy to attain, in just a couple of minutes from now…
Our goal now is to attach that new pleasurable compelling image of high self esteem to everything in your life. Memories are the triggers, so we’ll attach it to the past. New situations in life are triggers, so we’ll attach it to the present. Goals and plans are more attainable and they serve as triggers to action, so we’ll attach that image to your future also. How fast can we do it? How about 25 seconds…
Reach out with your hands and grab the strong image of high self esteem, just like you would grab a big mirror. Grab it, lift it and notice something new: there are thousands of thousands of high self esteem images behind it! Oh my god, they were hiding all that time to surprise you! Isn’t that wonderful? Images that show you successful in everything you do in life, strong, committed, powerful, happy, thrilled, excited, pleasurable… Let’s see how much pleasure can you really stand.
As you lift the image, all the other images are lifted with it. Smile to yourself, take some momentum and throw it up high above you. Everything spread out in the open air above your head. A split of a second later, and they all fall down and spread all around you. In front of you, as represented by the future there are thousands of them covering the ground. Just around you, present a couple of thousands more, and around you as you look back on your past time line hiding behind your back, are thousands more.
Imagine them, each one is framed with a blinking shiny frame, yelling for attention! How amazing it’s going to be facing challenges in your future where all your mind can remember is how powerful you are, how strong, how much pleasure can your mind stand that way? Images behind you rule the earth and cover and hide the small weak negative images, they rule them, they control the past now, they blink for attention, anywhere you look. Because as you try to find a negative memory, all the blinking positive images interrupt the search, they yell for you - Look at me! “I feel GOOOOOOOD to be me!”.
Play around, pick one up, see the mysterious smile, hear the stereo effect voice around you, see the image as it grows and getting brighter. That’s the way.
And at last, now imagine yourself tomorrow waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, and see all over the place those images blinking and yelling for attention. There might be a mysterious smile on you, that people will notice in the upcoming days. Don’t tell them where you got it.
You can open your eyes now and look around you.
Step Nine: Test or Toast
You’ve done it. If you have truly invested your all in the Step by Step Method to Increase Your Self Esteem, you are now a high self-esteem person.
To prove it and to come to closure about it, lets test it.
Take a moment (not too long) and bring back the negative image from step one back to mind. How do you feel? Can you even imagine that picture at all? Is it harder to construct it again, are the feelings fade and weak? Don’t stress yourself too much, because the whole point is to make it impossible to feel bad again.
Toast? If you can’t remember the negative image clearly or you did but didn’t feel bad again - you should celeberate for it!
cheers!
Rajeev.V
From India
Thank you Shikha. there are any number of good books on NLP. You may try, 'Introducing Neurolinguistic Programming: Psychological skills for understanding and influencing people' written by Joseph o'Connor to start with.
There are many persons including myself who have immensely benefited from using NLP in professional life. Dr Jogeshwar, your hopes are not out of place.
regards
Rajeev.V
From India
There are many persons including myself who have immensely benefited from using NLP in professional life. Dr Jogeshwar, your hopes are not out of place.
regards
Rajeev.V
From India
Community Support and Knowledge-base on business, career and organisational prospects and issues - Register and Log In to CiteHR and post your query, download formats and be part of a fostered community of professionals.