If you’ve suffered a confidence crash, can’t switch off your inner critic or stop comparing yourself unfavourably to others, or are just looking for practical guidance on how to restore or increase your confidence levels, then this is the ideal book for you.
Julie Smith’s ‘Coach Yourself Confident’ sets out the general principles of personal confidence in the first half of the book. This includes helpful tips on identifying what may be your self-doubt tells, such as verbal tics you may have whenever anybody gives you praise. The second part of the book has a focus on how confidence manifests itself in the workplace, upskilling your ability to navigate professional situations. I would especially recommend this book to anyone who is looking to build their confidence to go for a promotion, get out of a job that is crushing them, or build up their resilience to face job interviews.
The key to understanding the book is through the subtitles, ‘ditch the self-doubt tax’ and ‘unlock humble confidence’. Both of these concepts resonated strongly with me. As an insular and sensitive person, I’ve never thrived at ‘selling myself’, and have always been suspicious about those whose confidence outweighs their competence – who nevertheless blag themselves to success. But rest assured, this is not a book designed to inflate your ego and instil within you grandiose ideas about your abilities. Rather, it sets you on the path to humble confidence – just the right amount of confidence that aligns with our capability.
The concept uncovered in the book that hit home for me was the ‘self-doubt tax’. This is when our inner critic erodes our confidence and we pay a double levy. This comes both in missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential but also in overwork and exhaustion because we overly-prepare or give way to perfectionist habits driven by our fear of failure.
We’ve probably all seen people we know are less capable than ourselves get ahead, where the only difference has been confidence. Being held-back by self-doubt affects lifetime earnings, so it impacts upon every aspect of life and remains an albatross around the neck. Growing in confidence isn’t a nice-to-have, but a necessity. This book is a great starting point for doing something about that nagging self-doubt and growing your confidence.
Julie Smith’s ‘Coach Yourself Confident’ is full of practical advice and exercises that you can try. To get the most out of the book, it is necessary to take the time to complete these before proceeding. Each chapter has a useful summary to recap on what you’ve learned. Smith draws on easy-to-relate-to real-life examples to illustrate her point. You may even find some ‘eureka’ moments. One of mine was realising that the people who have treated me badly are only partially responsible for my resulting confidence crashes – I bear some culpability for letting their behaviour affect my sense of self-worth. Another was recognising the ‘distorting mirrors’ effect of hearing praise and criticism.
This is a useful and resourceful book for anyone who knows they need to face the risk of failure or push themselves harder to reach their professional potential. The general principles on confidence outlined in the earliest chapters will resonate with all readers, regardless of their scenario, but those looking to build their confidence to go dating or enter into a relationship, for example, may not find the specifics to cover what they’re looking for.
Julie Smith brings her decades of experience to bear in ‘Coach Yourself Confident’. It’s likely to be a useful resource to keep close to hand to refer back to, as our confidence levels ebb and flow depending upon the slings and arrows that life throws at us. Read with an open mind in a spirit of curiosity, it offers best practice to recognise bad habits or ingrained self-doubt. ‘Coach Yourself Confident’ can set you on the road to freeing yourself from your inner critic and unlocking your hidden potential.
Publisher: Practical Inspiration Publishing Publication date: 20th February 2024 Buy ‘Coach Yourself Confident’
