Nearly the big day .... are you dreading it? Taking Christmas in your stride is something that some people find impossible - will the turkey defrost in time? - Will I get on with the In-laws? - Will the kids like their presents? To be able to tackle these and many other issues in our lives it is essential that we learn to use and project our inner confidence.

SO....How do we become more confident?

Well there are several simple ways....
FIRSTLY act like you are confident. Take a deep breath before you enter the room - its your house and your comfort zone!

SECONDLY Rehearse with yourself in front of a mirror if you are worried about a particular task or pending conversation (YES MUM THATS A LOVELY JUMPER THANK YOU!)Look at your body language, listen to your tone of voice. Practice speaking what you want to say until you say it from memory without pausing EXACTLY the way you want to say it.

THIRDLY Now this is something you can do completely by yourself but you need a quiet place to do it. Even better than practising saying something is believing what you are saying. An area of coaching that is rapidly expanding is NLP which is extremely effective in dealing with confidence issues. One simple aspect of this is to rehearse in your mind over and over the perfect conversation that you had been dreading, the small talk to the inlaws or telling your partner you love them. Linford Christie used to rehearse the 100m race in his mind a 1000 times over. He knew exactly what was going to happen and 9 times out of 10 he ran a fantastic race.

How many times have you brushed your teeth? 10,000? 100,000 times? So how many times do you have to tell yourself "right brush these ones back and forth, then the bottom ones...." we dont! Its been an action we complete so often we do it without thinking. The same thing happens when we drive to work and then cant remember passing a particular junction or taking a corner because we are on auto pilot. Your mind has mental pathways that grow stronger each time we complete a task or rehearse it in our mind. BELIEVE you are confident - because if you dont believe it how can anybody else?!

This last technique is best used in a one-to-one scenario with your coach who is able to respond and react to your actions and words to help you achieve the most you possible can.

James