You might be like me — very concerned about what others think of you, so you fear making mistakes and only dare follow instructions obediently, hoping for others' approval before you can acknowledge how great you are. This is actually a form of imposter syndrome, a lack of confidence...
But fortunately, confidence can be built step by step!
Taking myself as an example: during my student years, my oral communication skills were terrible — I had to read from a word-for-word script for presentations and would shake so badly I'd have trouble getting off stage. But now, I frequently give presentations and speeches on stage. I can confidently say I don't get nervous and I perform well, and I've even pitched at startup competitions. It took roughly 6-7 years to go from there to here, and it can be broken down into 4 stages.
- Awareness and Awakening Phase: Recognize the source of your lack of confidence and set goals
When I was young, I wasn't very good at chatting, so I didn't have many friends and was often excluded. As I grew up, I realized that if I kept fearing expressing myself, I'd be at a disadvantage my whole life. So I made a commitment to adjust this weakness. My broad goals were "to be able to speak confidently to audiences" and "to be able to bravely express my thoughts."
Of course, goals can be big or small — they don't have to be major life issues.
- Self-Directed Learning Phase: List the things you need to practice to achieve your goals, and start with small steps
In terms of daring to speak up, my mini-goals and concrete actions included:
-
Training impromptu speaking ability: For a period of time, I would narrate everything I saw while walking down the street — it looked like I was muttering to myself, but it was to train my reaction speed
-
Recording practice to eliminate filler words: To improve my fluency, I'd often give myself a topic, record myself, play it back, note the filler words I frequently used, and then deliberately avoid them in the next practice session
-
Voice training: People often said I had a regional accent and unclear articulation. So I imitated others' voices and intonations, practiced in different contexts, and even hired a voice coach for training.
- Immersion Learning Phase: Fully immerse yourself in the environment of your learning goal
To do this, I put myself in environments where I had to speak to audiences. After graduating, I chose to work as a journalist. During my time as a TV journalist, I had to stand in front of the camera for live reports. At first, I was incredibly nervous, and my cameraman colleagues would say "you're really too tense." Though it was embarrassing, I knew this was something I had to face. So I continued learning from the environment and also asked senior colleagues for advice and learned from them.
Creating an environment for yourself and having good role models to learn from is very important!
- Verification and Evolution Phase: Practice and optimize across different scenarios and formats
If you're learning a language, besides reading and doing exercises, you can also go abroad to immerse yourself in an English-only environment and talk with foreigners.
If you want to exercise, besides the gym, you can also join a sports community to practice with like-minded people or enroll in classes.
These are all ways to learn in different scenarios.
As for oral expression, my scenario switches included:
"On-camera communication", "Small group leadership", "Large event hosting", "Public competitions."
Each scenario requires different ways of expressing yourself. For example, hosting an event requires being able to engage in dialogue and create atmosphere; public competitions require presenting with a specific goal to win recognition. By practicing in different modes, you absorb massive amounts of experience while also verifying your abilities.
In this process, you'll discover that if you can handle different scenarios appropriately, you'll also build confidence.
The source of each person's lack of confidence is different, but if you're willing to change and actually work toward your goals, you can overcome your weaknesses and become a confident person ☺
