Are you self-confident?

Episode 32 in Part 2 of our Introduction series: Getting to know yourself.

Habits:  Know thyself | Growth mindset

Skills:  Self-confidence | Attitude

Description:  In this episode, we investigate the concept of self-confidence, and we introduce the very good news that the skills and habits that we’ve already covered in our previous episodes are already helping you to build your self-confidence. Skills that include self-control, knowing thyself, positive attitudes, signature strengths, flow, creating new habits, growth mindsets, accepting failure, grit, repetition, perfect or deliberate practice, mastery, courage, facing fears, goal setting, taking action and putting happiness before success. Self-confidence is simply having trust in your own skills and abilities, and the Passion Arena episodes to date will all help you to do just that.

 

Suggested student exercise

Where could you be more self-confident?

Ask students to list as many areas as they can think of where they're not as self-confident as they might like to be.

Then next to each, list at least one thing they could do to improve their self-confidence in that area.

For example, if you feel you could be more self-confident when it comes to contributing your ideas in class, one action you might take is to face your fear by contributing one idea in class each day.

How this lesson might be applied in the classroom

This episode outlines the importance of self-confidence, explaining that having self-confidence is as simple as having trust in your abilities and skills in relation to anything you want to do or achieve.

We explain, that in order to build self-confidence, students simply need to focus on the skills and habits already outlined in the Passion Arena episodes to date. This means working to improve in:

  • Self-control

  • Having a positive attitude

  • Getting into flow

  • Building a growth mindset

  • Having more grit

  • Perfect or deliberate practice

  • Making the effort to do the best of which you're capable

  • Putting happiness and wellbeing first

  • Knowing thyself

  • Living your signature strengths

  • Creating new positive habits

  • Accepting failure

  • Practicing repetition

  • Developing courage

  • Taking action

When discussing this episode, some questions might include:

  • Do you believe that having more self-confidence is as simple as trusting your skills and abilities? Why/Why not?

  • Why might it be difficult to trust your skills and abilities?

  • What do you think you could do that would increase your self-confidence the most?

  • What do you think is the biggest barrier to you having more self-confidence?

  • What could you do to get around this barrier?

Some specific discussion points

Discussion of any literary works, historical figures, or current events featuring prominent individuals offers an opportunity to discuss people who have high degrees of self-confidence. It's also an opportunity to consider what it means to be self-confident. For example, does having self-confidence mean that you'll never be nervous? 

Questions may include:

  • When you think of self-confidence, which person immediately comes to mind? Why them?

  • How does self-confidence help them in their life?

  • Do you think you can be self-confident but also afraid, nervous or anxious? Why/Why not?

  • How do you think having more self-confidence would benefit you?

  • Do you think you can be too self-confident? Why/Why not?

Discussing the quote from this episode:

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." — Arthur Ashe

Possible areas of discussion may include:

  • Do you believe that 'one important key to success is self-confidence'? Why/Why not?

  • Do you believe 'an important key to self-confidence is preparation'? Why/Why not?

  • Of the skills and habits outlined in today's episode (see list above), which do you think is most important to helping you improve your preparation? Why?

  • What action could you take today, to improve your preparation and with it, your self-confidence?

Further information on this topic

If you'd like to dive a bit deeper on this topic, you might be interested in watching:

 

Dr Ivan Joseph – The Skill of Confidence.

 

Please let us know how we could improve this episode?

We're always keen to hear how our work can be improved. If you can think of anything we can do to improve either the delivery of our content, the content itself, the exercises, or our guides to how the lesson can be applied in the classroom, please let us know.