In this first episode I’m going to focus on confidence and addressing that thought that constantly lurks at the back of your mind - if I was just able to do, be, have, change, or get rid of this one thing then everything would fall into place, the main barrier that is preventing me from being myself would be removed, my personality could finally be set free, and I would be more confident in all areas of my life.

In this episode then, we’re going to discuss two things:

1. What are some of those “one things” that could change everything, and 

2. Could changing just one thing really free you up to be fully confident and socially outgoing in all other areas?

I have two real life case studies to support my conclusions on this, so lets get right into it.

As the saying goes: ‘be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about’.

This is all about those internal thoughts, doubts, anxieties that swirl around your mind at 4am and won’t let you sleep, then follow you around during the day reflected in the way other people look at you and react to you, or so you imagine. This is called mind reading which means you’re assuming the first thing other people see in you, or judge you for is the thing you’re judging yourself for. 

If if if I had this or that, if only I could get rid of this or that, if I knew how to be this or that way, whatever that one thing is for you …

THEN EVERYTHING WOULD CHANGE. I would be confident speaking onstage, in groups, in front of my inlaws, in front of the boss or in work meetings, on first dates, and people would be about to understand and relate to me.

I would be able to initiate conversations with abandon, be more assertive and stand up for myself, make friends, form relationships, be happier in myself because I had removed this one blockage.

But does it really work like that?

I can offer you one answer from firsthand experience because its not only something Ive heard other people say, its something I used to tell myself too. I used to have a ‘one thing’ and I believed if I could get rid of it from my life then EVERYTHING would be better. I would be released from this blanket of self-doubt, low self-esteem, and shyness. And with it gone I would be a reborn person flowing with social confidence. 

The question is, after I got rid of my one thing did the reality match the belief? And did everything get better?

In order to answer the question I’m going to take you back almost a quarter of a century to 1999

I would be 28 years old, plagued by shyness, anger issues, a small alcohol problem, very low self-esteem, no real friends. In fact, I’d transferred to a new town with my job the year before so the only person I knew was the one I was working with.

My utter lack of social skills were not the only drain on my self-confidence but also two dark circles beneath my eyes that were the result of more than a decade of insomnia. Truth be told, I was developing the eye bags of an old man in my early twenties and getting worse with each passing year.

The drain they caused on my confidence was massive, I imagined my discoloured eyes and loose skin were the first thing people noticed about me. It was like having two permanent rain clouds on my face preventing me from ever enjoying a sunny day, metaphorically speaking of course.

One day, I decided that I would have blepharoplasty surgery and have my eye bags removed. The surgery in my own country was more than I could afford so I booked the operation at a clinic in Prague… at Christmas.

I had no friends or support network, so It made no difference that I would be alone for christmas, it wouldn’t have been the first time. The clinic was excellent, they provided excellent accommodation in the centre of Prague and had me collected by their own driver from the airport.

Now, I think I got off on the wrong foot with the driver from the start because I had no local money to tip him with and he got his revenge, at least this is how my paranoid inner voice interpreted what happened next.

You see, when you go for surgery you’re not supposed to drink alcohol for 24 hours prior, because it thins the blood and makes it slower to clot, and when you’re having surgery you want your blood to be performing at its best right?

Well I didn’t know any of this and apparently it was the drivers job to inform me, which he emitted to do. So, being alone in a foreign city and anxious about the operation, because hey, they cut into your skin within millimetres of your eyeballs and you have to be awake while they doing it, so that night I went out into the city and had a few drinks to calm my anxiety.

When I got back to the apartment someone else had arrived for surgery too. A german guy who would be having a facelift. He had a message to pass on to me about the no alcohol rule but by them it was too late. 

The next morning I formed a plan to burn the alcohol from my system by drinking as much water as possible and going for a jog through the city centre at 5am. Given that I was jogging in a shirt in minus ten degree temperatures drew some surprised looks from the early morning commuters, but I didn’t care, I was desperate for my surgery and I didn’t want it to be cancelled.

Fortunately they decided to go ahead and everything went well. A few hours later I was back out onto the streets of Prague with a heavily bandaged face, pain killers in my system and feeling a sense of euphoria for the first time in my life that had nothing to do with drugs. Even a cold, cigarette smoke saturated taxi ride back to the apartment couldn’t dampen my spirits.

My face was a mess but that was temporary and I was so happy that the eye bags were finally gone. I met my new german housemate again who had by now also had his surgery so we bought a bottle of red wine and celebrated on our last night there. 

It was now December 23rd, he would be going home to his family, while I would be going back to an empty house to spend christmas day by myself. Over the next few weeks I came down from my cloud nine and settled back into the routine of daily life. So the question is, with this confidence-destroying albatross removed from around my neck, did I feel more confident in all areas of life?

Weeeeeell yes and no. You see obviously something had changed, the eyebags were gone and this did give a big positive psychologic boost to my appearance confidence, but as for being more confident in general? I would say I got an uplift like ripples on a pond emanating out. But my environment was the same and the rest of my life was the same. 

The surgery hadn’t transformed me from in introvert to an extrovert, and I didn’t magically become charismatic or socially skilled. What getting rid of my one thing did do was fill me with strong motivation to continue addressing all the other issues in my life.

That’s when I came to view confidence as a jigsaw puzzle, with each of us as the image on our own box covers. The surgery was one big piece of my own confidence picture, but that didn’t mean the whole picture was there. 

To build the whole picture you have to fill in all the missing pieces, which for me were things like my mind going blank in conversations. A poor posture, a quiet voice, poor social skills etc. All things infact that were a legacy of shyness, social anxiety, and low self-esteem.

So I’ve presented you with my first person account of changing that one thing that can plague your confidence your whole life and the impact it has as a result. Now let me briefly cover it as a third person observer to someone else who went through something similar.

For this person, lets call her Maisy, it wasn’t her eyes that was harming her confidence but her nose and teeth. If you had seen her before her operation you would have been somewhat confused as to why these features were a problem for her, but as the saying goes, everyone is fighting their own secret battle that we know nothing about.

The rest of her story takes a similar path to my own, unless she was with trusted people she would be quiet and would not initiate conversations. Like me she went abroad for surgery and did the bravest thing in her life in pursuit of becoming more comfortable and confident in her own skin.

Her operation went well and she experienced the same highs as I had done at having taken charge of her own life in such a dramatic way, but did it make her a more confident person in all other areas of her life? As before, her reaction seems to have taken a similar trajectory to my own in that the ripple effect had given her the momentum and determination to push back at her other boundaries.

These two examples show that there really are very few things that can’t be changed if the will is strong enough, but they also show that confidence building is not just about changing one thing but addressing all areas where confidence is lacking. 

If posture is your one thing then study the posture of someone who does it well and train yourself to walk and stand the same way. It took me a year but it was achievable.

If eye contact is your one thing train yourself with determination.

If a lack of courage to express opinions is your one thing then make sure your opinions are not ones you’ve copied from someone else, then educate yourself and develop new opinions you trust and would be happy to defend.

If a facial or bodily feature is your one thing then save up and get surgery or treatment even if everyone is telling you you don’t need it. Remember, they don’t know anything about the battles you are fighting.

Of course, these things are easier said than done but remember, nobody else is going to do it for you. You have to take charge, so here’s my suggestion for how to get started:

Thank you for listening and before my next episode, challenge yourself to take the first or next step on your own personal development journey.