WHERE TO LOOK FOR CONFIDENCE

One of the warm-up exercises I used to do with children in a drama or storytelling workshop was to tell them I would say a word and they would have a count of five to ‘freeze’ in a picture of that word. I always included these two:

“Confidence - one, two, three, four, five, FREEZE.”

In all cases and over hundred of sessions, the kids would strike a pose: Punching the air, head thrown back and hands on hips, arm bent showing off ‘muscle’ - you get the idea. Without saying anything I would always follow it with this one:

“The kind of confidence that’s so confident it doesn’t need to show itself - One, two, three, four, five, FREEZE.”

What always amazed me was that no kid at any point over the years ever looked puzzled by this, or asked me what I meant. They just relaxed and froze, not doing anything in particular. The one thing that was always noticeable by its absence was: trying to be or do anything.

We all know this intuitively, and we all recognise it when we see it. Confidence never comes from ‘trying’, in fact if we think someone is ‘trying’ we register this as being the opposite of confident.

And isn’t this the conundrum when we think of confidence as something we need to ‘get more of’? What if ‘the confidence that is so confident it doesn’t have to show itself’ is simply who you are when you’re just doing you? What if our natural confidence is always there beneath our fear/our story that it isn’t, e.g. In an important meeting, or when we want to impress someone? If so,  instead of trying to ‘get more confidence’, wouldn’t we become more interested in how not to lose it instead?

This story is “The Archer”, and I heard it from another storyteller eighteen years ago, so it made an impression!

The Archer:

The King wanted to find the best archers in the land and bring them back to the castle, so he sent out five soldiers on horseback to look for them.

After a week they came to a small farmstead. They were facing the back of a barn and on it were twelve painted targets, each with just one arrow dead centre, and no holes from failed attempts. They looked at each other. As they were dismounting, a young woman came around the side of the barn. She stopped when she saw them and one of them shouted across to her,

“Who did these?”

She narrowed her eyes and didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said,

“I did.”

One of the soldiers started laughing, but the one who had shouted silenced him and asked,

“Can you show us?”

The woman smiled,

“Yes of course I can.”

She ran off and was soon back with her bow and arrow. She aimed at an empty part of the mud wall and fired. The soldiers frowned, looking at each other. One stepped forward, but again she disappeared around the side of the barn.

When she came back this time she was carrying three buckets of paint and a paintbrush. They watched as she walked over to the wall and carefully drew a red circle around the arrow head, then a blue, then an outer white. When she stepped back she looked at the one who had spoken to her square in the eyes, and smiled knowingly.

***

What if  real confidence looks like who you are all the time until you panic, and feel and think that you’re not? Wouldn’t it be worth looking there to remember how it feels rather than thinking it’s some imaginary state you have to practice to get right; not something you try to get, but something you want to keep in certain situations?

And what if sometimes it’s what we think others are thinking about us that sets off the panic? More about this here: https://www.storywheel.co.uk/storywheel-blog/your-amazing-story-maker-upper :)

If you want to play with these ideas further, you can get a free pdf, “The Cinderella Experiment” HERE .