When talking about leadership in our classes, we often discuss the topic “confidence”, how important this skill is, not only for leaders and in the business environment but for everyone in our daily life as well.
What is confidence?
Our students have many different answers to this question.
For me confidence means to be sure about myself, my ideas and what I do; people around me will be able to see this determination just looking at me, but I will also be able to look at myself in the mirror and see how strongly I believe in my skills and ideas.
Most important, when we lack confidence, what can we do?
In her famous TED speech, psychologist Amy Cuddy suggests: “Fake it, until you make it”, or in other words, pretend to be confident even if you aren’t, until you become a confident person.
Do you think we can fake it, until we make it?
Some would say it’s impossible or very difficult. I believe that if we didn’t go through this experience, we can’t fully understand how true this statement can be. So I want to share my story with you, and vouch for this theory because it’s actually what happened to me.
When I was younger, I struggled with self-confidence and didn’t believe in myself and my skills. Then I read an article mentioning the importance of body language: I started to have a confident posture and attitude when going to interviews or when taking my university exams. In those moments I was totally faking it, pretending to be confident, pretending to be someone I wasn’t. But then I realized that when looking at me people were seeing a strong, confident Cristina.
Faking confidence made me realize that I really had the strong belief and determination in myself, that I truly had those skills and strength. It’s like when shy people go to drama class and fake their confidence and learn to overcome their shyness, discovering what they can really do and achieve.
So today I’m more confident in myself because I faked it until I made it and became it.
To be honest, sometimes I still feel I need to be more confident and want to expand my self-confidence to more aspects of my life.
Luckily I have a great motto that helps me: “Fake it, until you make it”. And since I experienced the reality of this theory, I hope that I will inspire you as well with my story.
Veritas Coach
Cristina Raffa
Cristina was born in the hot and sunny Sicily, an island in the South of Italy. She graduated in Foreign languages and literature and her interest is currently focused on Japanese language and culture. After many study trips to the UK, she decided to move there for a period of time and improve her English. When she came back to Italy, she started to teach English and Italian to students from children to adults, wanting to put in practice what she had learned in university. Focusing on her Japanese, she did an exchange study programme at Meiji University in Japan, where she discovered Veritas and its unique programme.
Here she can follow her passion and love for teaching and grow as a person thanks to her experience as a coach, improving her skills by focusing on the students and their progress.
With the help of a strong and united team, at Veritas she has the opportunity to inspire people and guide them to become global leaders of tomorrow.
