Confidence Coaching: Getting Your Inner Monologue to Work WITH You, Not Against You
How many times have you had an audition where you knocked it out of the park and yet your mind was focused elsewhere? I’m going to guess not many. Are you able to shrug off a rejection and move on easily? Neither can I.
“When you reach that elite level, 90 percent is mental and 10 percent is physical. You are competing against yourself. “ ~ Dick Fosbury
Though it is important to always be working on your craft through acting, vocal, and dance training, it is equally as important to be working on your mental game. No matter how you train physically, if your mind isn’t in the right place it’ll get the better of you especially when you are in a high intensity situation. All of a sudden, your limiting beliefs and habits fueled by your stress, fear, and anxiety come to the forefront. Your inner monologue gets hijacked by the Villain of your story and you are no longer able to perform as the Star you are!
Confidence Coaching allows you to focus your mind more easily, build your confidence from the inside out, manage performance anxiety more effectively, and navigate stress more efficiently.
By creating a personal confidence training practice, you can retrain your mind to work for you and not against you. Your inner monologue begins to play the role of #1 Fan and Supportive Best Friend. This practice can support you not only through the entire college audition process, but into college and beyond, as you find your way as a thriving artist.
Confidence training is used in a variety of fields including Sport Psychology, Positive Psychology, Coaching, and Mindfulness. You are a holistic being. Therefore, it is important to create a practice and utilize tools and skills that connect the mind, body, and spirit. Most importantly, it is crucial to create a practice that works for and supports YOU!
There are three major areas of focus in Confidence Coaching:
1. Self Talk – The inner monologue that you have continuously going on in your head is called Self Talk. Most thoughts can be put into three categories: Positive, Negative, and Instructional. Ideally, you want to amplify your positive self talk, aka your #1 Fan, and limit your negative self talk, aka your Villain. The first step in this process is to simply observe and acknowledge your thoughts so that you can begin to detach from the thoughts in order to overcome them. From there, you empower yourself with the gift of choice. You get to choose what you want to think and how you want to act on those thoughts.
2. Visualization – Visualization is when you use mental imagery to simulate or create pictures in your mind for the purpose of improving confidence, acquiring new skills, managing pain and stress, or honing your concentration and focus. Like everything else, Visualization is a skill that takes practice. There are several techniques that help you can utilize to create a powerful visualization practice for any situation and scenario. For example, when preparing for your prescreens you can take 10 min to “see” yourself going through each of your songs, monologues, and/or dance. This helps to build your confidence when you actually film yourself.
3. Relaxation – Relaxation is a crucial element to peak performance. Everyone has a “sweet spot” for where their energy needs to be in order to perform optimally. Once you figure out your “sweet spot,” there are many relaxation tools you can use to manage, maintain, and sustain the energy level you need. Relaxation techniques range from breath work to body scans to mindfulness practices.
Using these tools, you can begin to create a practice that serves as your foundation to help build resilience for the inevitable setbacks you’ll face throughout your career. So what are you waiting for?
----
Need help through this process? Talk to a coach! MCA offers a Confidence Coaching Peak Performance Package which includes three 1:1 personalized coaching sessions and a Confidence Coaching Resource Packet with journal prompts, tools, and practices to support you.
