Self Help Book Reviews

Self help books, self improvement books, life coaching books reviewed & introduced

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Instant Confidence

By Paul McKenna

 

Book Review of "Instant Confidence"

 

Paul McKenna is one of the most renowned hypnotists and practictioners of neuro-linguistic programming in the UK. He rarely appears short of confidence, so just what is his secret and can it be taught to others? The title of this book implies not only that Mr McKenna thinks that confidence can be taught but that he thinks it can be taught instantly! In fact the first section of the book is about developing "a confidence habit". In the Introduction the author encourages you to use the "powerful mind programming CD" that is supplied with the book at least once a week for several weeks as part of the training of your mind towards becoming that confident person you want to be.

 

Early in the book McKenna remarks that people who feel they lack confidence are in fact confident - they are confident about the fact that they have no confidence! His aim it seems is to show you the confidence skills that you have (even if you are unaware of them at the moment) and to give you techniques to help you develop and apply them to those situations when you need them.

 

Many of the techniques that McKenna suggests follow well known coaching concepts familiar to practitioners of neuro-linguistic programming and other coaching techniques. However, the book is written in a refreshing, easy-to-read style and avoids the almost incomprehensible jargon which some practitioners of neuro-linguistic programming can be prone to use!

 

For example, one of the key ideas of the book is to encourage you to visualise and experience in as much detail as you can what 'the confident you' will be like and how you will be behaving when you are confident. Paul McKenna gives simple, clearly set out exercises to assist you in this process of training your mind and your senses so that you can enter the world of a more confident, more charismatic you.

 

McKenna's mission it seems is to encourage you to retrain:

• your mind to think in a confident way,
• your body to feel the sensations of confidence and
• your behaviour to encapsulate the behaviour of a confident person.

He argues that in order to do this you need to imagine what the "authentic" you is like, i.e. what you would be like if you were fully at ease with yourself, rather than preoccupied with fear or anxiety.

 

He advocates simple use of a well known coaching technique for helping you to reframe in a positive way negative 'inner thoughts' (or using his words, your "internal voice"), asking you to think of negative comments you might make about yourself or about your abilities or your future and then come up with a positive statement which is the opposite of the negative one. He encourages you to repeat the new positive statement to yourself in a confident voice as part of this process of retraining your mind.

 

Section Two of the book tackles the question of motivation and McKenna begins with a time-honoured neuro-linguistic programming technique which he calls the "Motivation Switch" to give you a strategy for summoning up at will positive experiences and states of mind from the past to help bring back motivation. I won't spoil the fun for you now - you will have to read the book if you want to try it out. All I can say is that I have tried this technique myself in the past and found it personally powerful and effective.

 

Other parts of the Motivation Section of the book focus on setting goals and McKenna expresses the engaging view that "Size really does matter " - at least, when it comes to setting goals. Set yourself a big goal so that you can be enthused about it is his suggestion. He then continues with standard life coaching advice,suggesting that you break that big goal down into smaller units to make it easier to act on.

 

 

The third section of the book is spent dealing with specific aspects of confidence such as public speaking, business success, dating and sex, before McKenna goes on in the very short final section to troubleshoot some common questions. His advice in this section includes that you should keep using the techniques and listening to the CD for at least three weeks.

 

Conclusion

An entertaining read, well written with some useful ideas and techniques to practise. My advice would be don't read it expecting to develop Instant or Total Confidence, but if you follow the suggestions and practise them you should make some progress

 

To Find out further details and Purchase "Instant Confidence" through Amazon.co.uk click on the image below:

 

 

David Bonham-Carter, the Founder of Life Coach Tips, and writer of this Review is a Life Coach and Stress Consultant with over 15 years of professional experience in the field of personal change management. He founded this directory of life coaching articles in order to bring life coaching ideas and techniques to a wider audience. To find out more about the particular life coaching services David himself offers, please go to: Life Coach David Bonham-Carter.

 

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