Why being confident is way overrated.

I would safely say that the biggest request from my Coaching clients is that they want to be confident. I call it the "C-word", no, not that one, the other one...curiosity!It is an entirely different way of being, a different energy and it can dramatically change your life. You see when adopting an attitude of deep curiosity it takes the pressure off having to be sure of an outcome or being scared of rejection.

I wish I had known this mind hack when I was younger when wanting to ask a girl out on a date. Instead of waiting to be confident enough to get up the courage to ask them out, I would just have strolled up and asked: "I'm curious, would you go on a date with me?"When they invariably answered "No!",I would have replied: "fine, I was only curious!"In this article, I want to explain why curiosity is our natural default of how to be human. Being curious is the reason why humans got to the top of the food chain. It's the reason that we managed to land on the Moon and how I am now communicating through the medium of the internet. But more of that later.

When you realise that confidence is overrated and is getting in the way of you succeeding in life, your life will immediately start being a lot less stressful and by default, you will start achieving so much more in your personal and business life. You see, confidence is the end result of being sure of an outcome. You don't start off being confident, you get confident by repeatedly doing a task again and again until you are "confident" of the result you are wanting to achieve.

If your strategy and rules are "Once I am confident, then I will do it", you are in for a very long wait! Instead, adopt an attitude of deep curiosity and notice what happens. There is no pressure of having to be sure of the desired outcome, you are just being very curious about what might happen if you do it!

Curiosity is one of the key attitudes of NLP(Neuro-Linguistic Programming)and just adopting that attitude has changed my life immeasurably. So next time you feel you need more confidence in your life, just be curious instead and be amazed at the results you get..effortlessly!

Here are another ten good reasons to back up my case.

1.It is the opposite of fear.

2.. To survive we have to be adaptable and adaptation requires curiosity.

3. It is childlike to be curious and children are the best learners period. I know an eight-year-old girl who can already speak four languages fluently because she is so curious about how many languages she can speak so that alone has made her a learning machine!

4. Curiosity is what makes us smart.It is our superpower. In reality,it's nature's way of speeding up our evolution as it brings about a whole bundle of learnings and change in one go.

5. It stops us from getting in a rut as it continually pushes us forward to know ... "Why?"

6. Unlike any other species on our planet because of curiosity we have evolved to go off the beaten track to learn and discover for no other good reason than to learn. The more we discover and learn things, the more aware and intelligent we become. This is how a hairless , childlike species of Ape evolved to be who we are today. We first invented the spear to defend ourselves against larger predators, then discovered fire. This meant we were then able to consume a lot more fuel to feed our very large brains and as our brains grew even larger, so did our curiosity!

7. Being curious massively increases our memory and capacity to learn: Source University of California , Davis.

8. I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Albert Einstein.

9. Curiosity can prevent Alzheimer's disease as craving new experiences by being curious keeps your brain stimulated throughout your life, which is definitely good for your brain. Source Professor D.Knopman Mayo Clinic Minnesota.

10. By being curious we are willing to leave the familiar and take risks , even if it makes us feel anxious and uncomfortable and become curious explorers open to new challenges, embracing uncertainty, and see our lives as an enjoyable quest to discover and grow and in turn, makes us happy. Source: Todd Kashdan Psychologist.