I've been coaching for a few years now, and one of the things I've learned - both for me personally and for my clients - is that inner confidence is essential to being heard and seen, especially when supporting your neurodiverse child at meetings and in moments of advocacy for them.
Clear communication is the key to being heard… but knowing what is most important to you to communicate can be hard to articulate.
There are all kinds of strategies, different ways of thinking, multiple patterns of behaviour, that come into play in our communication and there are some really practical tips out there for improving our communication, our relationships with others, and also ways to feel better about ourself, but if the foundation isn't there… we struggle to have these tools work for us.
That foundation is the real you, the you that you know deep down, the you that you may have forgotten, suppressed or shifted due to circumstances…. and the trick is that it takes confidence to find that part you again, to bring out who you truly are – so here are a couple of ways to rediscover your inner confidence.
Get To Know Your Values
Personal values are a big passion that I have, I can get carried away when I talk about them, I weave them through my sessions with clients because I know the value of values… I’ve seen the magic that happens when a family truly understands each other – values are one of the most important things you can know about ‘yourself’, about your ‘child’ and about your ‘partner in parenting’…
They are also vital in getting genuine inner confidence. Knowing your values (at the very core of who you are); means you will deeply understand yourself.
A value is something in yourself, in others or in the world that’s most important to you, and could include things like beliefs, goals, family, fun, nature, achievement or freedom.
Why is it that some people and situations leave you feeling angry, frustrated, demotivated or deflated? - It’s because one or more of your values is being denied, suppressed or subdued – and we experience that as a negative experience because it’s denying a fundamental piece of who you are.
You know those times when you’ve felt really alive, incredible or joyess? Those are the times when one or more of your values are being honored, and you can get more of that by living according to them.
Your values are all yours, and no matter what happens, no one can ever take them away. You can have absolute confidence in them because they are available to you at all times just waiting for you to notice and use them.
When you get to know your values, you can start to make choices and align your life around them. It sounds so simple right?... I can help you learn how… it feels amazing when we are living alongside our values, because we are allowing ourselves to be ‘real’ in the world.
Exercise Your Confidence Muscle
Confidence is a muscle, and like any muscle, you need to exercise it so that it doesn’t shrink and waste away. The problem is that unlike your biceps or glutes, which stay in the same place, your confidence muscle can be harder to find.
How do you develop your biceps or firm up your glutes? By doing exercises that are designed to work that muscle over a period of time until you see the results you were looking for.
It is the same with your confidence muscle.
So let’s say that you’re the kind of person that doesn’t like taking risks, you are going about the day doing what needs to be done and doing it well, yet not really stretching yourself.
You might talk yourself out of doing something because it’s too scary or because you think to yourself ‘I’m not good enough,’ ‘that’s not who I am’ or ‘I don’t really want it anyway.’
Living within what you know and what keeps you safe and comfortable. The fewer risks you take, the less confident you need to be and so the less confident you become.
To work your confidence muscle you need to be prepared to take risks – big or small. You need to be willing to stretch yourself in an unfamiliar direction, to try something new or try something in a slightly different way.
You need to open yourself up to the possibilities around you and push yourself to increase what you know, what you do and who you are.
You know your child best… some days it may not seem like it, yet when you meet with a school or similar, you have the knowledge of your child’s needs, the more open you are to risk, opportunity and possibility the more confident you need to be, and so the more confidence you’ll develop.
That’s your confidence muscle – the question is, what are you going to do to exercise it?"
Set a meeting to discuss your child's needs at school?
Meet with your co-parent and talk about what your child is needing within each home?
Talk to extended family about why it is, as a family you do it the way you do and help them better understand your child?
As Maya Angelou says … “When you know better, you do better”
... we need to educate our child’s village on what it is they need for support so that everyone can do better for them.
Walking beside you, Kylie
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