How To Be Confident with Viv Groskop

This week’s conversation is for everyone. And I mean everyone! Why? Because all of us have issues with confidence at some level. Yes, even the people who seem to be bursting at the seams with the stuff, and don’t let anything break their stride.
Viv Groskop has made understanding our relationship with confidence her life’s work after deciding over a decade ago to put herself through the daunting challenge of doing 100 stand-up comedy gigs in 100 days - just to see if she could. (I know, right? The thought of it brings me out in hives!)
Viv has summed up the idea of what confidence is as ‘Happy High Status’, an expression that comes from the world of theatre and comedy. And what is it? As Viv explains, it’s the opposite of who you are when you are at your most petty and irritable, which is a pretty easy baseline to work from!
In our conversation we discussed:
😎 Happy High Status is not about being CEO or the Queen, that’s social status. This is about you feeling that you are enough. It also doesn’t mean that you are happy all the time, because no one is. It is about being satisfied with who you are. It is about moving through the world in a way that is neutral, magnanimous and generous. It gives people the benefit of the doubt, it means you don’t need to dominate every conversation. If you are called upon to lead, you could lead if you had to. It is an open, generous kind of energy. It looks different on different people, because it is whatever feels best for you.
😎 How do you know what your Happy High Status is? Think about how you feel when you are at ease with people who you really like and trust, or how you feel when you are doing a job where you know you’re capable. Try to take some of how you feel in those moments and import that into moments when you don’t feel as capable. Then you are not having to pretend, you are using evidence that you are good at something and placing it somewhere else. Your evidence can come from anything at all - it really doesn’t matter, as long as it is something that you know you’re good at.
😎 People will take their cue from you. If you walk into a room with the energy of: “Don’t notice me”, people will react to you in that way. And if you walk into a room looking very confidently and ready to take a leading role in the conversation, people will take their cues from you with that too. And somewhere in the middle means that if you act as if something is normal and natural for you, and that you are comfortable, people will take their cues from you and react accordingly.
😎 If you are worried about doing something that is out of your confidence comfort zone, think of what your biggest version of that would look like, and then pull back 50% and start from there. You don’t have to go all-in at the start, because it will feel like such a big deal. Start halfway there, then look at what you could push forward with - that will build your confidence.
It's such a great conversation!
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👉 If you’d like to join the conversation, just click the link to join my private, women only Facebook group, where you can discuss all of the midlife conversations in confidence. / 766812441537576
I love to hear what you think about these conversations, so let me know! You can find me inside the Facebook group, or DM me on Instagram - I’m on @andreamclean1
Viv Groskop hangs out here:
Instagram: / vivgroskop @vivgroskop
X / Twitter: @VivGroskop
Website: vivgroskop.com/