How to boost your confidence by dressing up yourself and your mindset

Everyone has a wobble, a crisis of confidence. This is a story about what one of my role models did when that happened to her.

Colleen was one of my teaching tutors at Uni.

She was creative, had a glint in her eye in the best kind of way and made good teaching look really easy.

For the record, good teaching isn’t easy. 

Not at first anyway.

Imaginative, a brilliant communicator, and a genius with language, Colleen was someone I looked up to, felt safe with and I’m glad that she became a friend.

When she entered my life I was learning to become a teacher.

And she shared with me a time when she found learning really difficult.

What was she learning?

To drive.

Her experience of learning to drive involved failing her driving test again and again.

And so, she had a good think.

What’s one thing could she do to get a different outcome?

How could she change in order to change the result?

And she found her answer.

She dressed up as someone that she thought would pass.

And for her, this meant swapping her bohemian look for a sensible and prim one.

Hair up. Glasses. Conservative.

Now, to be clear, boho chic and rocking that librarian look are both totally fine.

But it was Colleen’s perspective and what this change represented to her that gave her the edge.

So she played dress up.

She put on her new role.

And she went and took her driving test.

And passed.

✅ What change can you make to get a different result?

✅ Where can introducing new behaviour benefit you?

✅ And how can you build this kind of approach into your life?