This morning I worked with Keith, a sales manager who has loads of confidence when things are going well and when he has a little setback the voice in the back of his heads starts naggng on him "you can't do it, you're not good enough..." and his confidence just disappears.

So I ask him "what are you like when you are confident?" and have him project his confidence on a big screen in front of him and have him sort out things that work on the right of his screen and things that don't work on the left.

Once he has put the things that don't work behind him and the things that do work in front of him he says "I have these doubts". "Cool"   I say "How do you do that?" He tells me a story of how he has six different images in three different contexts "work,home and play". So I ask him to clear the screen and focus on one context at a time. This generates a different feeling which approaches confidence and courage. So I have him visualise a sphere of confidence and courage and step into it. He smiles.

Now for maintaining the confidence, so I ask him to step into his sphere of confidence each morning and whenever he feels his confidence slipping over the next 21 days to practice building this new habit. He says that this works but he keeps throwing a spanner in the works. Apparently he used to be a mechanic    We create a magnet to catch the spanner when he tries in vain to put a spanner in the works next time and he promises to practice for the next 21 days and send me a text message when he's done. Practice your own confident state for 21 days and you'll be surprised how easy it is to create positive new habits. Enjoy.