What I Do to Help College Students Become More Confident

Welcome to the College Life Podcast. It's Alicia here and today I am doing an episode on how I helped college students become more confident. So confidence is something that I have seen working with hundreds of college students across the United States and I know that this happens across the world too. And it's just really interesting to me because all of us want it, honestly, all of us want it. So every college student that I've ever worked with, even if they didn't explicitly state this, it's something that they create. I could see it, I could feel it. And a lot of them did actually say I want to be more confident in certain areas too. So it just was a really fun thing that I got to work on with so, so many of you. And so I wanted to just reflect on my time working with college students and really think through one of the things that I did to help young people become more confident. And I wanted to share that here on today's episode. But before we get started, I do want to just make a quick disclaimer that if you really want to become more confident, you have to put in the work. So if you're not willing to put in the work because it's really hard. If you're not really willing to, then you can just ignore this episode, go ahead and move on to your next podcast or your next thing that you were doing in life because you're wasting your time. Now, if you don't want to waste your time and also if you want to become more confident and you're willing to put in the work, then keep listening. So the way that I've done this with young people is I usually just get to know young people first and try to understand what are your goals, what are your interests, what do you care about, what do you not care about. Why are you in college in the first place if you know? And it just really helps me get a sense bigger picture of what you're wanting to work on. And then I always ask what your goals are. And then this is when the confidence piece really comes up in one area or another or just overall as a human, you want to be more confident. So I do want to first share kind of how I became more confident. And this, and I will say for me, it took years and it didn't happen actually in college. I definitely did, I guess, increase my confidence in college in some aspects, but it really wasn't until after that I intentionally started improving my confidence. And then from there, I started working with young people and helping them improve their confidence. And that also helped me improve mine if that makes any sense at all. So again, just reflecting on my time working with young people, I wanted to share what I've seen works. So it's basically the way that I like to think about it is it's almost like a, a wheel that kind of get grows and grows and grows as you build. And as I'm doing a video and kind of going small and bigger and bigger, bigger circles because what you want to do is start in one area and identify one area. So that's really the first step is identify it one area that you want to be more confident in. And in, with young people, I think there's a couple things that just continuously come out. One is they want to be more confident in their social life, making new friends, building deeper and meaningful relationships with some of those friends. And also, I think other areas of confidence is around public speaking. People are really nervous. Honestly, that's a huge thing that people are nervous about generally in life is public speaking. So that's one area. Other areas is around romantic relationships. Other areas is around academics and they want to feel more confident in their, in their academic journey and in their academic spaces. So in the classroom, other things are really just being more confident in, and who they are in their goals and what they want to do in the world. Because a lot of you know what you want to do, but you don't feel confident actually saying it out loud because you're free of judgment or fear that you can't accomplish that thing. So there's a lot of different areas, and it relates to confidence. And you may have something else in mind. One of the things for me that was really challenging was confidence in my body. Like I just did not feel confident in my body. I was so insecure in college. And I will tell you, it helped me back. It helped me back. I thought about my body so much that I did not have capacity for a lot of higher level thinking than I do now. And it changed my world whenever I kind of, I did a lot of that self work to get into a better place. So for you, I think the first aspect, if you want to increase your confidence, is just identify one area. And what's really cool is when you identify one area and you work on it, is that it permeates in all the other areas too. So even though I want to isolate one area with you, because again, that's just, it's easier, it's more manageable. You're not trying to do everything all at once, just one piece of your pie. So you're going to first identify that one area. And then in that area, you're going to identify one small thing that is a little bit outside of your comfort. So just a little bit, but you're willing to do and try. Even if it's scary. And here's the thing, if you want to get more confident, you have to do scary things, you have to put in the work, remember that. So an example of this is, let's say you do want to be more confident in social situations. So one thing that you can do is maybe it's saying hi to somebody random. And you're going to do that and see how it feels. See what it feels like. Some of you, you're like, that's so easy. So that's not a step that you need to take. Some of you are like, oh my gosh, that feels so freaking scary. Like I do not want to say hi to somebody random. Like that seems so, so, so hard. Okay. So maybe we need to take another step back and figure out like what is one small thing that you can do to help you in those social social situations? So whatever it is for you, again, that's just one example. Just say hi to somebody. And then what you're going to do, so you're going to, again, identify the big area, which for some of you, and then again, in this example, we're going to say making friends. And then from there, you're going to say, okay, I'm going to start by just saying hi to somebody random. So you're going to do it once. And then you're going to reflect. You're going to be like, okay, oh my god, that was so bad. Why did I do that? Oh, why did I say that thing? Like, oh, and you're also going to maybe say, okay, it wasn't that bad. It was awkward for me. I think it was awkward for them, but I survived. It's okay. And okay. So once you reflect, then you're going to actually do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Guess how many times? I'm going to say 20 times. Oh, I know. It sounds awful. It really does. And it is. It can be for sure. But that's how you become more confident. Real talk. If you want to be more confident, you're going to have to put in the work. And you're going to have to get reps in. So identify the one area. You're going to identify an area or a step within that that feels a little bit scary, but doable. And then you're going to do that again and again and again and again and again. And what happens when you do that thing again and again and again, is that it gets easier. It gets easier. And I know that that's it sounds so basic when I'm just laying it out. But I know that working with so many of you that it's really hard to do. And honestly, it was really hard to do in my own life. It takes a lot of messing up. A lot of humility. A lot of reflection and just a lot of time. And I can tell you though, it is so worth it. To put this work in and to an order for you to become more confident. So what happens with when me with my own life, whenever I started working on this on my confidence. And then also when I would have worked with students. And it was so cool to see all this. This is why I love working with young people working with college students because I saw confidence. I saw it change. I saw you all change. I saw you start believing in yourself. You start to see that you're capable. You start to become more confident in yourself. And it just there's such a huge shift in energy and mindset and the way you carry yourself in the world. And it is beautiful because you also start to ask yourself, what else am I capable of? What else can I do? And that's why I love working in coaching because I got to ask these questions with so many young people and within myself. I really believe that me serving as a coach with young people actually helps me become more confident and become a better person. Just because I had to ask really hard questions and had to help young people challenge themselves and be better and it helps me be better. So anyway, I just I want to know, I want you to know that you are totally capable of doing this. You can be more confident. You can feel and have that energy. You can live your life with more confidence. But it takes time and it takes practice to do. And you know, you have to get the reps in. You can't just all of a sudden one day become more confident. And maybe some people do. I'd never seen it happen with young people who might have worked with or with it in myself. And honestly, too, like some people will do the thing five times and all of a sudden they're like, oh, Nisha, oh, there's not that bad. This is awesome. I can totally do this. I'm going to do the next thing. I'm going to jump five steps ahead and I can do this talk now or whatever it is. Like it's incredible to see. And so of course, do it faster if you can. But it just is hard because you have to put yourself in so many uncomfortable situations. situations and you don't know what you're doing necessarily. You'll be awkward in a lot of ways. I think for me, one of the things that I noticed, especially in my PhD when I was in college, you know, after working with so many young people, I really wanted to leverage everything that I had and called in the college experience because when I was an undergrad and in my master's degree, I had no clue that a lot of the opportunities that were available on campus. I didn't, I wasn't really intentional about how I lived my college journey and how I created my college experience, which is why I'm so passionate about that doing that and why I still do this podcast is because I still have so much to share still. But when I was in college and during my PhD, I really started trying to figure out like how do I be better? And I wanted to be able to talk about my research in a way that was exciting and fun and that people would listen and people would care because they were interested in what I had to say and because I was a strong communicator. And I think this podcast has helped me become a better communicator, although I'm sure that you all might have some, you know, construct a feedback for whatever feel I'm going to send in my way. But I just, I remember I've given multiple presentations, multiple talks, at different conferences and if you're not familiar with what a conference looks like, it's a whole bunch of people. There's say 80 different presentations and people kind of pick and choose based on two or three days, which once they want to go to. And I was talking a lot about my research and say I had 60 to 80 people in a session. And I remember I was always so so nervous before. And I never left the presentation feeling like nailed it. You know, I just never felt that way. And you know, I remember taking a public speaking class during my undergrad and it was really bad. And I talked about something that was very sensitive, which was not smart. And when I gave that talk and I cried during the session, like it was ridiculous. So I just wasn't great in public speaking. I hated it. It was like a five or ten minute talk and totally botched it. Anyway, so I, you know, I had had a whole of these things and I just kept putting myself in those situations. Even though it was uncomfortable, even though I never really loved it. Like I just, it just wasn't fun for me. But I knew I wanted to be able to speak about my research. And I knew I wanted to be able to talk in front of people. And so I just kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it. And I'll never forget, y'all, this one session that I did, I gave this presentation. It was at a national conference. I had done this research study. I had this, I had created this presentation in collaboration with another colleague. And we gave this presentation. And y'all, I totally rocked it. I was like, let's go after it. I was on fire. And I've always reflected about why did I feel that way? Why was I so confident finally in public speaking? And I'll say, I was confident in that moment. I wouldn't say that I'm always confident. I'm still, even still to this day, but I give presentations all the time, which we'll talk about in a second. So I, I just reflected on like, why was I actually, why did I feel like that was confident for me? And I'm like, I, that I did a good job at that during that particular presentation. And it's because I knew what I was talking about. I had done a research study. I designed that research study. I had done the interviews. I had analyzed the data. I created the findings. Like I did all of those things. I had wrote off this material and this content. And I knew what I was talking about. And when you know what you're talking about, when you're confident in what you have to say, it makes it a lot easier in order, like for you to public speak and for you to do that really well. So I say that because, you know, again, it just takes reps and reps and reps and reps and reps. And then all of a sudden one day, I just felt like I had roughed a presentation. And I actually love giving public talks. I still get nervous and kind of even feel a little bit sick before. And at the same time, I love being on stage. I love talking to young people. I love talking about my research. I love trying to motivate people to take action and to live the life that they want to live and to take those small steps that are, honestly, sometimes boring. Like this, you know, podcast. There's nothing revolutionary about it. And at the same time, if you were to do these things, it can actually change your life in such beautiful ways. And I think that's what I love about building that confidence is, again, you start to see holy moly like I can change my life. You start to see you can change your life. It's beautiful. And when you start to see that, it starts to impact all these other areas in your life. So when I was talking about that, you know, giving presentations over and over again, whatever you do that, you just start to feel better and better about it. And again, it starts to permeate in all these other areas of your life too. Like when I give talks now, I remember one of the last ones that I gave a talk to that's just kind of on my mind. It was with incoming freshmen coming into the college. And it was kind of between the spring semester and the summer or the fall semester in the summer, where young people are coming kind of into the college to explore and to learn more about the college and what they have to offer. And I kind of shared, you know, three things that you can do in order to like live, like to really have an increase in college experience that you really want. And I just loved it so much. I felt like I was there. I was present in the moment. I'm not thinking about the past or what I have done. I'm not thinking about the future and what I have next. I am like in the moment right there and feel so connected and like to people. It's so fun. And I just trust that, you know, out of the hundred people who are in that session, I'm hoping that 20 of them are really resonated with what I had to say, really connected, really remember that talk and are like, you know what? Like, I'm going to rock this college journey because I heard this one thing or I'm going to really try to do this one thing during my college journey to make sure that it's, you know, I make it worth it. And yeah, it just, I'm on fire for that kind of thing because it's just so beautiful. Anyway, that's something like with public speaking again. It's just, it kind of edges and flows, but there's always like a trend line that continues to go up. So even if it's like this, it's kind of like, that makes sense. So yeah, I just, I really believe in you. I guess is what I really want to do say in order to wrap this up that you can build more confidence in yourself. And you can do it while you're in college. It just takes a lot of time. It takes energy. It takes trying new things and stepping outside of your comfort zone. And it's, you gotta get the reps in. It doesn't just happen. You have to get the reps in. Remember to that when you become confident and more confident in one area of your life, you start to see it bleed into other areas of your life. And then once you are confident in one area, then you can also say, okay, I'm going to identify another area that I want to become more confident in. And then you build from there and it, again, it just can change your life in some new ways. And you have the power to change your life. And you can become and feel more confident in yourself every single day. So that's all for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to the College Life Podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, if it was helpful for you in any way, please consider bringing me to your college campus. We can do a remote session. We can do a live Q&A on the College Life Podcast with a student organization that you have. Or I'm happy to come in person if that's even possible. But please let me know if I can help you in any way. You can email me at the College Life Coach at gmail.com or you can message me up Instagram at the College Life Coach. And I will catch you in the next episode. Have an excellent week.