Best trick for confidence? Forget about it. (Seriously).
"I've been told I need to work on my confidence" is usually the first thing from my clients' mouths.
And we work together on everything but.
Because focusing on "confidence" is paradoxically the worst way to get it.
It's a sneaky metric and can work to undermine our communication efforts and hinder our voice, reach, and impact.
Giving someone feedback such as "be more confident" is like saying, "Win a gold medal" or "Be healthy".
It's great in theory: but it's very hard to understand the actionable roadmap to get there.
Confidence is an outcome and not a process.
Also, confidence:
Is often super gendered: It gestures towards masculine-coded forms of power (loud voices, big opinions, wide stances, firm handshakes etc). This hamstrings women who try to be "confident" and also does a disservice to men who might not subscribe to some of those ideals as well.
Gets you into your head: It's a one-sided metric that only focuses on you and not your audience. No one says "thanks so much for that confident meeting" - they thank you for help, for listening, for great ideas.
Encourages inauthenticity: It gets you further away from yourself, because it endorses inauthenticity as a premise. It sends a message that you'll get success when you become someone else, which is frankly plain dangerous.
In short: confidence is all about you and doesn't care about anyone else.
True power doesn't come from pretense: it comes from deciding you're comfortable in your own space.