Cringe Your Way to Self Confidence

ICTURE THIS: you’re standing in a room of strangers, and you’ve been instructed to sing a rendition of. Truthfully, unless you’re a few wines deep at a karaoke joint, for most of us, this is the stuff of nightmares. For Rob O’Donnell, a facilitator at Sydney’s The School of Life, this is merely the icebreaker for his ‘How to be Confident’ class. The reason behind this public humiliation? “We’ve looked like idiots before and we’ve all survived it,” says O’Donnell. “The problem is we assume everyone else isn’t [an idiot], and that they are judging us when we stumble over our words or trip up the stairs to the stage, but they’re not.” What about the old ‘fake it till you make it’ philosophy? Turns out this might not be your best bet. “If you screw something up, try to highlight rather than avoid it,” suggests O’Donnell. “Have a laugh and remind yourself that no one is expecting perfection except you.” Amen to that life gem.