Confidence & Counselling

I wanted to expand on the counselling portion of my previous post. I spent some time observing the manner in which people converse and very subtle nuances become apparent. It’s the manner in which people express themselves.

Confidence is a wonderful thing to possess. It draws people to you. If you’re confident, people will believe in you, trust in you. It goes beyond that though. You begin to realise how you yourself change. Less time is spent worrying about what could happen and more time actually doing things. You believe that there’ll be a positive result, that you’ll succeed and as a result, you act quicker. Confidence helps people stop being and start living. Whether your goal is to improve your own life or the lives of others, confidence is a valuable quality to command.

I could go on about how I feel confidence helps one improve his or her own life but for those of you who have been following my posts for all these years, you’ll know that I’m always more concerned with helping others.

When one is confident, a key characteristic is that the person is more willing to make a bold claim. You’re no longer held back by the fear that people will respond negatively to your claim. Quite often, I find people believe in something but they won’t publicise it since they don’t want to offend some people. I can accept that some people don’t publicise everything because they don’t want to hurt others or rub people the wrong way but many times, I’ve come across people who don’t want to claim something because they don’t want others attacking their claim and in a sense, challenging their credibility.

Believing in something is like an artist buying art supplies. It’s a start and sets the stage but only a painting will allow the artist to express himself. I am all for people believing in something and wanting to keep it to themselves. However, if you want others to agree with you then confidence will help. Charisma doesn’t hurt either.

It’s much easier to get people to listen to you when you’re confident and charismatic. You exude this air about you that draws people to you. They want to listen to you; they are interested in what you have to say. Yes, people will not be able to deny what you say if you’re providing facts but often, facts are not available or applicable. I cannot give you facts on whether it’s better to go with Girl A or Girl B. I can present you with my opinion based on what you’ve told me and it’s up to you to decide if you believe what I’m saying.

There has been many a time where I don’t believe what I’m telling the person but I know that they’ll benefit more if I convince them to follow the other alternative. I’ve found that my success rate in such situations has been a lot lower. Eventually the person might still do as I said, but I know it wasn’t because of me. The reason being that often when I don’t believe what I’m saying, I don’t sound as confident. That doesn’t surprise anyone, right? It makes complete sense, actually. You don’t believe in something so you’re less confident when stating it.

Still, I’d like to think that I’m now very good at stating something I don’t believe in (or sometimes, I know to be a lie) and sounding so confident that the listener will believe me. It’s not something I do often though. I’d like to believe that I’ve progressed as a counsellor.

Before, I’d provide advice based on what I felt was the best course of action. I realised that essentially, I was living my life through the shoes of the person I was helping. I was telling them what I would have done if I was in their place. I was convincing them to do just that. It did work. I was helping the person and often, they did benefit. However, I realised that I wasn’t helping the person to the best of my abilities. It wasn’t just about helping the person get through their problem; it was about helping that person avoid future problems while still knowing how to tackle them.

I changed my strategy. It became more about leading the person to my solution. I admit it sounds tedious and a waste of time to some. If I know the solution, I should just tell the person and help put their mind at ease quicker.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime – Confucius

It’s a common cliché but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s applicable. Many of my earlier posts contained elements of how I wished to get away from doing what society does and rather walking the unbeaten path in the hopes of discovering something new. I admit that, quite often, I reached the same solutions that society did but I don’t regret my decisions because it’s the journey that makes me different. I feel that by learning things for myself and by questioning everything, I could prove or disprove it to myself. I also got a better understanding of why things are the way they currently are. I may have reinvented the wheel but at least I know which things to believe in and which ones to accept for the moment. I digress…

I guess it would be easy for me to say that a sign of a bad counsellor or psychiatrist would be the average period of time a patient has been their client. If they have several long-time recurring patients, then it would be safe to say that they haven’t done anything worthwhile. Yet, that trivialises their work. I understand how fragile the human mind is and how it often requires time to really get to the root of the problem. I still digress…

I did have a point in the last two paragraphs though. I wanted to state that I do feel I’m capable of helping people out and I wanted to backup my reasoning for the quote.

I love helping people out. I love knowing how much trust they place in me and how they value their friendship with me. They come to me knowing that they can confide in me and believe that they will come away with a better sense of direction.

So to finally get back to the point… I may like to help people but I don’t want them to become dependent on me for all of their problems. I want them to learn how to help themselves and tackle their own problems. Sooner or later, I will not be around to help them and that’s when they’ll need to think back on their conversations with me and think everything through so that they can help themselves.

That’s what I do now in my conversations when I’m helping people. I try to guide them to reach the same solution I have in my mind. It helps them understand how to approach a problem and how to break it down into manageable parts. I also realised something when I adopted this new technique. Every so often, I’d have a solution in mind which would end up being changed because I learnt something new when I walked through the problem with the person. I realised that I could never hope to know more about the situation than that person and therefore, it was better for me to facilitate their thinking process rather than give them a solution. They would be able to come up with a solution which covers all bases or which provides an acceptable level of risk.

It’s something that has been preached to me over and over in the consulting business. The biggest mistake a consultant could make is to give the client the solution. Consider it a cardinal sin.

I recently read the opening pieces of someone’s retort to the Confucius quote I mentioned above. I can’t remember the exact words but to paraphrase “How can you teach someone a lesson when their stomach is rumbling and hence, their mind is preoccupied?”. I found that to be an interesting point. It’s an age old question that’s morphed to address the famous adage. Do you grit your teeth and slug it out for a bit longer in the hopes of a better reward or do you go for the instant reward which might not yield as much satisfaction? Sometimes, desperation votes for the latter. Circumstance can side with desperation. It’s entirely possible that without immediate gratification, there will be no chance of a future reward.

I can’t dismiss this point. It’s very valid and I can think scenarios which invoke this thought process. I can only say that when the time comes, you will make a decision. When you do, stick by it and if it gives you what you hoped for, then don’t regret it or wonder what would have happened if you had taken the alternate path. Refer to my previous post on why I’m against that.

One important aspect of the counselling I provide is the manner in which I speak. Most of the time, the people who approach me are looking for confirmation that they’re on the right track or that they aren’t the ones to blame. Rather than posing something as a question, I find that by simply saying it as a supportive statement helps their self-esteem. Even if I’m wrong, they can correct me but what really matters is that by using a statement, they believe that I’m on their side and that I believe they’re right. It gives them the confidence they need to get past their problem whether it’s accepting a bad outcome or tackling a current issue.

I still get people coming up to me asking me for help. I have people telling me that they don’t know where they’d be without me or wondering why I put up with them when all they seem to do is burden the friendship. It’s nice to know that there are people out there who appreciate everything I’ve done. I’ve mentioned this a long time before and I’ll mention it again. It’s the people I don’t manage to help which really gets to me.

I’ve pasted this before…

In Scrubs, J.D. told Dr. Cox, “I guess after all this time I still think of you as like this superhero that will help me out of any situation I'm in. I needed that. But that's my problem, you know, and I'll deal with that. I guess I came over here to tell you how proud of you I am. Not because you did the best you could for those patients. But because after twenty years of being a doctor... when things go badly you still take it this hard.”

I’ll always take it hard. I hope I always take it hard. Not being able to help someone is my biggest fear. But I’ll always remain confident and I’ll always be a counsellor to everyone who needs me. I’d like to believe that I’m charismatic too.