In 1650 Franciscus Sylvius, a Dutch doctor, created Dutch gin in an attempt to create a diuretic medicine. This was then used in the Thirty Years’ War by English troops and was an instant success for its believed warming properties on the body in cold weather and its calming effects before battle. Because of the effects of Dutch gin, English soldiers fighting in the Dutch Republic in the 17th century apparently called the drink “Dutch Courage“.
Ever since a stiff drink has been inherently linked with a confidence booster, and that’s something that is unavailable to me during this Brita sponsored dry January. Whilst it’s true that alcohol acts as an inhibitor to certain emotional states, and fortunately I’m a happy drunk, not a maudlin one, it’s not exactly the firmest foundation to build upon, so to this end Brita kindly booked me on a course at the West End’s School of Life on building confidence. I have to admit, by the time I entered their premises (I was early and whilst window browsing at surrounding shops, accidentally found myself staring into the window display of a self proclaimed gay bookshop for 5 minutes without realising it) I was ready to be shystered to within an inch of my life. The “shop” display didn’t help much either; the books seemed over designed, which lead me to think it was likely to be all style over substance. Fortunately I was proved quite wrong, which was nice.
There were about 30 odd people there for the confidence class that evening and most of them didn’t get anywhere near the canapés that the School had put on. I had to compulsively scoff the canapés because they had also provided free wine. And I’m dry this month. So 20 odd people (Brita had sent a few of us) got to drink a glass or two of wine on an empty stomach. Ha.
The class itself was led by John-Paul Flintoff, who came across as charismatic and thoughtful, as well as fairly dishevelled in the way that only well educated and reasonably well off people can (he worked for a number of years in journalism, including the FT). It was a mixture of theory, all cited from psychologists, a lot of them from the positive psychology movement, mixed with group tasks to reinforce the ideas. Things that particularly took my fancy were some of the ideas around framing self doubt. Specifically the chap said if you imagine all the things you don’t like about yourself or personal flaws you think you have as being told to you by a third party, your nemesis, the act of externalising them makes it easier to distance yourself from the criticism. In a way it reminded me of a passage from Stephen King’s latest book, Doctor Sleep, where the protagonist Danny has a dark alcohol related secret that he eventually unburdens himself from in an AA meeting. It’s twisted him up for years but nobody else is that fussed when he reveals it- an insight as to how we’re often our own harshest critics.
I also liked the attitude towards failure stuff too. If you try something and set out with a mind set that it will be catastrophic if you fail, it probably will be but if you try and make sure it’s about learning, whether you succeed or not, then the whole experience can be positive. A brief chat at the internal with John-Paul was also quite illuminating in my attitude towards certain aspects of my life, which directly correlates to areas that I’m not very confident in. Yes, confidence isn’t an overall blanket that covers everything, you can be supremely confident in one area but not another. Even that simple realisation was a bit of a wake up.
The biggest challenge then will be trying to implement some of the things we discussed into day to day life. Theory is all very well but the application is the important step!