Do you have self-confidence or not? It’s not that easy to say. To be aware of yourself, that means looking at yourself again and again, spending time with yourself and observing your own development. That is why there can be phases in which we do not feel quite as comfortable in our own skin or in a new role. At the Stage School Hamburg there is coaching that should help you to work safely in such phases. “How it looks deep inside you is nobody’s business,” says lecturer Karin Frost-Wilcke.
by Marie Stadler
She is small, petite, has gray hair, red glasses and her “good morning” vibrates like a promise through the seminar room. It’s Saturday morning, I haven’t had any coffee yet and I’m “scared” as they say in northern Germany. Together with eleven strangers and our lecturer, I sit jitterily on my chair in a rehearsal room at the renowned Hamburg Stage School. Here, budding musical stars are usually trained in dance, singing and acting. Today we are sitting here to polish up our self-confidence with the help of an acting teacher. How is that supposed to work in a single weekend? No idea!
That’s the way it goes!
We don’t get a lot of information. First of all, everyone should say why they are here. Inside of me the truth goes in circles with a “beautiful answer”. The truth is: I’ve known myself for 33 years and, to be honest, I really like myself. I find myself funny, smart and mostly I’m a pretty nice person. But the latter is not always a strength. The older I get, the more my own compulsion to be “nice” gets on my feet. When I talk to people, I quickly lose sight of my own interests. I will say yes, apologize for things that I haven’t done wrong at all and say things that I get annoyed about in retrospect. If that were all I would be fine with it. But there is another catch: no one takes always nice people seriously. I can even understand that, to be honest. Because I always understand everything anyway. Dreadful!
“Confidence has a lot to do with concentration”
Our first exercise: learning names. But jagged. We have a few seconds to memorize the first names of our colleagues, then off we go. Someone points a finger at me, I have to say their name. Not an easy task for a dreamer. “In order to be sovereign, I mustn’t drift away and have to remain vigilant in the situation,” explains Karin Frost-Wilcke. Good point. After a few laps we are at first name, city and flower. My brain smokes. Then it gets exciting. We are divided into boss and employee, the boss is supposed to confront his employee with an unpleasant topic. I am shocked to find that I am relieved to be able to collect the shit as an employee. Anything better than embarrassing another person. I’m doing my job well. I can plug it in. But I was happy too soon: We should swap roles. My job: I should point out to the man in front of me, who is over two meters tall, that it is rather awkward to receive customers with a garlic flag. Nice at first. I can do that. Then I should issue the final warning. I’m supposed to be really pissed off. “Shout it out! You have already told Mr. Maier a hundred times.” Oh man. I’m supposed to yell at a huge man. Because of its garlic flag. I, who find it terrible to tell my closest friends in a friendly manner when something bothered me. “Mr. Maier,” I begin with a frown and half-heartedly raised forefinger. “It would be really nice if you …” “STOP!” Shouts Karin Frost-Wilcke and looks at me in amazement. “SO do you want to assert yourself?” I nod. “Well, if I tell him carefully, then …” I don’t get very far. With an angry face, my petite lecturer rushes towards the stunned student. “Mr. Maier!” It thunders through the room. We all flinch. “If I see you here again with a garlic flag, then you are OUT!” Dead silence in the room. “Warning, by the way, these are not instructions on how to be a good boss!” Says our lecturer in a calm and firm voice. “I’m just interested in showing you the power that voice and body can have.” We are right she is.
Day 2 brings the breakthrough
A day later we sit together again. Unfortunately, I have a fat hangover and exactly four hours of sleep behind me because I went “briefly” to a birthday on Saturday. My voice sounds hoarse, you shouldn’t have played the Backstreet Boys yesterday, then I wouldn’t have had to roar like that. Well. In the end, it might not have been that bad after all. The tiredness and the dizzy head are somehow disinhibiting. We do voice exercises, speech technique exercises, walk through doors, make improvised speeches, yell and flirt at each other. I’m just inches from a stranger and I’m supposed to be close without giggling. “We giggle and squirm mostly out of embarrassment,” I learn. “You can endure a lot if you concentrate.” It is true. We look at each other and just stand getting too close. After that, it gets angry again. I make up my mind to do better this time. “Come back!” I shout across the room. “Come back!” After the fifth time, I’m satisfied. Our lecturer too. “Exactly like that,” she praises me and I strut back to my seat with my chest swelling with pride.
What I have learned
There is a lot of feedback on the second day. We give each other tips on posture and tell each other how we interact with one another. The result is: The others don’t think I’m so “nice” at all. What sounds tough at first is good news for me. “I think you exude a lot of sovereignty. You don’t seem a bit nervous when you speak in front of people.” I’m flat I? Sovereign? “You would be a great boss!”, Another student told me during the lunch break. Please what? I look around in disbelief. “Seriously now?” The others confirm the opinion. “I think you can express your opinion well and you are very assertive.” I think about her words and realize that she is right. Yes, I actually can. Not just shouting, but also arguing and asserting myself. I’ve been doing that for two days now. In real life out there, I just don’t because I’m scared of offending. “But people who offend are much more authentic and often more popular than the others,” Karin Frost-Wilcke reassures me. I go through a few people in my circle of acquaintances and notice: Yes, that’s exactly how it is. The people I like the most aren’t necessarily the most comfortable. They don’t always make me feel good. You give me honest feedback. And sometimes they say NO.
Does that hold up too?
This Sunday evening I go home differently. My posture alone has improved and I notice: my body gives the soul the direction. A raised head, a proud chest, all of this makes me taller, also inside. The next day I can try out directly whether the weekend has brought anything. I’m supposed to present to another department how we solved a problem. I run forward with steady steps, smile friendly and get started. Inside I shake and tremble. Since yesterday I have known: Nobody will notice. “How it looks deep inside you is none of your business”, I think in a loop and notice how I slowly calm down as I speak. Here in the wild no one will tell me that I did it confidently. But I can see on their faces that it is so. After the lecture, a colleague comes to me. “Can you send me another email afterwards to remind me of the appointment tomorrow?” I am amazed. Why should I promise to remind you of your appointments? Still three days ago I would have said yes. It’s different now. “No,” I say in a firm voice and hand her a post-it. “You can write it down here.” I see that she is not happy with that. But I don’t care. Because it’s me. Because I just wasn’t nice to her, but was nicer to myself.
More information about coaching can be found here:
http://selbstbewusst-hamburg.de