A Simple Way to Boost Your Economic Confidence

If all the current economic shenanigans is partially based around confidence, then it follows that if each of us boost our own, this could make a major contribution to the whole.

As a coach and a writer, I’ll admit that economics have never been my strong point. But confidence, on the other hand, is something that I know enough about to make a useful contribution. So here goes, with an plan that each of us can use to begin to make ourselves feel better…

Only listen to media reports that are offering solutions, rather than doom-laden forecasts, and limit even these to once a day at most.

I came upon this solution, having been wary of excess news media input for a while, (as you may know, if you’ve followed this blog over from its old Blogger home). Anyway, the final straw came when we put the TV on 10 minutes prior to that which we wanted to see, and switched it off again, having heard the phrase “economic meltdown” three times in five minutes.

This made me realise that, whilst the be-suited media pundits may not have caused these interesting times, on some level, they’re relishing them. Perhaps I’m being too cynical, but it must be tempting to focus on this one economic tale, because it means easy, cheap news-gathering in a warm studio, and loads of clips, statistics and graphs that can just be re-cycled.

In our 24-hour news culture, it can seem almost sacreligious to suggest that people cut their dependency on their news drug of choice. But consider this. Once you know the bones of the situation (which you can easily obtain from a daily dose at the very most) what point is there in hearing more? If you’re a personal development enthusiast you’ll already know that repeated messages sink into the subconscious mind and get acted upon. Unfortunately, this isn’t a one-way street, and the negative goes in just as quickly as the positive, if not quicker.
So, you may not be able to control the Dow or the FTSE,  but you jolly well can control the information flow to which you subject yourself. By limiting yourself to infrequent exposure that offers solutions, you stand the best chance of retaining that all important confidence.

Please don’t take my word for this. Try it for yourself for just a week, and comment on this if you can. Above all,  if, within seven days, you’re not feeling more optimistic, more able to devise your own creative plan for the future, and much better-rested, feel free to post a comment to that effect too!