3 Steps To Easily Grow Your Confidence Now
CONFIDENCE. Wow, does that feel elusive sometimes right? Having at least a little of it can be the difference between hiding in your room hanging with your social feeds and being out there in the world trying to make something happen for you.
How many get-togethers have you not gone to, conversations you haven’t started, courses you’ve dropped, jobs you haven’t applied for, because you just haven’t been able to tap into what you need to, to get the hell out there and do the things?
What’s behind that self-doubt, do you think? So many things right? There are as many reasons as there are missed opportunities. Is that getting old already?
While there are many, many reasons, they mostly all stem from the same root causes. Here’s the main one and you’ve definitely heard it before. Probably from those old people you used to live with.
“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” - Henry Ford (founder of Ford Motor Company).
Do you appreciate the truth in that? Because those old people were right. I mean they oughta know. How many years do you think they spent dealing with this stuff? Basically, 100% confidence is a trait for psychopaths and narcissists. And let’s assume you’re not one. For now 😊. And neither are those old people in your life.
To get confidence, you need to really understand what it is, and what it isn’t. It’s not ego or arrogance. And it’s not blind faith - well, for some it can be, but that never ends well. Confidence is faith in your own ability to achieve something or create a positive outcome.
Sometimes we think that confidence means not having fear. But I don’t think that’s really it. Confidence is not about being sure that everything is going to go right. It’s about weighing the chances of success and failure and being willing to bet on yourself even when the chance of success isn’t 100%. I’m not sure if you’re a gambler or not but I’d bet that you don’t bet on something that you think is unlikely to happen. But when it comes to confidence, that’s what you have to do.
If you want it, you have to go after it, even when you can’t guarantee the outcome. Why? Because there are variables in life, just so many things outside of our control. And if we let those paralyze us, where will we end up? Not where you want to, and that’s a guarantee.
Lacking confidence is not a personality flaw. Many, many of us have little to none. And we can have confidence in some areas and not in others. It’s absolutely not all-or-nothing.
I’m happy to say that it’s something that we can learn to develop in ourselves. It takes time and it takes practice and together today, we’re going to figure out how.
So where are you at right now? Are you doing the things that will get you where you want to end up?
Think about this. When was the last time that you did something you wanted to do but that really scared you? What was it? How did it turn out? Why did it turn out the way it did?
Think about this; when was the last time you didn’t do something that you wanted to do because you were afraid of failing? Your self-doubt overrode your desire to do the thing. That voice in your head screwed you over.
So why is it that sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can’t? Well, you can have confidence in some areas and not in others. And you can have confidence some days, even some moments, and not others.
If you think about this for a while, you’ll probably notice a theme. You”ll notice which areas of life you have confidence and where you lack confidence in others. And you might notice that there are specific circumstances on the days that you don’t have confidence that are different than on the days that you do.
Let’s unpack this a bit. You may be more confident professionally than socially or more confident in your physical abilities than your intellect.
Think about this. Where do you feel most confident and where do you feel least confident?
Professional - at work and work-related events and activities
Intellectual - at school and in life
Social - events and activities where I may know some, few or no people
Relationships - family, friend, romantic
Physical appearance - that one goes without saying
Physical ability - being able to do the physical things you want to
What do you think makes the difference?
Is it that you have natural talents or abilities in certain areas and that where you’re less confident, you need to up-level your skills? Do you believe that you can do that?
Cause now we’re talking mindset. This is probably the biggest factor in your confidence or lack-of.
If you’re hesitating to do the new things or the hard things that you know you need to to get what you want because you’re afraid to fail, you probably have a fixed mindset.
With this mindset, you don’t see new things as an opportunity to experiment and grow, you view them with fear because you’re focused only on the outcome and define yourself by whether you think you’ll achieve it or not.
To increase your confidence, you need to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. If you have a growth mindset, you’re much closer to confidence. You believe in yourself and your ability to accomplish something. And while you recognize that there is some chance of failure, you’re willing to try it anyway.
Friends, you can do this!
Think about this. Read the traits in the graphic. On balance, which do you embody?
Okay, so the starting point for changing your mindset is changing your self-talk. And your self-talk can have everything to do with the specific circumstances I was referring to earlier.
Now y’all know what self-talk is; that voice in your head giving you a running commentary on your life. Like it thinks you wouldn’t know what’s going on without it! Did you know that you have over 6000 thoughts a day, every single day? This seems like proof that they’re pretty important. Right? So learning to control them and deal with them is probably a really good idea.
Now a lot of us think that the voice in our head is us. Us talking to ourselves for our own good. Because of that, we’re constantly evaluating our own thoughts and feelings - we’re judging ourselves. What does that do for our confidence?
And no, your thoughts aren’t deep messages of truth from your soul. They’re messages from the voice in your head prompted by everyone and everything that has an influence in your life. Whether you like it or not.
To overcome this, we need to do three things - we need to observe our thoughts without judging them, neutralize them and change them so they work for us.
Confidence is not an either/or - you don’t either have it or you don’t. It’s on a spectrum and you can build it. The other place you need to start is with self-awareness.
For the purpose of growing your confidence, becoming more self-aware means knowing your strengths by reviewing your successes, knowing your blind spots by reviewing your failures, and recognizing your self-talk by paying attention to it.
So let’s recall the self-reflection you’ve done so far:
What is the last thing you did that scared you but you did it anyway because you wanted to accomplish something important to you?
What is the last thing you didn’t do because you were more afraid that you would fail than you were excited to accomplish the thing?
What area of your life are you most confident about?
What area of your life are you least confident about?
Do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?
What will you start doing every day to increase your self-awareness?
And your three steps:
Do the things to become more self-aware
Adopt a growth mindset
Improve your self-talk
This is part 1 of a series and is just an introduction to growing your confidence. If you want more ideas, more strategies, more information, and some people to grow with, sign up for one of our virtual events, you can check them out here. And be the first to know about the next post in the series by signing up for our weekly newsletter here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page!
