"Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective.
Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having self-confidence is having trust in one's self.
The concept of self-confidence is commonly defined as self-assurance in one's personal judgment, ability, power, etc.
One's self-confidence increases as a result of experiences of having satisfactorily completed particular activities.[1]
Self-confidence involves a positive[2] belief that in the future, one can generally accomplish what one wishes to do." Wikipedia
How does a lack of confidence manifest itself?
Do you feel intimidated by challenges at work?
Or do you feel like an outsider desperately trying to be accepted?
Or do you have family challenges and keep it bottled up instead of being able to share how you feel?
Resentment and unhappiness can slowly creep into your life as the problem gets bigger with time.
Confidence is like a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
The same is true for our confidence. When we lack confidence, we feel like we’re carrying around a heavy backpack filled with rocks.
Even the tiniest thing can set us off balance and cause us to stumble or even fall.
There’s a common pattern that people follow when they lack confidence.
They do everything they can to avoid any situations that make them feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. They try to be more like “normal” people, so they don’t draw attention to themselves.
This means they don’t speak up in meetings or work extra hard to make sure their work is perfect.
Confidence is a funny thing. It can come and go. It's like a wave. Sometimes you're on top of the world, and other times you're drowning in self-doubt and uncertainty.
Confidence is often described as the feeling of being good or great at something.
It’s having a strong belief in your abilities and being unashamed of who you are.
It’s the ability to face challenges head-on and the ability to rise above adversity.
Confidence is the fuel that propels you to achieve your goals.
How to become more confident:
1. Don't let yourself go!
Even if you work at home, take care of your presentation so that you are proud of how you look daily and dressed appropriately for the situation.
So dress in a way that you feel good about yourself, do your hair, and put on a bit of makeup (I have dark circles under my eyes so I cover them with a touch of concealer as they make me feel ugly).
2. Forgive yourself.
If you made a mistake or didn't perform at your best, don't beat yourself up with guilt but focus on your assets and what you did well.
For example, I'm an expert in autism and I recently had a bad bout of covid. Upon my return to work, my leader asked me a simple question and my mind went blank.
I was so embarrassed as I help others understand autism.
I brought it up with her and apologised and told her my mind had gone blank, and it was possibly the after-effects of covid. She knew my work and I simply told her I was embarrassed by that situation and it had been on my mind.
3. Positive thinking-retrain your mindset.
Think positively about your goals and what actions you need to do to achieve them. And then action them!
Say 'yes' to what your old self may have thought impossible.
4. Prioritise and lessen stress.
Get the most important things out of the way first to release a build-up of anxiety.
The morning is the best time to tackle the most pressing, undesirable tasks.
5. Use a long-term planner and daily to-do list daily.
A planner and to-do list is a great idea as you can tick off all you have achieved daily and weekly, even monthly and yearly, and feel a sense of accomplishment.
6. Develop new habits.
What habits would be beneficial to you to be more productive?
Make a list of habits that could stop you from wasting time, then package small amounts of time throughout the day to incorporate a more productive routine.
Can you find small parcels of time in your day for self-care, your to-do list, journal entries, social media, emails, etc?
7. Commit to accepting and acting on problems as they arise.
Accept problems will arise but commit to solving the problems when they present themselves, and the more confident you will become.
The faster you solve the problem, the more confident and relaxed you will be.
8. Practise gratitude.
Journal your gratitude. The best thing about journaling is looking back on your notes and remembering the great things that happened throughout the year.
Think it, if you don't get the time to write-it's okay to sit back and reflect on your day and express your gratitude for the positives in your day.
Express your gratitude to others and smile.
Gratitude, happiness, and confidence are closely interlinked.
I can share that, on a personal level, gratitude made a great difference in my life and opened many doors for me.
Make a list of things that challenge you and then tackle them, one by one.
These are things that you consciously avoid but you know that it would be better to overcome them.
You don't have to be great at everything so choose things that you think are important to do confidently, and make sure you make them achievable ie a SMART goal.
That means breaking it down into smaller parts so that is manageable for you to achieve. Then move on to more goal setting once that is achieved.
10. Inspiration and mentors.
Choose people who inspire you and use them as your mentors or role models.
They can be people who are online and have shown great success in the field you are in.
Find out how they accomplished their achievements and the challenges they had.
It is a great lesson to learn that they most probably had some adversities that they had to overcome before they became successful.
You will learn that people achieve by doing, even those who are not 100% confident. They take action.
11. Know your strengths, talents, and achievements.
Successful people are laser-focused and they delegate if something is not their demonstrated strength.
12. Identify where you can make a difference.
What will make you stand out with your contribution?
This guide with worksheets, Mastering Self-Doubt and Insecurities, will help you gather some healthy insights into the real you and start to develop new habits to retrain your negative thoughts.
This comprehensive pack will focus on seeing yourself in another light, and motivating you to problem solve and take on challenges that you are comfortable with, as you grow and develop in confidence.
It can be used in helping you become more confident in any situation, be it family life, friendships, or work-related situations.
Something special for those of you wanting to become successful entrepreneurs. If you develop the traits of successful entrepreneurs, you will become confident too.
If you follow this course, it will help you in any field of work.
These insights will help develop the success mindset.
Successful people integrate these 24 practices, skills, actions, and mindsets into their everyday life.
Most importantly, these 24 factors that contribute to success are the starting points to any dream of being wealthy, fulfilling a dream, or building a successful business.
So learn to optimise your strengths and develop new skills that are needed.
This course is a downloadable 27-slide course that you can keep and watch in your own time.
How to master self-doubt and insecurities and become the best you can possibly be.
It is important to master self-doubt and insecurities in order to be the best you can possibly be. One of the most limiting things a person can experience in this life is self-doubt. It has the ability to keep you feeling locked away in a prison of your own insecurities.
It will suffocate your ability to explore and be free to engage with opportunities and adventures and it will hold you back from ever achieving the things that you really want. It will limit your relationships with others and can destroy your most important relationships.
I have personally met people who even gave up on wanting anything at all due to having such a high level of self-doubt. Their insecurities had escalated to such a point over the course of their life that they eventually gave up on even considering that they had any level of freedom at all regarding their own choices.
These are the people you have met in life's course who always complain about something but will find a reason not to look at solutions. When friends offer a solution, their first reaction is to find a reason not to try it. They are paralyzed and can't move out of their unhappy comfort zone.
This is a terrible place to find ourselves in and it causes a person to live a life that has been massively limited by the illusory constructs that have formed in their mind. Fortunately, though, with a little work and the right amount of determination, there is something that we can do to conquer this.
Dominating Doubt
Doubt itself, by its very nature, is negative. It is something that denounces and turns down any thoughts of positive or action-inspiring suggestion. If left unchecked, doubt becomes a mindset that keeps a person completely closed off from the world of positive inspiration and it keeps a person confined to a self-centered and destructive ego.
In order to dominate doubt, we must first desire to do so. If we do not have the desire to at least investigate the ability to overcome doubt, then there is truly no hope for us. Reactions also become bad habits. I know people that will contradict anything that is offered, without giving a suggestion its due diligence. They may want others to think that they have already thought of that action and dismissed it. This type of behaviour also may alienate friends who feel they are not worthy to be listened to.
A person who is happy to live in a world of doubt is like cancer that will infect and overcome anyone who has even a shred of positivity to express, like a black hole, they consume all light, and there is no hope of it ever being reproduced in return.
Someone who has decided to overcome doubt though is like a black hole that has decided to try to stop sucking in everything and instead has chosen to learn how to produce and create a little light.
Without having made the choice to do this, without having personally decided that they want to become more positive, more inspiring, and more encouraging, a person has no hope of ever conquering their own self-doubt. If a parent, a person like this will also frustrate their children, at the very least, or not raise healthy adults with problem-solving skills.
The Argument Of Doubt
The main argument that people offer to encourage their own self-doubt is that they have either not been able to, or never witnessed something positive happen. For example, if you try to encourage a person to become a confident public speaker and they harbor massive amounts of internal self-doubt, they will argue that they have never been able to speak confidently in public before and so they just think that from their own point of view, it cannot be done. I can give you a personal recount of someone I knew who sent her resume to a prospective employer and most of the page listed, in point form, the things she would not do, or be trained in. I was shocked but her argument was that she knew she would never be able to do those jobs so she was just being honest.
This same person complained about being lonely constantly so I tried various tactics to help her.
The last tactic I tried was that I went to the council offices to get a handbook of community activities and short courses.
It was a comprehensive book, filled with interesting activities, courses, and hobbies. Some were free and some cost coffee change money. Needless to say, nothing was acted on and I realised that no matter how I tried to help, she would always come back with an excuse why she can't do something.
Personally, the thought of public speaking terrified me. Even speaking up at staff meetings was a painful experience when I was younger.
At one of the schools where I taught, I was asked to talk to the staff about writing conferences and how I organised my week in the class, and how I incorporated all aspects of literacy. I needed my arm to be twisted somewhat!
I was so nervous but I practised in front of the mirror and made sure everything I needed to talk about and have on display was organised, and it went well.
Years later, I did a Graduate Diploma course and the final task was to give a talk on our chosen field of interest and results in implementing new strategies in our workplace, in front of all my colleagues and lecturers. I was physically ill in the morning as my anxiety level was so high.
I had discussed my anxiety level with my principal earlier and her advice was just to do it as once you've done it, you will never be as anxious again.
She was right! Although I wouldn't relish the thought of public speaking, I realised that I have a lot to offer in my chosen field and it's all about taking the challenge and organising what you know and sharing that knowledge.
So take the challenge and grow.
Another person who doubts the ability of someone to come up with some kind of new and enlightening invention doubts it because he has never seen it done before and therefore thinks it simply cannot be done. In all cases of self-doubt, a person is living with a mindset that has experienced great limitations somewhere in the past.
Therefore, when we know this, we can implement strategies to conquer and eventually destroy these specific doubts. How do we do this?
Creationism
What I am talking about is a form of creationism that is completely and intimately personal, not the biblical sense.
It is inspirational, encouraging, motivating, it is creating and producing, and freeing. It is everything that self-doubt is not.
This works for all kinds of self-doubt and insecurity because it has the effect of contradicting and opposing every form that self-doubt or insecurity takes.
We have to train our minds that self-doubting limitations are wrong.
Eventually, the mind learns a newer and more positive way of thinking about things, because it has witnessed firsthand the undoing of every single one of its limiting, doubting thoughts.
How do we retrain our minds?
Take challenges.
In order to do this, we must either show or create a case for the opposite.
We need proof. Show yourself the opposite of your own self-doubt.
Investigate and encourage yourself to try your very best to achieve or to witness or experience the very thing that your mind doubts.
Commit yourself to the challenge of proving every single one of your doubts wrong, and if you can do this, you will slowly re-program your mind to be able to achieve anything that you could possibly want to achieve.
Use Lists
Lists have always helped me overcome my fears of failing.
For example, making a list of solutions. Prioritize this list into the most and least objectionable or 'do-able' for you.
So now you have a list of possible actions that sit in the priority order of what you will most likely be able to do.
Now, what I would then do would make a positive and negative list under some of the actions you are more likely to take.
Under negatives, I would list what I am afraid of and what could possibly happen if I take that course of action.
Under positives, I would list the good points that may happen if I take that course of action.
I call this my balance sheet of life and have used it for things I found challenging.
So it's similar to 'What's the worst that can happen?' and 'What's the best that can happen?'
Is there really something I need to fear?
Input from friends
I would also ask for input from friends or life partner as they can be a great support and see things from a different perspective.
You may also need to find out how others see you as you may not be aware that others deal with your self-image, as well.
Once again, on a more personal level, I did not have great self-awareness when younger.
Through my work with children, I realised, as I grew older and more experienced, how respected I was by the wonderful feedback I received from principals, vice-principals, and parents.
As a teacher, I worked in an environment where we had cyclical reviews. These were enormously beneficial in highlighting your strengths and people's perspective of you.
You could ask for a review, even if your job does not have that format in place.
If your insecurities impact on your relationship with your partner, your list is a great starting point to discussing issues as your partner may need to understand and encourage your actions.
There are also lots of information on youtube on creating a positive mindset and mindfulness for you to watch and listen to, on a regular basis.
I find the positive memes on Facebook and Twitter are also inspiring -a simple thing but effective! You can't get rid of a negative mindset without creating a new habit.
Follow those people who inspire you.
So daily short commitments to new thoughts are important.
Conquer the limitations of your doubts and you become a purely positive, inspirational, creative force of life on this planet earth.
Sit with your doubting mind and you will begin to fester in a world of negativity, opposition, and argument for all things limiting.
I know which path I would rather choose.
Now the choice is up to you.
Habits of Mind- Guides you can use to become a more positive, happier, confident person.
1. If you want to overcome your self-doubts, I have written a guide to help you. It has a set of worksheets. with explanations on how to use them. They have been compiled by me and have been based on strategies I used to overcome my shyness and self-doubt in my earlier years.
It's relevant to you and to your teenager or young adult.
This checklist is beautifully designed and suitable to frame and decorate a wall.
It is in pdf form.
It has 10 easy, actionable steps you can do daily to motivate you and develop good productivity habits.
It is suitable to give as a gift on fine quality paper and it will prompt you and your family on the steps to keep motivated, no matter what the task is.
All members of your family can benefit from these steps, as well as independent singles. Free $0
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