13 Mar Confidence
Confidence is the ability to have complete faith in yourself and your abilities. It is about believing in yourself, not comparing to others and accepting and loving who you are. If you know you are competent-why might you not be confident? This could come down to various factors…
Not feeling good enough, feeling rejected previously, trying something new that has put you out of your comfort zone initially and not believing in yourself. It is a quick process for the mind to switch from confident to not feeling it.
We can loose our confidence due to worrying about what others think and their judgement. But also the judgement and pressure we put on ourselves. We feel we have to be perfect the first time. However life is about learning and growing in order to become a different version of ourselves that helps us maximise our true potential.
Low confidence can cause low self-esteem, affect you moving forwards, relationships with others can become challenging, prevents you taking steps towards your goals, can ignite fear and is highly demotivating.
How to we gain a more consistent confidence that stays with us at all times? Self development is key to achieving this. Facing our fears head on and understanding what are the triggers are that cause us to loose our confidence. Positive affirmations (positive statements said out loud like ‘I am always confident’) and positive language highly effective to changing the mind-set.
Trying new things that put you out of your comfort zone- initially you may loose the confidence but during the task you will gain a much stronger mind-set that leads to increased confidence.
Mindfulness is very powerful with helping with confidence issues. It requires you to sit in the moment and to see how you feel without judgement. it brings the mind to a place of peace and calm encouraging a clear, positive mind-set. A practice of deep breathing exercises (breathing in deeply for 4 seconds, holding for 4 and exhaling for 4) is a sure way to calm nerves and relax the mind.
Avoiding negativity and negative self-talk is a great way to increase your confidence. This because being around the right people for you, increases confidence and helps to support you emotionally.
Taking small steps and building up the confidence over time will help you move forwards and will integrate it into your subconscious so it becomes a positive habit and second nature. Motivation and being motivated also increases confidence because it provides a sense of ‘worth and purpose’ that is the driver behind what you are trying to accomplish.
Be the you, you want to be by firstly accepting yourself fully and whole heartedly.