Confidence can be a strange thing. It can take weeks, months or even years to be built. Yet a moment for it to be lost and destroyed.
Confidence is what separates those who are successful and those who are not. Having an internal belief i.e. confidence is crucial for one’s performance in any field, job, hobby etc. It is that part of you that thinks ‘hey I can actually do this”. Yet, without it, it can cause you to even second guess your talents and abilities that come so naturally to you.
Losing confidence in yourself can happen in an instant or it can develop over time. Failure is often the factor that causes most of us to lose our confidence in ourselves and our abilities. It is also what causes us the stumble in building and rebuilding our confidence.
As I have learned over the past few months. Sometimes it is not even just failure that causes me to stumble. It is oftentimes only the fear of failure that causes me to hesitate and causes doubt.
Fight for your confidence
I have been fighting to get my confidence back for a couple of months now and it is a roller coaster of a ride. And it is not all areas in my life, yet battles were still being fought. For every area in life we have confidence, but when we lose confidence in who we are as a person, well that’s when things tend to get messy.
This is what I learned
Confidence is built over time by building integrity with yourself.
Confidence is ultimately trusting in your own abilities. Doing the things you said were going to do and when you were going to do them is the first step to building or rebuilding confidence.
You said you were going to go for a run after work -do it. You’re going to wash your car this weekend -do it.
Always be mindful of setting yourself up for success in these micro goals. Deciding on something too big is like digging a hole for yourself. You will fall into that pit. Start with small goals and work your way up. The goal is for you to trust yourself. Believe me when I tell you we can and we do lie to ourselves.
Be consistent
Consistency is not only the key to success but the key to great confidence. It is another way of building integrity with yourself. Doing something everyday, week or month is important for you to get to a point where you actually believe that you can do it.
Example: I have been writing everyday for the last few weeks, be it in my journal, a blog, my book or just an article or LinkedIn caption. But my aim is to grow as a writer. That means I have to show up everyday to become one, because writers write everyday, so I need to build that belief that I am a writer. Being good or bad has nothing to do with it, because oftentimes what separates potential and results are merely the confidence we have in ourselves and our abilities.
Embrace failure
This is not fun I know. But failure is merely feedback of what didn’t work. So I encourage you to fail. Fail often and fail forward. Because failure is what develops that GRIT and tenacity that you will require in everyday life.
The key to embracing failure is to separate your talents and abilities from your identity. This blew my mind when I first learned this. You are not what you do. You are not what you have and you are not the sum total of your achievements, successes and failures.
You need to love yourself in the most dire moment even when you have no confidence. You need to learn to be kind to yourself. Take my word, I used to be and oftentimes still revert to some kind of monster army general obsessed with results.
Now build it!
Now matter how many books you read, podcasts you listen to or youtube videos you watch. Confidence is built by consistent action. You cannot read your way to being confident. You have to courageous to become confident.
So choose something small that may frighten you. And go do it anyway. Then you move on the next thing and the next thing. Pretty soon you will turn around and be astonished about where you are.
Even the longest of journeys can only be walked one step at a time.
