Becoming the confident you - taking action to build confidence

Confidence is about connecting to that strong awesome woman, sitting at your centre, and living the life she wants for you.  When you are confident you have a belief in your abilities to overcome challenges and go for what you want. But it’s a misperception that confidence is something that you fix once and then you keep it. Confidence ebbs and flows with the rhythms of life. When it’s low take a moment to reflect in order to understand where you need to do your work to maintain or lift your confidence.

Based on my confidence journey and the work that I’ve done with my clients I’ve identified four pillars of confidence; taking action, looking after yourself, dealing with your inner critic, and doing more of what you love. If you’re lacking in confidence, it’s likely that at least one of these pillars will be rocky. Identifying where you need to do your work will help you come up with a targeted set of actions that will help you rebuild your confidence. This article is focused on the first pillar - taking action to build confidence.

Okay – does this sound familiar?

You sit there watching others going for things and you can’t imagine ever being able to do that.

You’re bored but the thought of changing things is so scary you stay where you are in your comfort zone (although I would say it’s not always that comfortable is it?)

You see a job that is so right for you but you tell yourself you’re rubbish at interviews, you haven’t got all of the experience they’re asking for and how on earth will you survive the humiliation and shame if you go for it and don’t get it?

You’ve been asked to do a presentation and you feel sick and think about it all day every day and come up with every reason you can think of to not do it.  

All of these scenarios have two things in common; you deep down really want to do something, but a lack of confidence is keeping you paralysed.

Now you might not like what I have to say but the only solution here is to take action. And you can do this.

Here’s how.

Before I get into the how I want you to read this paragraph, stop and reflect for a moment. Here goes - Sitting there telling yourself you can’t do something only achieves one thing – it destroys confidence and makes it even harder for you to take the very step that’s going to increase your confidence.  Plus, what you’re telling yourself is bullshit. You absolutely can find a way to do this.

How to take action

The first thing to do is to remind yourself of all of the things that you have achieved in your life and your amazing ability to overcome challenges. Taking time to reflect on those times when you were scared but you did it anyway turns your attention away from what you think you can’t do to what you have done and all that you’re capable of.

Put aside some time for reflection and start to list everything that you have achieved. Don’t over think this; it isn’t a test. Literally brain dump. Put everything down from running a marathon to getting out of bed when you felt like crap. Some people find this more difficult than others so if you’re struggling to articulate what you’ve achieved in your life ask those that are close to you to tell you what they think your biggest achievements are.

Okay, so you have a list of achievements. This is evidence that you can achieve things you didn’t think you would be able to. Now your brain is literally in a better frame of mind to turn its attention to the thing that you want to do.  It’s important to note at this point that it is perfectly natural to doubt your ability to do something that you’ve never done before. Your work is not to eliminate those feelings; that would be a complete waste of time as it’s part of your evolutionary makeup to feel scared. Your work is to take action.

Baby steps

Going from standstill to 100mph can be overwhelming so break down what you want to do into small steps. Ask yourself the question – ‘what’s the smallest step I can take?’

If you’ve seen a role that you want to go for and you keep focusing on what a massive step up it is and questioning your ability to do the role you’re never going to go for it.  However, dusting down your CV and updating it is a far less scary step. Then when you have your CV ready you can submit your application. Then you prepare for the interview, the second interview and so on. At each step stay focused on that step. What you do now is going to get you to where you want to be. And as you take each step your confidence will start to build.

Reflect and stick it in the bank

So you’ve done it. You started with a belief that you couldn’t do something, found out that it was bullshit and did it. As a result your confidence will be pretty high. But as I noted at the beginning, confidence ebbs and flows and when you’re faced with something new or difficult your confidence will dip. But this time you have a process to help you through.

Every time that you do something that scares you take a moment to reflect. How did you feel at the start? What did you do? What helped you? What change did you experience within yourself by taking action? These reflections can go in the bank of things that you’ve achieved, ready to take out and dust off when you stretch yourself in the future.

Tips and questions for you:

 1.       List all of things that you’ve achieved and challenges that you’ve overcome in your life.

2.       What area of your life are you lacking confidence in?

3.       If you could take one small step what would it look like?

4.       What do you need to get the courage to take that first step?