Do you want to increase your level of self-confidence?
Do you feel you are losing opportunities again and again because of your fear of failure?
I know what it feels like. Lack of self-confidence can paralyze you, it can prevent you from taking risks and doing what you really want to do, it keeps you locked in your comfort zone.
How many times have you missed opportunities to start something because you were afraid of failing or afraid of what others would think of you? Fortunately, self-confidence is a skill and after spending so many years studying about personal growth I can tell you a few things you can do that will significantly improve your self-confidence.
I hope you find them as useful as they have been to me!
The golden rule of self-confidence
I like to use the example of Nelson Mandela, a man who spent 27 years in prison, eighteen of those years he spent in the brutal Robben Island Prison. He received the most degrading treatment any man could receive, he even got Tuberculosis.
But instead of collapsing, he would wake up every morning and go to the patio to motivate and inspire other inmates, over time he became an inspiration to others. How can a man in the worst possible conditions feel motivated and self-confident to get up and inspire others?
The answer is: he did not feel confident! Years later he explained that during this terrible, time he felt afraid, he felt like giving up and he had absolutely no self-confidence.
So how did he do it? what did he do? even though he was afraid, even though he had a very low level of self-confidence, he got up and did anyway. He confessed later that if he would have waited until he felt confident enough to do something, he would have never done it.
And with this example, I give the most important rule to having self-confidence
Don’t wait until you feel confident to do something. This is the biggest lie we carry around in our lives. We believe that in order to do something or face a problem we must first feel confident enough to do it. It is a vicious cycle of procrastination because you won’t ever truly feel extremely confident to it, fear is a natural state we experience when we want to get out of our comfort zone and we make the mistake of backing up when we experience this fear. Mandela did not wait, he did not let the fear take control of himself, he acted despite having the insecurity and that is how he managed to win.
If you want to feel confident, stop waiting and do something. You do not need to feel anything in order to do whatever it is you want or need to do. Learn to separate your feelings from your actions, once you start and you keep going despite all the setbacks, your confidence level will drastically improve, you will transform yourself and you will discover what you are truly capable of.
How to increase your self-confidence:
1. Stop waiting to feel confident
This is something I have suffered myself, I would wait for that “feeling” to come and it created a big mess in my life. Why? Because feelings fluctuate! One minute you might feel so confident that you are ready to take that “Big step”, but then you feel scared and insecure, so of course your brain goes into panic mode and I would decide for “whatever reason” that it was not the right time to take that step. It is impossible to always feel confident! And don’t be mistaken, even the most successful people out there feel insecure and feel like a failure at times, you just don’t see it.
Don’t wait to feel confident, don’t wait to feel completely ready to start something or face that problem you have been putting off, don’t put so much pressure on yourself. The more pressure you put on yourself, the more insecure you will feel. And this brings me to tip number 2.
2. Do something
After doing extensive research on self-esteem, psychologists Bednar and Peterson saw a particular phenomenon on their participants. After performing their research, they found that self-esteem did not really depend on the outcome of a person’s actions. It really depended on actually “trying” or “doing something”. In their research, they observed that the participants who did not show up for an exam felt much worse than the participants who showed up and tried even though they failed. Why? Because there is no worse failure than not even trying, we subconsciously know this. When we try and do something, our confidence level rises.
“Do something, no matter how small your step is. Our self-confidence improves when we do something.”
3. Fight the “Impostor Syndrome”
Impostor Syndrome: Attributing my achievements or success to luck, believing that I am a fraud and do not deserve to be in the position I am.
It is so important to be aware of this because at times we think we are not worthy of feeling proud of ourselves. Never belittle your achievements. Be aware of all those qualities you have that make you unique and have helped you get to where you are, when we become aware of this syndrome and we make the effort of acknowledging our effort and our courage, we start valuing ourselves more.
“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.”- Theodore Roosevelt
