How to Develop Confidence!
Confidence by definition is the feeling or belief that one can rely on oneself, other person, or something with complete trust. It can be a feeling of self-assurance. (Oxford Languages, https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/)
How to you obtain the feeling of confidence?
It may seem as though confidence is something you are born with or you are not, however, confidence is a skill that can be developed. Very much like a muscle, confidence needs to be built through a series of challenges, stressors, rest, and be fed the nutrition it needs to promote its growth and development.
How do I build confidence?
Building confidence can be done through a series of behavioural experiments including: adopting a different mindset, visualizing yourself as confident, acknowledging progression through the accomplishment of small goals, accepting delusion, creating and executing (and yes, FAILING) challenges to unlock confidence points, practicing self-care, acknowledging your value in every situation.
- Adopting a different mindset: This can be considered a ‘Growth Mindset’. It is important to understand that there is a difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. A growth mindset looks for the possibilities that will help further develop the progression towards a goal, for example, ‘how can I learn from this?’ ‘how will this help me?’ ‘what can I take away from this experience?’. This mindset allows for an individual to approach every situation with the demeanour of someone wanting to be there, someone who sees value in the situation and themselves as they are present. A person with a growth mindset will ask the question, ‘how will this be helpful to me?’ and they will actively pursue the answer. A fixed mindset is when you have already developed your opinion on what the experience will feel like, what the outcome will be, and what it means for you to have sat through that experience. There is no room for growth because the outcome has already been determined, how can you learn from something that has already be labelled as ‘been there, done that, don’t need it’?
- Visualizing yourself as confident: visualizing yourself as confident is easier said than done. Sometimes the thought of this activity can be deterring because we imagine our confident selves as already have achieved the goal that we want to use a more developed sense of confidence to obtain! Look into someone you admire, write down three characteristics that they have that you see as confident characteristics. Take those three characteristics and relate to them, how have you shown these characteristics through your own actions? Once you have discovered evidence that backs up the theory that you have the traits needed to be confident, find other aspects of your life that you can further apply these characteristics. Remember, repetition builds belief. If you continually think about how you have already demonstrated confidence you will eventually build a trust in yourself that you can be confident, leading to an overall sense of confidence and self-assurance.
- Acknowledging progression through the accomplishment of small goals: as important as it is to acknowledge that there is a lot to learn about confidence and developing that new skill, it is an important practice as well to acknowledge accomplishments that you gain along the way. A confident person will embrace their successes no matter how small. Remember, if you feel like an imposter complimenting yourself for something you did, it might be good to challenge the desire to think negatively or disregard your progress as this in itself will help with your visualization process of your confident self. Which leads us into….
- Accepting delusion: what does this mean? Sometimes thinking positively, asking ourselves how we can take the good away from an unappealing situation, justifying our wants and dreams, can all feel like a big delusion we are feeding ourselves to help swallow the hard pill or life. The truth is though, thinking negative thoughts will always lead to negative results. If you think that you are undeserving, unable, or incapable, your actions will be more likely to lead to the end results of that thinking process. However, if you think positively about yourself, even if you fail you will have practiced the important skills of self-esteem. Thinking highly of yourself and with the possibility of positive opportunity, will lead to the likelihood of more opportunities coming your way.
- Creating and executing (and yes, FAILING) challenges to unlock confidence points: Building confidence is a big behavioural experiment, which means there needs to be experiments or trials put in place to observe the potential outcomes of what you are looking for. For example, if you are attempting to be a confident gym goer it may be beneficial to break down that goal into small goals that experiments can be created from. It is important to be able to show yourself and prove to yourself that you can do hard things, as well as survive the failure if those hard things don’t work out. Learning that you can accomplish and survive will reinforce your belief in yourself that you are a component and capable individual.
- Practicing self-care: self-care can lead to a deeper sense of self worth. When you put time into yourself to feel good, smell good, look good, and operate affectively, your sense of capability rises, leading to better mood and potentially a positive outlook. It is important to show appreciation to the different parts of yourself that make you you! By developing a self-care routine, you will consistently show yourself you are valuable (Good Medicine, https://goodmedicinebeautylab.com/blogs/default-blog/the-connection-between-self-care-and-self-esteem#:~:text=It%20is%20easy%20to%20be,each%20deserve%20to%20be%20treated!)
- Acknowledging your value in every situation: you are aiming for improvement, not perfection. It is okay to make mistakes and recognize that there is something to gain from your presence! Hold a sense of compassion for yourself, doing so can create room for the potential to be silly, to make mistakes, to be wrong! There is something that you can learn from these moments, and that is that it is okay to be human! Acknowledging the value you bring to every situation will allow for a sense of belonging, this sense of belonging can put your mind at ease when thinking about how you can be helpful, how you can contribute, and what your purpose is (https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-power-of-self-worth-recognizing-your-value#3).
