I don’t truly believe that people “do not have confidence”. I believe in a lot of cases people tend to focus more on what that can’t do then what they can do.
That creates a foundation for insecurity and confidence loss versus confidence growth. Confidence comes from you being successful at something. I wanted to take a moment and talk about creating a space or maybe more so a mindset for your confidence to grow because I think that the conversation around cultivating confidence can be a little formulaic when in fact its a pretty simple, one step mindset shift.
For example, let’s say I joined a track team. There is someone better than me in the very first race at a track meet. If I start to compare myself to that person who is great in their own right then I eliminate my ability to feel successful because I already compared myself to what may be considered to be the best. Instead of saying and focusing on the fact that at this moment I am literally the best that I can be, I am thinking about the next person. How do I now compete in this race with confidence? How do I ensure that this will actually be my best performance when I am distracted by the talents of someone else when I could have been thinking about how I hit my personal best in practice this week or what stayed regimented with my diet and feel the lightest I have ever been. We make the race, the match, the relationship, and many times life harder when we rob ourselves of the recognition and confidence from our own wins because we are too focused on comparing our wins and strengths to others.
I love the show “What Not to Wear” because the minute the person arrives they put them in front of a mirror and ask the question “why”. They want to know why the person wears the clothes they wear and usually, the person’s response is all the things they want to hide or cover-up. Then they go on a journey of shifting the person’s focus from what they don’t like about themselves to what they do like. They don’t lose weigh on the show but they put them in clothing that accents the best parts of their body. I think that we immediately do ourselves a disservice when we feel like we want to look like “x” which automatically highlights everything different about you that is keeping you from looking like that, instead of connecting with what you do love and looks great about you and focusing on that.
In fitness:
Instead of deciding beforehand, “hey, I want to lose 100lbs”, maybe start off with the goal of “hey, I want to consistently workout and eat healthily”. The confidence will come from the consistency and build as you move to whatever number of pounds you lose. The consistency is going to come from the fact that I believe I can be consistent, and do this thing and enjoy what I’m doing every single day.
In relationships:
When you go on a first date, your confidence comes from the fact that someone enjoys you and wants to spend time with you. There are butterflies, staring into one another’s eyes and a true sense of joy being with this person who is interested in you. Confidence is lost as the relationship develops when you start to judge yourself questioning “Am I good enough?” You don’t connect to the foundation of where that relationship started. I think people constantly look beyond themselves and that’s where they think they are going to find confidence and you just don’t find confidence on the outside of who you are. It’s just not going to happen. In my book, “T is for Transformation” I talk about mirror moments and this is why!
Take this simple mindset shift and apply it to any part of your life you are feeling your confidence waning in. The fact that you are even seeking our resources to help if a great start, Trust and Believe!
The foundation of your confidence should come from YOU believing that YOU are GREAT!
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