The Power of Confidence

Confidence is a powerful tool that can help us to achieve our goals and to live the life we want to live. It allows us to take risks and to put ourselves out there, knowing that we have the abilities and resources to handle whatever comes our way.

Unfortunately, most of us seem way more preoccupied by being mean to ourselves than celebrating our successes - which would ultimately help us build confidence.

One of the keys to being confident is being kind to ourselves and not dwelling on our mistakes or shortcomings. Which is infuriatingly more difficult than it sounds, especially when you logically know it's probably not useful to berate yourself if you're trying to learn, grow, and improve (which, if you're reading this, I guess you probably are).

And there lies the essential point I coach a lot of people on: Even when you tell yourself logically you know something, but you don't feel it or act in a way which aligns with it, the likelihood is you don't really know it, not on a deep level.

For example, I could say I know I should not criticise myself for my weight, but if I still find myself making little self-deprecating jokes or saying horrible things to myself in the mirror, It betrays that deep down I probably don't really believe I should not criticise my body. It is more likely I believe something like “I wish more people felt comfortable in their bodies and the only way I would feel comfortable in mine is if I was more thin.” There is often a deep rooted seed which tries to convince me I'm the exception to the rule. Or my politics align with everyone but myself.

This is a problem because it reinforces the message that the way that we learn and grow is through criticism and aggression. And I have never found this personally to be true and this is not what I want to create more of in the world.

So when it comes to building confidence, the first crucial step is to be in to witness the way that you speak to yourself and to join design without judgement.

Because it is only by observing the internal narrative that we ever get to decide which bits we want to keep and which bits we want to change.

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