Even during easy times, we all have to venture outside our comfort zone to succeed. If circumstances in 2020 have required you to make some changes, you may find yourself in need of some confidence! If you want to make a change for the better, you’re going to have to become a pro at building confidence.
When you don’t have it, it seems impossible. You envy people who have the confidence to go after all the things you want as well. But it’s possible for you to be that person too!
It wasn’t that long ago when I had a fraction of the confidence I do now. I couldn’t even make the first step towards my goals because was so self conscious and worried I would fail. Now I am a completely different person, and while I still have a long way to go, I’d love to share how I’ve progressed this far. I feel completely capable of chasing after my goals, here’s how you can feel the same!
Surround Yourself With The Correct People
Or should I say, stop surrounding your self with people who stifle your confidence! The people you interact with on a daily basis aren’t solely responsible for your level of self confidence, but they certainly can make an impact. I’ve definitely been in circumstances where I’ve been surrounded by unsupportive people: it really does a number on your confidence.
The best advice I can give you is to find people who have the results that you want. If you want to be someone who has the confidence to chase after any and every goal, find people who have that same ambition. If you want to be confident enough to stand up for what you believe in, hang out with people who are advocates for their own beliefs.
This certainly doesn’t mean you have to cut out old relationships, but it may mean you have to lower your expectations for them. You can still hang out with people who don’t inspire the confidence you want, but you must realize that your confidence will come from outside them.
Don’t Rely On Evidence for COnfidence
One of the trickiest things about building confidence is that you have to rely on yourself before you have proof you’re going in the right direction. Say you want to lose 20 lbs. You have to believe that you can before you’ve lost any of the weight. The same is true for any goal you set!
This is a tricky hurdle to overcome because the evidence you create for yourself will continue to feed your confidence. It’s just overcoming that first hurdle of taking action without evidence that can be so hard. One thing you can try is personifying a version of yourself in the future that has already created evidence. For instance, I know that 2020 Delaney works a 9-5, but 2021 Delaney has a profitable side hustle get’s to perform for a living. I’ve got her back, so I’m going to take action like I have her best interest in mind.
Make YOur goals Impossible
Sometimes confidence comes from setting bigger, scarier goals. Smaller, more obtainable goals may feel safer, but unless you keep raising the bar, your confidence will stay the same.
Say you set a ridiculous goal to go from making $0 to making six figures in the first year of your side hustle. You may or may not reach that goal, but you will be on a much higher trajectory with that kind of goal than if you only tried to make $20k.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it seem like the more crazy you talk, the less you care about what people’s responses will be? If you know your goals are going to sound crazy to others no matter what, you may realize support is not a given. That makes it all the more welcome when it does come along. Which brings us to our next point:
Practice Ignoring Other’s thoughts
Let me say first, it is totally natural to be concerned about what others think! Primitively, that’s how we learned to survive. However, those survival instincts do us no good when we are really trying to thrive. So practice not worrying about other’s thoughts! The reason I say “practice” instead of “just do it” is because it takes time to get good at!
If you practice ignoring the thoughts of others, shall I say, too aggressively you may find that ignoring the haters takes up more time than worrying about them! I’m sure you’ve seen all those clap backs people can have for their haters and naysayers, but think of how much time that takes away from your goals? Often times I find that people who focus on dishing it back to their haters are doing it from a place of insecurity, not confidence!
Anyone can clap back, but can you learn to let unsupportive words simply pass by? Can you make them mean absolutely nothing? Can you find humor in them and move on? If you focus changing your thoughts to make unsupportive people mean absolutely nothing, you can bypass their comments and learn to love them in the process.
Go Easy On Yourself
We will all fail. You will fail, it is an inevitable promise. But if you learn to expect failure, embrace it even, you will reach a place where it doesn’t even phase you one bit. If this is too much of a jump for you, just start with being easy on yourself.
I am an Enneagram 1 (the Perfectionist, whadup!), I knoooow how to be hard on myself. I know just how much work it takes to be kind to yourself and have your own back. If you are far from this point, can you practice just feeling neutral about yourself? Can you practice making your actions and mistakes mean nothing?
When you get good at this, you can eventually reach the point where you see your mistakes as part of your story to success. They are an essential part of your journey! In baking terms, they are practically the glue in gluten!
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