We’ve all suffered with self-doubt, or a lack of confidence in ourselves at some point in our lives. I know I have, but it doesn’t have to be like that.
There are many things we can do to help boost our own confidence, and it all starts with being kind to yourself.
We, as humans, can be our own best friend and our own worst enemy at the same time. We do so much mental harm when we’re unkind to ourselves, harm that we cannot see, hear or feel in the way that we would feel pain if we fell over. Mental harm can be the worst kind of harm in many ways.
Calling yourself “stupid” when you’ve got something wrong can have a detrimental effect on your mental wellbeing, repeating it often will lead to more and more limiting beliefs, and negative feelings about ourself.
We all have the power within to stop those limiting beliefs, and be able to grow in our confidence. Finding and remembering the little things that we are good at, and giving ourselves a little praise or a pat on the back is a good start on the confidence boosting journey.
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback! Instead of calling yourself stupid for getting something wrong, realise that it’s just a lesson on how not do it next time.
None of us are perfect. It’s like when the Navaho Indians weave their beautiful rugs and blankets, they will always leave a Knot, to show the Gods they are not trying to be perfect themselves, and not challenging the Gods.
As humans we always think and rehearse things happening with a negative bias, how many times have you rehearsed things going wrongly instead of it going positively? This is why we don’t even attempt something because we fear failure.
This simply embeds the limiting belief further into our mind and gives it more authority, thus taking away more of our confidence. This can end up making us miss out on so much of the good stuff that life has to offer.
Confidence can be boosted in many ways, whether you want confidence in speaking out publicly, whether you want confidence in sports, or body confidence. Perhaps you want to be able to say no to people – are you a people pleaser? Do you want confidence to trust your own opinions? Having self belief is so important when making decisions, and being able to stick up for yourself.
Maybe you have body dysmorphia, and need to accept yourself for who you are! We all have bad days where we think we look like crap! And other days where we think we look good! It all comes down to worrying about what others think of us, but we should accept that we cannot please everyone, and to not care what others think of us.
Basically, confidence isn’t “WILL THEY LIKE ME?” True confidence is “I’LL BE OK IF THEY DON’T”.
