If you think that you’re not confident and can never discover your inner confidence, then let me tell you that you’re not alone! I was there once, and I know how difficult it is to turn your doubts, and fears into confidence. In this post, I’m going to share a secret that will help you take small steps towards finding, building, and strengthening your confidence. The secret to discover and build your inner confidence is through skills that you already love.
It took me so many years to discover my core strengths, that I was born with. Once you realize you’re born to do some amazing creative things, nothing should hold you back from reaching your full potential. I was happy to discover my creative confidence by doing the things I’ve always loved doing, by paying attention to the skills that I already love.
In this post, I’m going to share my 5 favorite steps or tips to help you build and strengthen your confidence right from the scratch.
I was at level 0 confidence when I realized I was always afraid to face people, challenges, and to express myself. Refuse to believe the voices that tells you are not good enough or confident enough to take on new tasks and challenges. Get out of your head and start believing in yourself. You are enough, and you can achieve anything if you try. Only you have the power to bring that realization to life.
For most of us, our attitude towards ourselves determines our confidence. Monitor your attitude towards everything you do and or want to do. Know that it is absolutely normal to feel the fear, but do not stop moving forward and working hard each day.
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. ” ~E.E Cummings
Making small progress every single day, and doing the things that you fear the most can lead you to your confidence goals. Here’s how:-
- Work with your fears. – We are always so scared of putting our work out into the world, because we don’t know how it will be received by others. We fear being judged and criticized. And that might lead us to feel embarrassed and rejected. It is totally understandable that this fear might lead us to shut everything down and be in our cocoon, where we can escape the world.
Example of A Personal Scenario: When I started writing and blogging, there were very few who liked my articles and encouraged me to write more. I hardly got any readers or comments on my posts. This experience convinced me that my fear was turning out to be true that, “I can never write. I’m not good at writing at all, and therefore nobody likes and cares what I write.”
I still kept going because my dream was bigger than my fear. I worked with my fears, because I wanted to create an impact in the world. Fast forward to the present, I did not just grew up as a confident writer, I am being appreciated, celebrated, liked, loved, and encouraged by sooo many people around me. I was able to connect to the impact I wanted to make- to inspire others, to show people it’s always possible, to move people’s hearts, and to change their lives by giving hope, encouragement, and to lead them to start believing in themselves. I am just doing that right now!
- Visualize yourself as you want to be.
“Know yourself and you will win all battles.” ~ Sun Tzu
As they say, “see it, and be it!” The best and the easiest way to feel confident is by practicing to act like the person you want to be. Before that, understand your goals, describe your vision, know what do you want and why, and then start visualizing that you have the ability to be the person you have always imagined to be. Just don’t stop believing in yourself, and in your skills you already love.
Example of A Personal Scenario: Right after my 10th grade, I had always visualized myself to be a TV anchor, a host, or to be on a talk show where I can share my journey, my experiences, talk about my skills as a writer, and as a influencer. But, I knew I was lacking confidence to talk to people face-to-face. I always had difficulty speaking my thoughts, and sharing my ideas.
I still kept going, working towards building my confidence for public speaking and storytelling. Here I’m today, confidently creating videos on my YouTube Channel and on Facebook and on Instagram, for my viewers, fans, and followers. I went live on Instagram, and have started recording my podcasts on Anchor too! So see, what I was trying to make you understand! Do not give up believing in your skills and the talents that you possess. Visualize and manifest the life you want, and the person you want to be. Keep moving ahead to unlock your potential and the possibilities that seemed impossible at first!
- Start saying “yes”. I used to always avoid putting myself out for everything. I kept avoiding taking new and unknown opportunities, meeting people, attending social gatherings, all office team outings, and even hanging out with my friends. There’s no quick solution to get there or to be seen and heard. The more you do it, the easier it gets for you.
Start by saying yes to something tiny, and then go for bigger reasons/events. Remember, if you want to share you story with the world, and if you have a valuable contribution to make to the world, you must start saying yes to things that matter. Not every yes would be easy, I completely understand; but make sure you start making it a practice to put yourself out in the front row quite often and not in the backseat always!
- Take small steps to break out of your comfort zone. Being in our comfort zone always feels safe. That’s why we don’t like leaving for the uncomfortable, unknown, and scary paths. Things that seemed scary to me once doesn’t feel alien anymore, because I realized that breaking free through my comfort zone only can lead me to where I want to be.
It started with my deepest desire and the need to grow, change, and to evolve. I started taking baby steps towards doing my goals, and working hard for making my dream come true. I’ve been preparing myself every single day, and now I feel I am getting closer to my success. What I once thought was scary, now isn’t anymore.
So, start by taking small steps and keep moving forward, one step at a time, and prepare hard for taking on those big “projects” later in life. Everything will make sense later. You don’t have to understand why, focus on your when – when the opportunity knocks at your door, be on the lookout! Do something every day and keep moving forward by breaking out of your comfort zone.
- Start with what skills you’re proud of. Write down the skills you’re proud of. What are the things you can best express about yourself. Before you build your confidence, it is very important to know the skills you’re best at. If you’re planning to add a new skill to your list, then start by writing down your best skills that defined you or worked best for you in the past. Then work towards improving your performance to make yourself better at that skill.
Practice a little every day for 15 or 30 mins. Make it a habit to hone your skills, and monitor your progress. You will be surprised to see your rapid progress from being a nervous, not-so-confident amateur to becoming an ace.
Main Image Credit- Photo by Nelson Ribeiro from Pexels
Not just discussing but leading by example is what makes your observations and strategies so valuable.
This is such an inspiring article. I think it makes sense for all of us to follow our dharma, the path that is best for us. It is easier to work with our talents then against us. The curious thing is that sometimes we are most afraid of things we are actually good at- but we need time and practice to get really good at them. I like how you showed specific steps to build and strengthen our confidence and develop the skills we need. I also agree that it is important to follow our own face. While challenging and pushing ourselves is important, sometimes we will do more damage if we jump into something fully unprepared. Sometimes we need to take baby steps. I think the important thing is to be consistent and to believe that it can be done. Every skill can be improved, it just takes time.