Confidence

How to build confidence and believe in yourself

Written by A. Pett

Published 20th December 2023

I often think that the only thing that really holds us back from being our most confident selves is the amount of misinformation that exists when it comes to confidence.

Like waiting to feel confident before you take action towards what you want to achieve. Or that confidence is somehow connected to your ego. Or the person in the room who has the loudest voice is the only one with all the confidence.

If you are willing to let go of the bad data you may have absorbed about confidence then I’m going to show you exactly how to make this your most confident year yet.

Know that confidence is not just for the lucky few

Let’s start with what I commonly hear in the coaching room - that confidence is some kind of gift from the gods, a genetic trait or something that is either a part of your personality or not.

Actually, it can be self-created and comes as a result of what you do every day and what you say to yourself every day. It’s a practice that can be built in the same way as you’d build flexibility through yoga, or strength through weights.

Some people might have confidence because they were modelled this practice from an early age. Others don’t, because no one showed us how to do it. That’s it - that’s the only reason why some people grow up confident and others, not. So, if you’ve been walking around thinking confidence is out of your reach because you’ve never really felt it before, then you’ve been looking at this wrong.

Tip: Start to notice any faulty confidence narratives you are repeating to yourself and nip them in the bud.

Rethink your idea of what confidence is

How would you describe your idea of confidence? Self-assurance, security, self-belief, optimism? All of these things (and many others) can describe what confidence can make you feel. But if we are getting down to the bare bones of what confidence is, it’s self-trust. The Latin root of confidence is confidere - which literally means ‘to fully trust.’ Interestingly, the Latin root of arrogance is arrogere - which means ‘to claim.’ So, for anyone who thinks confidence and arrogance are in any way connected, they are not even on the same spectrum. One is an internal groundedness, the other an external projection.

Tip: Think about how much you trust yourself, i.e. believe in your ability to have your own back, make decisions and handle what life throws at you. If self-trust is low you can take steps to build it up in the same way as you would build trust with someone else - talk kindly to yourself, do what you say you will and be there for yourself.

Get clear on how confidence works

Confidence is built through doing. Did you know that? It’s the doing that builds the confidence, not the confidence that drives the doing. That means two things: if you are waiting to feel confident before you start taking action then you are going to wait a long time. And also, the more times you take action while feeling anything other than confidence, the more confident you’re likely to become.

This means that one of the biggest advantages you can give yourself when it comes to confidence building is to get comfortable with discomfort. To do something when you’re scared, uncertain or apprehensive, rather than waiting for this discomfort to pass.

Tip: Get outside your comfort zone every single day. One way to build your confidence on the daily is to regularly do what you’re not sure you can.

Change the way you think about yourself

We all have things called ‘identity statements’ that sit in our perception of ourselves (the definition of identity for this purpose). These affect how we think, act and behave. If you have woven into your identity a statement like “I’m just not a confident person” then you will behave like someone who just isn’t a confident person because that’s what you believe yourself to be.

Now that you know confidence isn’t a personality trait, it’s something anyone can have, you know that an identity statement like this isn’t true. Which means it’s time to stop repeating it.

Tip: Think about what you believe about yourself when it comes to confidence. How are you limiting yourself with identity statements that put confidence out of your reach? When you’ve identified any negative identity statements relating to confidence, think of the opposite positive. That’s the new identity statement you’ll want to replace the old one with.

Prove that identity to yourself

Identity statements are at the heart of identity-based change (which is something I work with a lot in resilience coaching). It can work because you are altering what you believe about yourself and that ripples out to everything else. So, once you’ve got your new identity statement around confidence - e.g. "I am a confident person" - the next step is to start proving this to yourself every single day.

Tip: Doing this can feel very alien and a bit fake at first but persist with it. Whatever situation you’re in, ask yourself “What would confident [your name] do in this situation?” and do that. Every time you do something differently like this you can start proving to yourself that this new identity is the truth.

Stop undermining your confidence

It takes persistence and effort to build confidence - and you can backtrack all that very quickly with your inner critic, because your inner critic destroys self-trust. Would you trust someone who says horrible things to you and tells you you’re hopeless and can’t do things? No. So you’re not going to trust yourself if your inner critic is your dominant inner voice.

Tip: Get really aware of the inner critic when it’s talking to you (look out for words like “should,” which indicates it is in charge) and remind yourself that this is just one of the inner voices available to you. Challenge its meanness - “Is that actually true?” Eventually (often with some help e.g. through resilience coaching) you could replace this voice with something more encouraging, calm and trustworthy.

Confidence is available to everyone. There are many inequalities we have to face in life but this isn’t one of them. If you’ve never had confidence then it’s simply a case of building it for yourself, starting right now.

Confidence is often part of the goal for one-to-one resilience coaching so book a discovery call with a coach if you’d like to chat about how this could work for you.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Life Coach Directory. Articles are reviewed by our editorial team and offer professionals a space to share their ideas with respect and care.