Take the first step to building your confidence

Confidence coaches regularly here people saying "I'm just not a confident person" or "I have always had low self-confidence issues". However these are very general statements and just because you've felt lacking in confidence in one situation does't mean that your confidence levels are always low.

If you do describe yourself in this way what do you actually mean? Before making any progress in building your confidence you need to clarify exactly when and how you lack it. Use the following questions as a starting point to identify your personal confidence issues:

• Keep a journal for a week and write down all the situations where you feel lacking in confidence.
• Score each situation as to how strongly you felt from 0 to 10 (0 means no confidence and 10 means very confident).
• Then write down what you could have said or done that would have made you feel stronger in that situation.
• At the end of the week review your journal and identify if there is a pattern to the situations that result in you lacking confidence.
• Repeat the exercise until you have a clear understanding of the situations and triggers for your low confidence.

Now you can make more specific statements such as "I'm not confident in x situations" or "I lack confidence when I have to ....". Which gives you clarity on what you need to focus on to build your confidence.