Confidence: Shake Off Insecurities, Fears to Embrace Possibilities

Think of your past experiences with a boss or a coach when they told you to, “Be confident.” During my childhood and adolescence, I remember thinking, “Okay yeah… but how?” Often, we are told to be confident, but do not know how to go about building that confidence.

Obviously, you can look at past experiences to build confidence, but what if you do not have any, or you are on a stretch of failures? You can look at what other people are doing to build confidence, but what if you do not have someone to watch or they are above your skill level?

You can have the right self-talk or the right motivation from another person, but what if neither of those are helpful? The reality is you are not always going to be confident, but that does not mean you do not have what it takes to succeed. It is about learning how to commit to the action of confidence instead of relying on the feeling of confidence.

Confidence is Hard

Whether you believe confidence comes from success or vice versa, the common denominator is your mind - and the mind is – maddeningly - great at uncovering reasons why you should not be confident.

One of those reasons is pointing out all the obstacles that might get in the way. When looking at the path ahead, if I see all the roadblocks and difficulties I might face along the way, I will start telling myself, “This is too much,” before I even get started.

Another reason is we tend to be overly critical of ourselves. It is easier for our minds to tell us all the reasons why we do not have what it takes to complete the task, even though there is evidence that tells us we can.

More prevalent in team settings or when others are present, the mind loves to compare our situation to others, typically in an unfavorable way. When we see others who seem to do the same job slightly better, have more talent, or have it easier, we feel insecure. Yet, in failing to realize that everyone’s journey is different, we can lose the opportunity to go to that individual to seek help.

Lastly, our minds tend to predict worst-case scenarios like failure and rejection. While those outcomes are possible, they only happen if you try, and if you try, success is another potential outcome, but the mind would rather protect us from failure than guide us to success.

The thoughts you have heading into a performance will exert a major influence over the actions you display. However, the goal is not to change your level of confidence, the goal should be what can I say to myself that will allow me to, at the very least, get out there and perform confidently.

Being Confident in the Face of Fear

For you to change your relationship with fear so that you can still perform your task, it is important to reflect on how things would change if you were confident. This action may provide the motivation you need to face your fears head on. Some questions you can ask yourself include

• How would you behave differently?

• How would you walk and talk differently?

• How would you play, work and perform differently?

• How would you treat others differently: friends, relatives, partner, parents, children, colleagues

• How would you treat yourself differently? How would you treat your body?

• How would you talk to yourself?

• How would your character change?

• What sort of things would you start doing? What would you stop doing?

• What goals would you work toward?

• What difference would your new-found confidence help you to make in the world?

The answers to these questions may overlap with each other, but the main goal is to provide information towards who you are, who you could be, and assist you with moving forward with actions of confidence instead of waiting for the feeling to overtake your fear.

Another way to maintain confidence in the face of fear is through a variety of diffusion techniques. One technique is to reframe the thoughts you are having to being more objective instead of subjective. When you say something counterproductive to yourself, respond by saying, “I am noticing the thought of..” or, “I am having the thought of…” instead of, “I am…”.

What this does is it changes the undertone to something that is happening instead of something that I am, which may allow you to move on from the thought faster. Another technique involves either singing the counterproductive thoughts to yourself or saying them in a silly voice. Part of this technique provides positive emotion because the statements sound funnier, but they also show their true nature in that these phrases are silly and untrue.

Finally, start by pretending your hands are your thoughts and place them in front of you, palms up, as if they were open pages of a book. Bring your hands toward your face, covering your eyes, and take a look around, notice how hard it is to see. After that, go ahead and lower your hands and take a look around, notice how much more you can see, yet your hands do not go away. Just because the counterproductive thoughts are there, does not mean that you have to lose vision of everything else going on around you. Acknowledge their presence but continue to focus on what is head of you.

Final thoughts

You are not always going to feel your most confident self. However, waiting until you feel the most confident may never come, so you must learn to perform your task regardless if you feel confident or not. Genuine confidence is not performing in the absence of fear, it is transforming your relationship with fear so that you can perform alongside your fear.