Confidence is a choice - choose wisely!

Confidence is a choice – choose wisely!

1.     Confidence is not the absence of fear.

Just because you believe you can do something doesn’t mean you don’t fear doing it. It’s normal to assume that confident people don’t worry, get anxious, or fear failure in their activities. But it’s not true. Confident people feel as much fear as everybody else—but they don’t allow it to prevent them from action. They acknowledge the fear, cope with it, and in some cases even embrace it as motivation. We will never get the luxury of living without it - nobody does.
 
2.     Confidence is fueled by failure as much as success.

Counterintuitively failure is the key to developing confidence not success. One of the best ways to build confidence is to suffer a failure and recognise how you survived it. Failure teaches us we are more resilient than we ever thought. It’s too easy to blame a lack of confidence on a lack of success, that’s not where it comes from. Our confidence does not come from the belief that we will succeed, but rather from the belief that we will be ok if we don’t!
 
3.     A longer-term outlook makes it easier to be confident.

Confident people tend to take a long-term view of the world, their life, and their work. While they have a reasonable share of short-term goals, they focus on the long-term which enables a more confident approach as they don’t fall with every bump in the road. People who struggle with confidence can be impatient. because they approach things with a short-term mindset. They’re focused on the moment, the project, or the last sentence of criticism they heard, and lose sight of how far they’ve come and where they’re headed. Focus on the big picture, not always the small details.
 
4.     Preparation builds confidence.

‘I’m a good at what I do’ get comfortable with saying that because you have put in the time to prepare and learn what it takes to be good at your job. Then even if you are presented with a challenge, you have never faced before, you can be confident to solve it because you have built a foundation of expertise to call on in the process. And know you will be able to figure out what you don’t know as you go along. The more preparation you do—the more you learn, experience, and practice—the more confident you’ll become.
 
5.     You generate confidence, it’s not given to you.

It feels good when somebody compliments you and certainly gives you a confidence boost, but the core of confidence doesn’t come from other people—it must come from you. If you depend on others to boost your self-assurance, then you become vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of others’ judgment. Sometimes their feedback will be correct, but much of the time it won’t. Confident people don’t allow others to determine their success. When you set yourself up as the most important judge of your activities, you take control of your own confidence. You don’t rely on others to give you permission to feel good about yourself. You always have the right to be confident. Don’t give it away.
 
6.     Confidence is contagious.

I think we all enjoy being around people who are confident, working with them, spending time with them, and following them. We are drawn to people who believe in what they do and genuinely own who they are. Their confidence spreads to everyone around them. It’s contagious.  This ability to inspire others is not only a reason to be more confident yourself, but it’s also a reason to seek out more confident people to be in your life. If you feel insecure or lack confidence, look at the people in your circle many of them lack it, too.
 
7.     The more varied your experiences, the more confident you’ll become.

If you’ve only lived in one place, only hung out with the same people, or only worked at the same job, you can only be so confident. Familiarity often leads to being comfortable, but comfort is not confidence. To become truly confident, it’s important to step out of your comfort zone and broaden your experiences. The more you are exposed to, the more life you experience, the more confident you’ll become.
 
8.     Confidence is a choice.

Be confident because you choose to be. We have all had both successes and failures in our life and if you lack confidence, it may be in part because you believe your failure to be a more accurate depiction of you than your success. You don’t have to believe that you can choose to think of successful you instead.