Building Self-Confidence
There are so many ways we limit our self-confidence without even knowing it. The first step we need to take in building self-esteem is to be honest with ourselves in every area.
Tony Robbins asks the question,
“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
Implied in that question are many more questions about all the ways you are limiting yourself in order to protect yourself from the possibility of failing.
You do this by side-stepping the truth.
For instance,
How are you limiting your dreams?
Are you avoiding people or situations that challenge you?
Do you honestly assess your own true needs?
Do you choose to do only things that don’t challenge you?
Do you tell yourself, “I don’t care” when you really do?
Do you say “yes” to everything that everyone asks of you?
Do you ever renegotiate your agreements with others?
Are you always choosing smaller, safer dreams and actions because they are safer? When we achieve our smaller dreams at the expense of the larger ones and tell ourselves that we’re successful, we’re lying to ourselves and cheating ourselves out of the life we could have.
Normal, healthy fear is a good thing, but letting your fear rob you of your dreams is not.
The fear exists because you’re trying something new and stretching yourself.
That’s human and natural for just about everyone. It’s not a sign of weakness. Letting the fear stop you from going forward is the mistake most people make. Acknowledging the fear and going forward anyway is the way dreams are achieved.
Real self-confidence is not a lack of fear. It comes from trusting yourself in spite of your fear. See your dreams as bigger than your fears.
Many children were raised in homes where they received a lot of criticism and not much praise. Parents thought they were creating well-behaved, humble children. A good thing, right? Well…not necessarily.
One result of that treatment can be lack of confidence.
There’s a difference between having a big ego and self-confidence.
Self-confidence means you believe in yourself.
A big ego means that you have to prove you’re better than everyone else. That’s a huge distinction.
We all know braggers – people who name drop or can’t help slipping in information about their accomplishments or how much money they make.
This is not a sign of self-confidence or superiority.
It is an attempt to compensate for feelings of low self esteem.
When people have to broadcast how wonderful they are, they’re are really telling you, loudly and clearly, how unconfident they feel.
In fact, the bragging is an attempt to convince not just you, but also themselves. These are inauthentic people trying to compensate for their feelings of powerlessness.
Now for the good news!
Increasing your self-confidence will not give you a big ego.
It will increase your integrity and strength along with your joy and self-love.
You can start to increase your self-confidence as soon as you take the first step toward achieving one of your dreams because you’ll know that you’re honoring your commitment to yourself. The more steps you take, the more your self-confidence will grow because you are taking action. With each action you take, the more your fear will diminish and your confidence will grow.
When you begin to trust in your own integrity, you will begin to connect with infinite personal power.
In ÒYou Can Work Your Own MiraclesÓ, Napoleon Hill discusses the growth of his own self-confidence that occurred when, totally unprepared, he started working for Andrew Carnegie. He said that, instead of revolting or shivering with fear, he started looking for the seed of an equivalent benefit that always is carried in every circumstance of adversity.
We can all benefit from applying this tactic to our circumstances.
Focusing on the benefits takes our focus off the fears we feel so we can more easily take action.
Hill said that throughout his life, whether changes had been voluntary or involuntary, good or bad, he wasn’t afraid. He knew that, while he might not have control over the circumstances, he had control over his reaction to those circumstances.
He believed that we are where we are and what we are because of our daily habits.
He began to challenge his own thinking and actions and changed them from ones that had led to failure to those of mastery. He has left us some of the greatest books on self-confidence ever written.
Another type of dishonesty that sets us up for failure is saying “yes” to too many people and overextending ourselves.
Your intention is to make them happy and gain their approval.
The reality is that you spread yourself too thin and end up breaking some of your commitments or not delivering at the level you know you could.
Your first agreement needs to be with yourself.
When you overextend yourself and break that agreement, you pay the price of loss of self-esteem, loss of self-trust, loss of self-respect, confusion, exhaustion, and loss of others’ trust.
Remember, all of your agreements are with yourself. Take them seriously. Only make agreements you plan to keep. Write them down and renegotiate them when necessary even if you’re afraid that some others might not like it.
The great payoff in this is that you will begin to trust your own intuition, heart, and mind.
This is the beginning of owning your own life and true self-confidence.