22: 5 Strategies for Building Self-Confidence

Welcome to the Women's Success Coach Podcast. A podcast created to inspire growth and to help you learn, achieve, and evolve in your life ongoing regardless of your age. I'm your host, certified coach, and licensed therapist Karen Vincent, and I'm here to guide you and provide you with concrete tips and strategies you can implement in your life. I'm also here to inspire you, challenge you, and cheer you on so that you can create the life of your dreams and beyond. In today's Shorty podcast episode of the Women's Success Coach Podcast, I'm talking all about self-confidence. I think that way too often we look to others for validation instead of validating ourselves and building confidence from within. If you would like to feel more confident, know that there are some specific things that you can do that will gradually build up your confidence. And these strategies don't need to take a lot of time each day, but what they will require is some level of consistency. My belief after working with hundreds of clients on building self-confidence is that increasing self-awareness, increasing positive self-talk and being open to personal development are three things that really support the process of increasing self-confidence. In this episode, I will have you consider why you might be lacking the self-confidence you desire, which will help you raise your self-awareness, and then I will provide you with specific strategies you can implement to help you grow your self-confidence. These strategies are so empowering because when you learn to use them effectively, you are no longer at the mercy of others to make you feel good about yourself or to make you feel like you are capable of having something or doing something. Of course if you get external validation, that's the icing on the cake, but you will no longer feel like it's necessary for you to feel good about yourself. And since this is a Shorty episode, I'm going to dive right on in. Hello, my friend. I hope you're doing well. I hope you're checking in with yourself, and I hope you're taking care of your own needs and not only the needs of others. And you're here, so that's a sign that you're doing something for yourself. So take a little bit of time to just kind of acknowledge that and celebrate that. Then let's jump on in. As I mentioned in the introduction, I first want to briefly explain why you may be lacking self-confidence, and to do that, let's start with the feelings that you likely experience with a lack of self-confidence. The feelings that I hear clients associate with a lack of self-confidence include insecurity, anxiety, fear, self-doubt, isolation, depression, frustration, helplessness, anger, a lack of motivation, and jealousy. If you can relate to any of these feelings associated with a lack of self-confidence, it's because of the thoughts that you have about yourself. Now, these thoughts could be,"I'm not good enough","I'm not lovable", I'm not worthy"."I can't do it","I always mess things up","I will never measure up","I don't fit in", or"I wish I was more like and then you can fill in the blank. It might be a characteristic, it might be a person that you're comparing yourself to, but I wish I was more like blank. This list could go on and on. And if you are a human being with a human brain, you've likely said one or more of these types of statements to yourself at some point, or maybe these are things you're saying currently. While statements like this may seem harmless, that is far from the truth. They can build and develop over time, and they often start in childhood when either you are told that you're not good enough in some way, or you had an experience which resulted and you telling yourself that you're not good enough, or some version of that. When this happens as a kid, you don't fully understand because you're operating with a kid brain that's not fully developed. But what you do understand is that the thought creates feelings that don't feel good at all. And as humans, one of our main drives is to avoid pain or discomfort. So you start to tell yourself that you somehow don't measure up, which results in you feeling awful, and then you tell yourself that you never want to feel like that again. And this is where the tricky part comes in. That emotional side of your brain that wants to protect you from uncomfortable feelings, starts to look for all the ways you may not be good enough, lovable, capable, acceptable, et cetera. And it highlights them for you, whether they're fact or fiction. That emotional part of your brain thinks that if it looks for all the things that could make you lack confidence, that you can somehow protect yourself from them. But it has the opposite effect because when this is happening, your brain is highlighting all the things that fit this narrative, whether fact or perceived, and it's dismissing or not placing importance on all the ways you do measure up or on all the things that should make you feel confident about yourself. Not helpful. right? Now, as I mentioned, this is the way your brain works if it's unsupervised, but it does not mean that this is the way it has to be. There are specific strategies that you can implement that will help you build self-confidence from within, so it doesn't matter what other people think or say, You will your own self-worth, and as a result, you'll take bigger and bolder actions. As someone who's a therapist, as well as a coach, I do want to highlight that if you have some trauma in your past that you've not resolved, working on that with a licensed therapist can make a huge difference as well. These strategies can also be helpful for you, but if you are in this situation, you owe it to yourself to not have that trauma negatively impact your life moving forward. So let's get to it and let's go build some confidence. Now I'm going to offer you five strategies that you can try. You can try one or you can try them all. The one thing you'll always hear me caution is to start with one thing and focus on just that one strategy until you determine if it's helpful or not before adding another strategy. The reason for this is you don't want to try to do too many things at one time, because that brain of yours will freak out and tell you to stop all of them. So strategy number one, practice self-awareness. Start to pay attention to your thoughts and beliefs about yourself. Are you speaking negatively about yourself? Do you focus on what you think you didn't do well and ignore the things that you are doing well? Are you comparing yourself to others and feeling bad about yourself? Once you raise your self-awareness by answering questions like this, you can start to challenge the negative beliefs you may be holding about yourself. The other strategy, within this strategy that can be helpful, is to spend a minute or two each day and write down one positive thing about yourself, or one thing you did well that day. Start to balance out that brain, so it's not only focusing on the negative things. Strategy number two, step out of your comfort zone. Now, bear with me. I know that this is likely one of the last things you feel like doing when you lack self-confidence. However, it's also one of the best ways to improve self-confidence. When you challenge yourself by doing something you've not done before, you push your boundaries and realize that you're more capable than you think, even if it doesn't go perfectly on the first try. Strategy number three, visualize success. Your brain does not know reality from what you perceive or visualize. And this is why you can think about something that's not yet happened and experience stress. It works in a positive way as well. If there's something you'd like to do, but you've been lacking the confidence to do it, take a few minutes or more each day and picture yourself doing it perfectly. Allow yourself to experience what it would look like and feel like if you achieved what it is you want to achieve, with as much detail as possible. Do this for a couple weeks and then decide what will be the first real action you'll take to make it a reality. And because you've been visualizing your success, your brain will already believe you can do it, which will result in that increased confidence that you're looking for. Strategy four, practice self-compassion. Don't hold yourself to unrealistic expectations, such as thinking you always need to do things perfectly or that you can't ever fail. My guess is you're your worst critic, and what I want you to do is treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding with which you would treat a friend, and remind yourself that everyone makes mistakes and everyone experiences setbacks. Strategy five, surround yourself with positivity. If you lack confidence, it's not wise to spend time with others who buy into your lack of confidence or even worse, with others who contribute to it Instead, spend time with supportive and positive people who uplift you and encourage you. If you don't already have people in your life who fit this role, make an effort to find some new people who do. There are so many online communities and people who are willing to connect and support one another that you can find your people out there somewhere if they're not in your immediate circle currently. So there you have it, five strategies to help you build self-confidence. But as I know, you know, just knowing these five strategies will not change anything. You have to take one and start to implement it. And as I do in all my sessions, I want to remind you that I really want you to take action that will help you get things feeling better for yourself. So let's take some action. Which strategy do you think will be most helpful for you as a starting point? Is it strategy one, practicing self-awareness? Do you know what kind of self-talk you have? If you do, is your self-talk an accurate narrative about yourself? If not, or if you're not sure, this may be a good strategy for you to start with. Maybe you should start with strategy two and step out of your comfort zone. Do you tend to shy away from anything that feels challenging or uncomfortable? If so, this may be the best way for you to start to increase your self-confidence. Start with something that feels like a stretch, but not totally impossible. Maybe you want to start with strategy three and visualize success. If you feel you really want something more in your life, but taking the first step feels too scary right now, visualizing your success might be a good place for you to start. Maybe you need to use strategy four and practice self-compassion. If you already have the self-awareness to know that you're hard on yourself, or that you're your own worst enemy and/or that you set standards for yourself that are much higher than you would set for anyone else, practicing self-compassion is a good strategy for you to start with. Or maybe you need to start with number five and surround yourself with positivity. If you are a glass half empty kind of person, someone who always focuses on the worst possible outcomes, or you are exposed to a lot of other people who fall into this category, you may want to start with creating a social network, which by the way, only needs to be one or two people, and you want this network to be positive, supportive, and encouraging. These are people who remind you of what you're capable of and who believe in you until you start to believe in yourself. I really hope you take some action, because you are likely far more capable and amazing than you think, and taking time to increase your self-confidence will have a huge payoff in your life on an ongoing basis. Oh, and one more thing. If you like my content and you enjoy reading, you may also want to check out my blog, and you can find it at www.karenvincentsolutions.com/blog. In my blog, you'll get more tips, strategies, and inspiration that will help you improve your overall wellbeing. And again, if you're interested in checking it out, you can go over to www.karenvincentsolutions.com/blog. That's a wrap. You should be proud of yourself for investing time in you, which is so critical for success and for overall life fulfillment. I look forward to having you join me for my next episode. And in the meantime, go click that subscribe button so you'll know when it's released, and you can also follow me on Instagram at Best Boss Lady Life that's at Best Boss Lady Life on Instagram. Also, remember that whatever it is that you're working on, you've got this and I'm here cheering you on.