Increasing Self Confidence Part 1
Increasing Self Confidence:
The first thing you need to know is that it is already within you!
The second is that there are 3 key components to radiant self-confidence.
Trust, Feelings, and Beliefs.
All of these things come from within, making self-confidence something you can build without any external devices.
You may have heard me say or share this in other areas, but no amount of beautiful clothing can make up for a lack of self-confidence, but abundant self-confidence can give you the ability to wear anything you desire without second guessing yourself.
Self-Confidence is an incredible super power that goes beyond personal style and affects your every day life.
Over the next few weeks I will break down each of these 3 key components with you all.
There will also be an exercise to embody and make building your self-confidence a reality to go along with each.
So let's get into the first component - Trust:
The first key component to increasing self confidence is trust, and more specifically your ability to trust yourself.
This is not trusting yourself in the sense that you trust yourself to get through difficulties, (although that is valuable) and it is not about you being a trustworthy person to other people.
When it comes to trusting yourself in the sense of self-confidence it really means having your own back and being true to what matters most to you consistently.
It’s the more seemingly insignificant little things that make up our entire days, the things we keep putting off for another day, and the things we don’t feel urgency to do that can create incredible self-trust and confidence.
These things add up.
You can create consistent trust in yourself, or inconsistency and self-doubt with them.
When you keep putting off things you planned to do for yourself, this is when self-doubt starts to creep in and you may start to feel insecure about yourself - making it difficult to feel confident about what you are deciding to wear, or what to eat, to knowing that when you plan to do something it is as good as done.
Trusting yourself looks like:
Doing what you say you are going to do or planned to do. (No matter how big or how small, it all adds up).
Taking care of yourself.
Doing what you need to do for yourself, even when you don’t feel like it.
Having your own back.
Staying true to yourself.
It doesn’t look like:
Saying you will do something for yourself and hoping for the best, and then shrugging it off if you don’t follow through. (Start questioning why you are shrugging it off, and why you are not following through.)
Being perfect.
Beating yourself up if you don’t do something for yourself.
Second guessing / questioning if you’re making the right choices (you don’t have to get everything right).
Trust builds self-confidence because you are following through on the small things to the big things in your life that you decide you want to do, be, or have.
This does not have to be done perfectly.
Knowing that you are going to try your best and then have your own back through the process so that you can continually grow is what will actually build your trust.
I love this exercise that I learned through my coaching school (The Life Coach School)! Here is the Trust Exercise for you to practise and embody more trust with yourself.
I want this to be fun, and I want you to be able to see implementing these things into your life as something that interests you and not just as more work or a chore you need to do.
The exercise for creating trust is called “Dare of the Day” (from the life coach school).
(I will also share the type A thing that really helped me build trust with myself at the end too.)
Dare of the Day is really simple. You are giving yourself a dare to accomplish each day. Make it fun! Like you are daring yourself as a friend would.
I’ve done this specifically with clothes, daring myself to wear something I wouldn’t normally wear, whether it’s a colour or a pair of jeans.
It can also look like daring yourself to do the thing you’re putting off, today.
You might dare yourself to see yourself in the mirror for a minute without judgement.
Your dare can be anything, and nothing is to small. The goal is to accomplish it!
What I love about this exercise is you don’t have to go out and accomplish and tick off every single thing on your checklist, you get to build trust one day at a time with one fun dare that will light a fire inside of you!
My personal dare with the weather we are having was to actually wear jeans or pants today and style them and share them.
P.S. My type A thing that helped me build trust was putting every single thing in my google calendar at the beginning of the week (and when I say everything I mean everything, from free time, to work, morning routines, bedtimes, time to eat, etc.) and then setting the intention on a sticky note in multiple places that I was going to do EVERYTHING on my calendar.
For some this can seem boring, but my organizational mind eats this stuff up so it helped me honour all of the things I said I was going to do for myself, and it felt so good to look at my sticky notes and acknowledge that I committed to myself and did every single thing. And on the days I didn’t, I simply made sure I checked in with myself about what happened, so that I can help my self to do it the next time. And if it was something I still wanted to do I made time to do it.
Come back next week to learn about the second component (my favourite) to increase your confidence.
Love & Trust Yourself