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One of the things I've discovered about really smart and successful people is that they have massive amount of self-confidence.
It would be great if all of us were born and raised to be confident, but we know that just isn’t true. I know when I was first going into business for myself in 1998, I was not 100% confident that I would be successful. I can remember one incident right before I started where I had what could probably be called a small panic attack about starting my business. I laid on a hotel bed in Southern California and was overwhelmed with FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). I’ve also made plenty of mistakes along the way that made me question my abilities. Eventually I overcame the doubts and now I overcome any fear much faster than in the past.
If you want to start your own business, share a belief with the world, or be a public speaker you are going to need to muster up your self-confidence. I've summarized the basics of self-confidence into three beliefs that you have to start repeating to yourself. These beliefs are going to take time to absorb and become part of your daily mindset. But if you can start adopting these new mindsets, your self-confidence will increase rapidly and dramatically.
Have something to say to the world. A mission, a path, a massive goal, or a methodology that people need to hear. Oftentimes, I see people that want to be more self-confident or outgoing, but they have no idea what to say. They know they want the attention, but they have no idea what they're going to teach, what they would sell, or who would buy it. Have something to say. Have a belief, a strong opinion or a contrarian view point that people are interested in listening to. When you are the kind of person that has a strong opinion, people will listen to you. You'll feel better when you begin speaking; people will follow you and you will be considered a leader.
Don't have much to say?
Spend time figuring out what you believe in, what things you don't believe in, and what things you can do to help people. Then write these down in an easy-to-understand format, then find a tribe or a group of people that will follow you and have the same beliefs you have. Once you have a tribe and a group of people that will follow you, you will gain more confidence because you'll be around similar minded people with similar understandings, goals, and destinations as you.
Understand that you are not a perfect person. I know entrepreneurs that want to be on TV more or do more public speaking, but they are absolutely terrified that they are not going to do a great job. They're afraid they’re going to make a mistake. They're afraid they're going to forget something. They're afraid they're going to look like a fool. They're going to trip. Oftentimes, you'll see this when people want to run classes or do conferences. It's very easy to sit by yourself and broadcast from a webcam. It's much harder to go in front of a group of 5,000 people staring at you and present the same information. One of the things I tell people is that they need to understand that you and I and everybody that's ever done anything risky is going to make a mistake. You must put yourself out there. You must understand that mistakes are part of growth. Mistakes are part of success. In order to grow something and do something right, sometimes you have to do something wrong, sometimes several times.
So, understand that you're going to make mistakes. But, luckily, most of the time people are not going to notice your mistakes. And lastly, remember that even if you do make a mistake, people are generally going to be very understanding of it. The net result and benefit to their lives is going to out-weigh the mistake.One of the things that's made me more self-confident is realizing that I am the answer to someone's problem. I am the answer to someone's prayer. Right now, you have knowledge and wisdom in your head that somebody online or in your life around you are begging to hear. They cannot wait. They are in pain, whether financially, spiritually, physically, or relationship-wise. Somebody around you is waiting for your solution and more than likely you have something in your head that would solve their problem and alleviate their pain. It may not be a major pain, it may just be like a minor itch of some sort, but it doesn't matter. You know something. If you're someone who's been on this planet for a couple of decades, you have smarts and wisdom that can really benefit somebody else's life. Once you realize that and make it your purpose to share what you know and benefit other people's lives, you will have a lot more self-confidence. This will then wrap around back to number one, which is that you'll have something to say.
Having self-confidence can do a lot of things for you both with business and in your personal lives. It can make you a better public speaker, a better entrepreneur, a better mother, a better father, and just a better person overall.
In our world of entrepreneurship, you're going to have to be competent in your abilities which will lead to confidence in your craft. Not confident that you're perfect, but confident that most of the time you're going to have a path and a destination and the right answers for people to follow. Someone who has self-confidence is considered a leader and people will follow leaders.
If you want to be a leader in your industry, start working on your self-confidence with these three things.
"But I am just a nobody..."
How many times have you had those thoughts?
The thoughts that come in right after you have had an audacious goal, an incredible dream, or a world-changing idea that sounds almost too crazy and insane when uttered out loud ...
How many times have you stopped yourself from going after what you want, because your fear and doubt tells you that you don't stand a chance?
As an extremely private person by nature, I never had much of an urge to share my stories or experiences.
And until very recently, I didn't think I was ever going to share this story publicly.
But in a world where people are becoming increasingly apathetic to suffering, I feel compelled to share my story, in the hopes that it will inspire you to find the hero within yourself.
I believe that every single one of us, should we choose to, can invoke a powerful spirit within us to transform our lives and help make the world a better place.
So here we go ...
Over 4 years ago, while I was traveling in the Netherlands, I met a girl. She was 22 and I was 25.
She was unlike anyone else I had ever met. She had strange, peculiar interests in seemingly polarizing things.
On one hand, she was deeply fascinated with the occult, she possessed objects like the skulls of animals, a model replica of a human skull, and many other odd symbols of darkness.
On the other hand, she had a strong love for symbols of innocence, such as collecting stuffed toys (rather seriously) and wearing onesies. The many books that she had indicated she loved art, and that she had a very acute visual sense.
She was very gentle and often displayed deep compassion for those who had been marginalized by society.
It soon became clear to me that despite being 3 years younger than me, this girl possessed a deep wisdom about life that I could not yet understand.
Even though she was quiet, reserved, and extremely guarded with her feelings, I was immediately captivated by her mysterious sense of self-expression ...
She bluntly rejected me multiple times after I told her I was interested in her romantically.
She listed out all the practical reasons why she wouldn't date me. I was a foreigner (she didn't want any long-distance relationships), I was a regular pot smoker, and I was too much of a "cool guy" (as I would later find out, what she really meant was that I acted too much like a stereotypical douchebag).
It was quite painful the way she rejected me, but still, I wanted to continue seeing her.
So, a platonic friendship ensued.
It wasn't long before I noticed the self-inflicted scars on the inside of her arms.
When I did, I held her arm out, ran my fingers over her scars and simply asked, "Why?"
She yanked her arm away and looked away quickly, sharply stating, "I was diagnosed with PTSD."
Sensing her reluctance to reveal anymore, I didn't probe any further.
We continued to meet. Our relationship progressed ... We got closer.
One evening, after hours of talking, we slept together.
She continued noting her reluctance to be with me ... But she never stopped meeting me.
Pretty soon, I was spending every single day with her in her tiny one-bedroom apartment. I extended my stay in the Netherlands to 3 months and for the last 2 months, I stayed at her place.
One day, during a seemingly innocuous conversation, we started talking about the future ...
As she started talking about her future, I noticed a deep anxiety setting in...
She started talking about the obstacles in her way and her anxiety started to get even worse. Tears started to form in her eyes as she curled into a ball and hugged herself.
Not knowing what to do, I tried to convince her that her fears were unfounded, but that did nothing.
The expression on her face started to turn into a look of sheer despair. Her eyes gazed past me into the distance as she started crying, her nails digging deep into the side of her arms. She had become so entrenched in a state of absolute fear that nothing I said or did would even get acknowledged.
Desperate to ease her pain but clueless on what to do, I hugged her close and held her tight, repeatedly whispering to her, "It's going to be okay ..."
In what felt like years, minutes passed ...
She starts getting calmer, and she eventually apologized for "freaking out".
I would later discover pieces of her dark history.
She was originally born in Poland. When she was 3, she was left under the care of her grandfather.
Instead of caring for her and protecting her like he had promised, he sexually abused her for months in secret. He told her that if she told anyone, they would think that it was her fault and hate her for it. Ashamed and afraid, her 3-year-old mind suppressed the memory ... Her once bright and exciting world turned dark and frightening.
Her parents divorced several years later, and she was left to live with her father and her sister in Poland.
As her father struggles to cope with the stress of the divorce, he started losing control over himself in fits of rage and would viciously beat her sister. She recounted an incident where she became so afraid he was going to kill her sister that she stepped in to defend her sister during a beating. Fortunately, that act of courage snapped him out of his rage and made him stop. She was 10 at the time.
She eventually leaves with her sister to go live with her mother in the Netherlands.
As the small, strange, foreign, and quiet girl who barely speaks the local language, she quickly became an easy target for bullying. School was a nightmare. They threw food at her, called her names, and played pranks on her on a daily basis.
One day, as she was walking home from school, two girls whom she never met pushed her down an escalator and started beating her up. When they eventually left, she picked herself up and went home.
But that incident had made her terrified of going out, and she fell into a state of deep depression. Eventually, she decided that she finally had enough ... and attempted to kill herself by slitting her own wrist.
Her attempt failed and her mother admitted her into a mental hospital for rehabilitation.
She was 16. It was during this time in the mental ward where she finally experienced some reprieve. With the help of a psychologist, now 13 years later, memories of her childhood abuse resurfaced, and she was finally able to start healing from that wound.
She was also diagnosed as a high-functioning autistic, which helped her understand why she behaved so differently from others. A year later, the mental hospital was forced to release her due to financial constraints.
Not wanting to return home, she got a small job in conjunction with a student loan and rented a tiny room in a shared apartment.
Shortly after, she befriended a man. He was sweet to her at first and they eventually started dating. He took advantage of her vulnerability and gained her trust. But slowly, as their relationship progressed, he became more and more abusive. What started off as emotional manipulation became full-on beatings. He put out cigarettes on her, violated her, and even threatened to stab her while holding a knife.
She would eventually break free from his manipulative grip, but not after suffering emotional and physical scars.
Upon learning of her difficult past, I experienced a powerful mix of grief, anger, and admiration ...
As our relationship deepened, I wanted nothing more than to help her see a brighter future. If I could give her hope, that would mean more to me than anything else I had ever done in my life.
The first thing I did was move to the Netherlands to be with her. The process wasn't easy, but I managed to do it in 3 months. We have lived together ever since.
She had always wanted to visit Japan, Disneyland, and a whole bunch of other places, but never had the chance due to her financial circumstances.
At the time when I met her, I was a struggling digital marketer who had just dropped out of college in pursuit of the "internet lifestyle". My income fluctuated tremendously, some months I made a few thousand, some months I made nothing. It was nothing to brag about and definitely not enough to travel and live indiscriminately. So, if you have ever been led to believe that particular endeavor is easy ... Trust me, it's not.
But the one thing that it does give you is the freedom and ability to decide just how far you want to take things.
And now I had a powerful reason beyond myself to do whatever is necessary to create a thriving business.
It took a little over a year before things started to take off...
We moved out of our crappy apartment, went to Disneyland in Paris, stayed in Japan for 1 month, and went out on many other adventures.
She had always been fascinated with Chow Chows (a rare dog breed) but she was afraid of dogs because of a biting incident when she was a child.
So together, we tracked the breed down ... It took about 18 months and living in Poland for 1 month before we were finally able to get the puppy ... But we eventually did and he's part of our little family now.
Slowly but surely, I witnessed how the powerful light of hope transformed her outlook on life ... The bouts of despair occurred significantly less frequently ... She had less anxiety and she started engaging her interests more actively ...
Now, I definitely do not dare claim responsibility for any of that. She was the one who had to go through the fight. And I have not always been supportive ... I have made many horrible mistakes, hurt her both intentionally and unintentionally ... But having been able to take part in her healing process has meant more to me than anything else.
There's a lot more that I wanted to share, such as how my rage almost destroyed everything and how I met a true warrior who transformed my perspective, but I think this story has gone on for too long ...
In a world of ever-increasing apathy, there has never been a time more critical than now that we look inwards upon ourselves to find powerful reasons to do what is right in this world ... For there are far too many monsters out there who are looking to exploit the vulnerable.
One of my favorite quotes is from a man named Edmund Burke, who once famously stated, "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
You may not be able to think of yourself as a hero in the grand sense.
But everyone has the capacity to be the hero in their own story...
For it is not only through a journey of service that we will create a better world, but its also where we will find meaning and transform ourselves into happier, stronger, and more fulfilled individuals.
Shift your focus to those who need you. Be willing to bear the burden of their suffering, so that you may look past your own insecurities in service of a greater good.
When I say the world needs you, I am being sincere and truthful.
The world truly does need you.
Originally posted at Reddit by /u/th_danche
It is a series of common behaviors that permit an otherwise normal individual to rise above normality to alter paradigms. What makes a myth key to transforming oneself? To begin most people have been programmed in school and at home to conform and to grow up and leave their imaginative ways to the children. They are told to go to work and become a slave – the traditional way -- and to live life in the slow lane.
The world’s visionaries have not been so molded or have altered that mode to fit their needs. The have a strong sense of self often born of a willingness to be different. When that is coupled with a mythical mentor that is larger-than-life, the possibilities open up vast opportunities. Most people are unwilling to play in such an arcane arena. But those who can emulate a hero are destined to more than they thought possible.
Can you do that? Can you play in the bigger field of possibility?
For me the transformations started to come when I started paying attention to things that people blow off as bullshit. People that lift others up. Listening to stories of people that had worse conditions that I did but somehow managed to drag themselves out of the crap. It helped reset my perspective and shut down that part of my brain that wanted to whine about what I didn't have and couldn't do. I believe the formal term for this is "self-limiting belief".
A short list of your self-limiting beliefs might be:
I can go on and on. That list above took me about 60 seconds to crank out. If I spent an hour on self-limiting beliefs, I could generate 1-200. I've seen them. I've heard them. And for every one I have heard, I can find somebody who overcame that belief to do amazing things on this planet.
My point is: You are Superman the day you start believing you are Superman Play bigger. And lift others with you while you start your journey.
When you look at your heroes and the people you admire in your personal life and business, you see the money they make, the attitude they have, their love life, their goals, their cars, their other physical possessions. But one of the most subconscious things you notice about them is that they appear very self-confident. People that are successful or that are accruing “success” have an air about them. They feel confident in everything they do and say. They don’t care about whether they curse and their attitude about life is that they will succeed with everything they do. It seems that everything they touch is perfection, and they are never worried about making mistakes.
You’ve probably seen this in successful people and wondered, “How do they get that? I’d like to have that too.” I can tell you that someone who’s gone through almost 5 decades in life that that self-confidence you see is key to your personal and professional success. Nothing in life can be accomplished without self-confidence.
Now I’m not saying that being self-confident doesn’t make you not afraid of anything. You can still be afraid while being self-confident. But being self-confident means that you know that what you are doing is heading in the right direction, and there are rewards on the other side of fear.
If you’re reading this, you were likely searching the internet on “how to become more self-confident”. I wish I had a magic pill for you. I wish I had a magic e-course, or a magic wand, or some easy way to turn you in a more self-confident person. I don’t.
The truth is that self-confidence comes with practice.
However, what I can do is I can enable you to be more self-confident by rote and by repetition by giving you a list of things you can do in the next 7 days to be more self-confident. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and start taking notes because if you abide by the following list of things to do in the next 7 days, you will walk out the other side being more skilled, more confident, and a lot further on your path towards your personal and professional success. Here is a list of tasks that you can complete over the next 7 days to be more self-confident.
#1. Review And Celebrate Your Recent Successes.
Review your past 12 months and list 5 of the things that you’ve accomplished. They could be major or minor tasks. They could be a promotion in your job. They could be a new skill that you learned. They could be a physical feat. They could be a repair that you did on your house or something that you built with your hands, or maybe even a new relationship, or a new baby in the household. My goal with this is for you to see that you can accomplish any small task that you really want to do. It will also start your checklist of goals that you completed.
If you want to be more self-confident, one of the best things you can do is look at where you’ve gone so far and what you’ve accomplished. By reviewing your accomplishments of the past 12 months you’ll probably find out there were things you accomplished you didn’t realize you had. And that might put a smile on your face and remind you going forward that progress can be made no matter how slow.
#2. Dress Better to Feel Better.
My second tip for you on building self-confidence is to start dressing better. About 20 years ago, the world went casual. What I mean is the business world stopped dressing formally in suits, and jackets, and ties. Eventually the world got to the more casual jeans and t-shirt of environment. What we notice now is that people that dress NICE are the weird ones that stand out. It’s rare to see a suit.
Why should you dress better?
First of all, I’ve noticed that when I’m dressed better, I feel better about myself. I look better. I’m treated better. And when I’m treated better, I respect myself more, and I respect those around me more. I’m sure you’ve heard that first impressions are important, and I can’t emphasize this enough. They definitely are. From the moment you walk into a business meeting, a partnerships meeting, a new venture, or a coffee shop, people are looking at you and judging you, and people will treat you differently depending on the way that you’re dressed. You can fight it and disagree with it, but it is the way of our world. If a goal of yours is to get more self-respect, (and that SHOULD always be a goal then a good start for this is dressing better. People will see your appearance and regard the things you say as being more honest, more truthful, and more trustworthy, and you will have an easier way getting to your goals in life and in business just by projecting confidence in the way you dress and expressing your knowledge.
#3. Focus On Your Physical Health To Boost Your Energy.
The third thing you can do the next 7 days is go join a gym. I’ve always thought a gym was an interesting place to get self-confidence because everybody that goes to a gym is at the same level. In all good gyms, everybody is equal. There are no egos. Everybody is out of shape and trying to reach a personal goal.
Everybody has different personal goals but the nice part about a gym is every single time you walk out of there, you know treated your body a little bit better. You’ve accomplished a physical goal, and you’re on your way to being in great shape. The better you feel about your body and the better shape that you’re in, the healthier you are. You’ll feel more confident that you can get through the hurdles in life.
Did you know that when you step into a gym, you are ahead of most people around you? Most people do not take care of themselves. Back in the days of the caveman, we were more active.
In the information age, we sit around on our butts a lot more, and we’re getting unhealthy. If you go to the gym, you’re going to be making instant progress compared to your coworkers and peers. And you’ll feel better about your body.
#4. Learn Something New.
The next thing you should do the next 7 days to feel more confident about yourself is go to the library and get a how-to book for something you’ve always want to learn. Dollar for dollar, a library is the best investment you can have to increase your knowledge and wisdom about any topic. Most libraries are free and huge. And every single facet of human knowledge and history can be found in a library. Everything you want to know from building a computer to repairing a car to putting plumbing in your house can be found in that building that is probably less than 10 miles from your house. Get to a local library, pick up a book or two on something you’ve always wanted to learn even if you have no intention of actually doing that task. At least reading a book about the topic will give you the confidence to know that could attack a task with some wisdom.
Being smarter about a topic has always made more confident to talk about it.
The same will happen to you.
#5. Get Into The Habit Of Creating And Accomplishing Small Goals.
After you visited a library, then look at setting 2 small goals for the next week and complete them. This also helps your self-confidence by showing you that small things within your reach can be accomplished vs. focusing on big goal and getting frustrated. We don’t accomplish big goals with a single task. Big goals are just several small goals put together. Success, and momentum begets more success and momentum. What you should always be doing is coming up with a way to knock small things off your bucket list or off your checklist, so you can say, “Yes, I got that done. Now, what’s next?” What you’ll notice is that the smaller goals that you knock off your bucket list, you are all of a sudden are accomplishing your medium and your big goals because all medium and big goals are a bunch of small goals put together.
Another reason I want you to set 2 small goals for the next week and then complete them is you need constant reminders that you can accomplish things you put your mind to. Don’t worry about aiming for a big, giant goal because you’ll scare yourself and you will likely miss it, but if you set up a bunch of small goals, you can see those. Those are tangible. You can feel those. You can reach those. If you want to walk a mile, start off taking 5 steps, and then 5 more steps, and then 5 more steps, and then 5 more steps. Then suddenly, even before realizing it, you’ve walked a mile. That’s the way goals work.
Start small, shoot small, relish the success and all of a sudden, you’ve knocked down a very large goal.
#6. Making It Hard To Ignore Your Goals.
After you set 2 small goals and completed them, then what I want you to do is to make up some signs and put them around your house. On these signs, I want you to remind yourself of your purpose in life and of one major goal you have coming up. Why do this? If you’re sitting at your computer watching motivational videos, or reading a blog post like this, or listening to motivational music, or reading a motivational book, you’ll feel great and energized. But then you must get up and go back to the real world. While you’re in your kitchen, or in your bathroom, or in your bedroom, or in the shower, you might forget about the happiness that you felt while you were reading a book or while you were watching a motivational video.
If you take a sign … just a simple 8-1/2 by 11 piece of paper, print out a reminder of a major goal in life or a reminder of something on this list, you’ll be constantly reminded as you wake up every single morning of the things keeping you motivated. When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, you’ll have a sign right there that reminds you about a fitness goal. Then as you are in the kitchen and that sign is on the refrigerator and you are contemplating eating good food or bad food, that sign will remind you about your fitness goal.
A piece of paper is unemotional. It’s black and white and doesn’t let you forget. Then, when you go to your job, keep that same sign up in your cubicle or on a wall around your office, and it will again remind you of your fitness goal. Eventually you won’t need these signs, but in the beginning, it’s going to help remind you of your goals when you don’t have your list of goals in front of you.
#7. Cleanse Your Friends To Make Room For Better Ones.
You should review your friends and consider dropping negative people out of your life. What they say about “You are the result of the 5 people you hang around the most,” is very true. When you hang around positive, successful people, you’ll eventually become positive and successful as a result. But the opposite is also true. When you hang around negative people, people that are constantly in your way, they’re not seeing what you’re trying to accomplish. They don’t have high goals and high aspirations and, in some cases, will purposely drag you down so you don’t accomplish yours. I know it may sound mean.
But you really have to review your friends.
Look for the people that aren’t really into accomplishing things and limit your time with them. It will save you energy, and you can put your energy towards better things in life and towards accomplishing bigger and better things with people who are on the same path that you are on of accomplishing bigger and better goals.
#8. Join A Toastmasters Club To Boost Your Speaking Self-Confidence.
Are you fearful of networking or speaking in public because you are afraid of looking like a fool?
Join a Toastmasters club. Toastmasters is an organization that’s been around for several decades. The goal of Toastmasters is to help people become more confident via public speaking. One of the most terrifying things that you can do in this world is speak in front of a group. It takes a tremendous amount of self-confidence and lack of fear to stand up in front of a group of a thousand people and tell them about your idea, tell them about your thoughts, tell them about your dreams and your goals. It terrifies most people.
However, a Toastmasters club is a place where people like this gather to work on the fear together. It’s a judge-free, fail-safe environment where you can go to get constructive criticism about your speaking skills. Once you get more confident about your speaking skills, this will reverberate throughout the rest of your skill set and into the self-confidence you are building.
If you can get better at a pretty amazing skill like public speaking, you’ll realize everything else that’s holding you back, will lift off your shoulders.
Like I said before, public speaking is a huge fear for most people. However, if you join the local Toastmasters club in the next 7 days, you can start to get rid of that fear of public speaking, which will give you more self-confidence in all areas of your life.
#9. Get A Personal Audit From A Trusted Friend.
One of the last things you can do is ask a close, personal friend that you trust (and someone who’s on the same path as you) for a personal critique of your flaws and the things that you do well. This is something that’s very scary to do, and you should only do it with somebody that you have a high level of trust with. What you want them to do is to give you a list of your attributes that they see are good about you and a list of things where you can improve.
Now, of course, we want to review the areas that you can improve up on because these are just good flaws to see from an outside perspective. But I want you to pay attention and focus on the things they tell you that are good about yourself.
Often times when we’re doing some introspective review, we don’t realize the assets that we have. Maybe there’s a particular skill that we have that’s just built-in that we take for granted, but it amazes somebody else. It helps to get an outside perspective on that, so you can understand your assets and realize that there are some things you’re just naturally good at, and maybe you can expand on those to make yourself more self-confident.
#10. Limit Your Time In Front Of The Tube.
The last thing I want you to do to help your self-confidence is look at tuning out the television news that you watch. The challenge of watching too many things on TV is that we see other people’s lives (or a polished version of them). We see other people’s failures. We see other people’s successes. The more you watch other people’s failures, you’ll end up getting vain. And the more you watch other people’s successes, you’ll end up getting jealous and bitter. Vanity, and jealousy, and bitterness are things you do not need in your life. They will interfere in the way of you building up your self-confidence.
Look at cutting back on the television news and television shows that are negative that are going to drag you down and hold you back from building your self-confidence. What should you do now?
Go back and read this list again and find 3 things you can do in the next 7 days that you know you can achieve. Of all the things mentioned above, one of the most important things you can do is to make a list of a high-level goals, print 5 copies of that, and put that around your house. Take care of that immediately. Then Consider at joining a gym and a Toastmasters club to help some other areas where you need improvement.
We will gladly give our time, attention and money to a person who knows what they are talking about. Or at least thinks they know they are talking about. But self-confidence does not come naturally to a lot of people. I think our upbringing drastically affects whether we leave the nest with a ton of self-confidence or very little.
Self-confidence is the ability to believe and display the attitude that you know what you are doing. It is a virtue desired by employers, mates, and friends. The world is a beautiful balance of people who have varying levels of self-confidence. The people on one end of the scale are fearful that they are not good enough or don't know enough to open up and share their wisdom. The people on the extreme other end of the scale of self-confidence are brash, arrogant, and generally unpleasant to be around. If you can find a way to be confident but be just below the extreme, the world will love you and eat you up. They will applaud you and live vicariously through you. And as a bonus - they will pay good money to be around you and learn from you.
Here are the mindsets that you should remember when you are not quite sure of what you are getting ready to tackle - or even if you should be doing it:
Do less wishing and comparing, and more DOING. If you spend a lot of your time watching people that are at the level of life where you want to be, you will become jealous very fast (click here to see my post of being jealous of successful people) . It OK to take some time to study how they got to that level. But I would recommend severely restricting that time. Self-confidence comes doing something that you've never done before. Spend more time working on completing things you think are impossible. Start small. Try to make incremental steps in things that are just a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Then keep expanding those. Keep finding ways to put yourself in situations that make you a little uncomfortable. Want to write a book? Quit reading about how to write a book and start writing. Keep it down to just a paragraph a day. Eventually your speed will increase and before you know it you will have a completed book (something that I am working on right now too). The same rules goes for being in sales, for public speaking, or for any of the other numerous areas where people don't feel sure of themselves. Don't shoot for the big improvements. Work on the small ones and you will wake up one day and be sitting next to that guy/gal who has the same self-confidence that you don't think you have.
Know that you will make mistakes and fall. It is 100% guaranteed. But taking non-physical risks will rarely kill you. I believe that some people suffer from a lack of self-confidence due to the fear of failure and embarrassment. I will tell you firsthand that both will happen, and neither one has ever killed me. When you attempt to do something that you are not confident you can complete, understand that you just might crash and burn. But your desire for achievement needs to be just a little higher than your fear. The fear will never (and should never) go away. The fear is what helps you plan and protect yourself. But the fear should not stop the forward progress.
Believe that there are plenty of people want to know what you know and be where you are. Several years ago, I gave a presentation at a Toastmasters conference that talked about to get paid for your knowledge. (If you'd like to see the video click here.) One of the first topics I covered is believing that you have something to offer to the world. Whether you are 20 or 90, you've experienced some things that nobody else around you know about - but they want to know what you know. I made the audience yell "I believe" several times because I wanted to cement that in their head. You must believe in your story and your wisdom. It may seem very trivial to you. But it has shaped you in ways that you will carry to your grave. Be confident in your wisdom and your history because someplace out there, you have a fan that is waiting to hear from you.
Bonus:
When you see people that appear "self-confident" and wish you were more like them, remember this: They may have the same fears and insecurities that you do. Fifteen minutes before you saw them, they may have been sitting in their car doing self-talk to get up the courage to do what you are seeing them do now. Some of the people that appear confident in public are terribly insecure in private. They are just really good actors, and their desire for accomplishment is greater than their fear of failure.
What do you think?
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Everybody has self-doubt. Even the most confident person you know is wondering on some level if they are on the right path. Self-doubt is normal and should be considered a safety mechanism that constantly has you reevaluating your choices.
Don't let self-doubt hinder you from making the choices you need to live a bigger, fuller life. Question your thoughts. But then make fast, smart choices with the best information you have at the time. The people in life that are held back are those that get paralyzed by their self-doubt. Exercise emotional intelligence. Be aware of your self-doubt. But then push through it.
There are amazing things waiting on the other side for people that embrace fear and use it to their advantage.
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