Confidence is key! How many times have you heard that quote? Probably too many times to count, but nonetheless, it’s true! A major key to success is confidence in yourself, in your skills, and your abilities. So what happens to your level of success is you don’t have confidence…well that makes things a little bit harder to achieve. Self confidence is at an all time low and it is preventing many of you from achieving your goals, facing your fears, and reaching the success you’ve dreamed of in your mind. So for today’s episode we are going to discuss confidence, why you may not have it right now, and how to get it back, and so I hope to inspire you to Believe.
Believe and you can achieve…sounds simple right…not really. Having confidence in yourself can be one of the hardest things to do and one of the biggest barriers to overcome. How many times have you given up, quit, never started, started over, felt discouraged, or doubted yourself all because you lacked the confidence you needed to get started or continue working toward something that was important to you? So many of you are sitting on ideas that can change your life and the lives of others, but you won’t move on it because you aren’t confident. You don’t believe you can. You don’t believe you’re smart enough. You don’t believe you’re popular enough. You don’t believe you’re good enough. You don’t believe in you. This non-belief is enough to paralyze a person with negative thoughts about themselves and keep you stuck in the same place, wondering what if. But I’m hear to help you become more confident, because I want you to be successful. If a lack of confidence is the only thing keeping you from being who you were created to be then this episode is just for you!
So let’s talk about why your confidence may be low and most importantly how to get it back and be more confident. The first reason you may have low confidence is because of past failures. This is for the folks who’s confidence has degraded over time. You started strong…but after a few failures, a few set backs, a few times when things didn’t go as planned, a few times of not reaching the goal you set, a few times of being disappointed…you’re now lacking confidence in yourself. There’s nothing worse than working hard toward something only to come up short. It can make you reconsider everything you thought about yourself and your abilities. But I want you to understand, no, I need you to understand that failure is a necessary part of life! It should be embraced. To me, failure is a practice run for success. Even if you fail, still be confident in yourself. Now I know that’s hard to do, but let me give you an example of people who do this all the time and that is: athletes. Right now my tv has been fixed on tennis. The US Open is going on and I absolutely love watching tennis. Athletes amaze me because besides having this amazing physical ability, they have an even more amazing mental ability. To come back game after game, year after year of facing losses and to keep your confidence up amazes me. There are women playing like Taylor Townsend who has tried to the last 5 years to make it out of the first round and has failed to do so every time, but she never gave up and this year she has made it to the 4th round! There’s the GOAT Serena Williams who lost in the finals last year to Naomi Osaka and yet, here she is again, trying her best to go as far as she can. There is the young phenom CoCo Gauff who lost of Naomi Osaka on Saturday in an emotional match, but she didn’t lose confidence in herself and the very next day she went on the win her doubles match. How is it that these people can fail over and over again, feel sad and hurt, but still have enough confidence to keep coming back? Well what I’ve heard them say over and over again after they lose is that they look at the moment as a learning experience, and because of it they will become better. That is the difference between failing backwards and failing forward. You can let your failures propel you forward and increase your confidence because you now have another experience under your belt to learn from. It’s all about changing your thoughts and perspectives on failure. Failure is not a bad thing. Learn from it, grow from it, and become even more confident that you’ll do better and be better the next time. So don’t let failure be a confidence killer, let it be a confidence grower.
The next reason why your confidence may be low is because of past experiences such as your upbringing, toxic relationships, bullying, and trauma. Where as your failure may be something that happened recently, these past experiences are things that happened years ago, maybe even when you were a child, and you haven’t recovered from them yet. Let’s be honest, some of you were never given a chance to be confident. From childhood your parents didn’t instill confidence in you, in fact it was the exact opposite. Some of you have been told negative things about yourself since you were a kid and you are still trying to undo those hurtful things today. Some of you were in a toxic relationship for years that just wiped out your confidence. And some of you had your confidence taken by a traumatic event. As much as we like to think we can outgrow things that happen to use years ago, it’s not quite that easy. These memories don’t just fade away. Overcoming this is something that takes time and work. So one thing that I’ve seen happen to some individuals who have been hurt as children and they aren’t healed from it is that they project a pseudo confidence. It’s not real confidence, but it looks real. Most of the time it comes off very strong and abrasive because they are trying to cover up for their insecurities. They overcompensate their confidence by being mean, rude, degrading towards others, and prideful…all because they don’t know what true confidence looks like. True confidence doesn’t hurt others. It doesn’t put other’s down. So if you’ve suffered some difficult things as a child or in the past that has taken a toll on your confidence and you want it back here’s what you need to do. You need to heal. Healing may look like forgiving others. It may need therapy. It may mean reaching out to those who hurt you and having those difficult conversations. It may mean ending some relationships. It may mean taking time to get to know yourself. It may mean talking to that little girl inside of you that still believes those negative things she was told when she was little. Whatever it takes, you have to heal. Once the healing begins, then the real confidence can begin to increase. And if you need help with this just visit my website. A link to it will be in the description.
The next reason why you may lack confidence is…comparison! Yall should of know this would show up on the list. In this day and time, this may contribute the most to low confidence and self esteem. It has never been more easy to compare yourself. Back in the day you could only compare yourself to the kids in your class and neighborhood. Now, it can compare yourself to millions of people…that you don’t even know! How crazy is harmful is that? Many of you had plenty of confidence in your idea, your business, your hobby, and your talent until you started looking online at what other people were doing. Once that happened, your confidence fell through the floor. You began to believe that what you wanted to do didn’t compare or couldn’t compete with what other’s were doing. I’ve fallen into this thought trap before. The thought that hers is better than mine so I ought to just sit mine on the shelf. Social media can be a confidence drainer, if we let it. And I say if you let it because it is a choice. You have to realize that there is no need to compare. There is enough room for everyone to succeed, including you! Just like there is more than one brand of bread, more than one brand of clothing to buy, more than one doctor to go to, there can be more than one of whatever you are doing. So that’s the first part of beating comparison is the know that there is room for you. Now the second part to this is for those who think they can’t compete. Your confidence is shot because you think they are better than you, and my suggestion to you is to LEVEL UP! Make it so that you have no doubt about your greatness. Learn as much as you can. Train as much as you can. Gain as much knowledge that you can about whatever it is that you want to do. This is a major confidence booster. When you do this, you know, that you know, that you KNOW that you are great and that you can succeed, no matter who you are competing against. So stop the comparing, and get to working and learning.
The last reason that your confidence may be low is that you are putting ALL of your confidence in yourself. Now I know some of you are like huh? I thought I was suppose to have confidence in myself. Why yes, you are, but that’s only part of it. I want you to have confidence in you…but it’s even more important that you have confidence in the only who lives in you! If you only have confidence in your abilities, you will always come up short. Fear will always find a way to creep in. But when you put your confidence in the God that lives in you…you become unstoppable. Last week I was writing my prayer one morning and I asked God to increase my confidence. There were some things that I was sitting on and I knew it was because I lacked confidence in myself. I went to church that same day and the message was a remember to put your confidence in God. Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It doesn’t say I can do all things because I’m me. It says I can do all things through Christ. You have to be confident that if God gave you the idea, the gift, the talent, and the opportunity, that HE will see you to the end. Anytime I get nervous about doing something I hear God saying to me “do the work and I’ll do the rest.” He’s basically saying do what I told you to do and have confidence that I’ll open whatever door needs to be open. I’ll put you where you need to be. I’ll bring the clients. I’ll provide the listeners. I’ll give you the resources. Just do what I told you to do and have confidence in me! Alone we are not enough, but we God all things are possible. Knowing he’s on your side is the ultimate confidence booster. So put some scriptures in your spirit that remind you of who’s you are. Remind yourself of His plans for your life. Remind yourself of what he can do and put your confidence in the person who is control of everything.
So that’s it guys. That’s my take on why you may not have confidence and how to get it back. So I hope that you feel inspired to let failure grow your confidence and propel you toward success. To heal from past negative experiences that have kept your confidence bound, and to remember where your help comes from. With Him, your confidence will remain secure.
So until next time stay encouraged and inspire someone else along the way.