Confidence is an Inner Game – 3 Practices to Create Your Own Confidence

If you’re like most people, your performance is stronger when your confidence is high (and, sure, excellent performance breeds confidence).  But performance is a tricky taskmaster. 

Who decides if, and when, your performance warrants praise?  When your confidence is tied to external circumstances, accolades, or the opinions of others, you are at the mercy of where the winds of praise take you. 

Also, if you’re dependent on positive feedback to feel confident, you’ll only ever do things you’ve successfully done in the past.  But where’s the fun in that?!  How can you try new things, stretch to your potential and risk failure (an essential component of growth and mastery) if having confidence requires stellar performance? 

Confidence is best developed and maintained when we stop outsourcing it to the people and circumstances around us. 

Confidence isn’t something that you just *have* or *don’t have*. 

Confidence is something you curate within yourself. 

Confidence is an inner game.

It’s time to unhook from needing outside validation to feel good. 

Here are 3 practices that will help you to curate your own confidence:

• Decide to Have Your Own Back: When someone uses the expression, “I have your back,” it means that they are behind you, supporting you, taking care of you, defending, and protecting you amid uncertainty, difficulty and danger.  What if you were this type of friend to yourself?  What if, when times get tough, instead of being the first in line to criticize and disparage yourself, you came to your own defense?  Deciding to have your own back means deciding to be a friend to yourself.  It means that even if others disparage you, you won’t turn on yourself.
• Upgrade Your Story: What’s the story you tell yourself for what’s possible for your life?  Your career? Your finances?  Your health?  Your relationships?  The story you’ve been telling has gotten you to where you are today AND it the same story that is setting the limits for what you create next.   Write out a few sentences about your background as it relates to an area of your life you want to improve.  Now, rewrite that story with YOU as the hero. Yep, you are the hero.  What changes in the story when you’re the hero, not the victim?  What’s new or different about how you see yourself?  How does this new story feel?  Practice telling your story in a way that reflects the highest and best of who you are.
• Choose Your Thoughts: According to the Cleveland Clinic, your brain is a three pound universe that processes 70,000 thoughts each day using over 100 billion neurons.  Most of these thoughts are unconscious and there’s no problem there. But when you experience emotional pain or discomfort, it’s helpful to tune in and observe the thoughts that are racing through your brain. (Working with a coach is pure gold for helping to uncover the hidden thoughts that are calling the shots!)

Why does this matter?  Because your thoughts, beliefs, and interpretations create your feelings.  And your feelings are the fuel that drive the actions you either take or don’t take.  And actions, my friend, determine the life you create.  By reflecting on and gaining awareness of your thoughts, you create the space necessary to begin choosing the thoughts that serve you best. 

Working with a coach, by the way, is pure gold for helping to uncover the hidden thoughts that are calling the shots!  Don't have a coach?  I'd be honored to be your coach and help you create the confidence that will fuel your success!  Reach out at [email protected] and let's get started!  I've got you!