Many people come to counselling struggling with a lack of confidence, often alongside feelings of anxiety or low self-esteem. Confidence is defined as an act of trust or reliance. We can often consider it to be a feeling of being calm, at ease and certain; free from anxiety, self-doubt and negative thoughts of failure. It may seem daunting to read this…but the actions of confidence need to come first, then the feelings of confidence will follow on later. To approach something with confidence, we initially need to practise the skills until they start to come naturally. Each time we practise the skills is an action of confidence. Then once we have done this many times, honing the skills, we start to experience feelings of confidence.
We can often undermine our own sense of confidence. This can happen when we are very self-critical, telling ourselves that we are not good enough, incompetent or inadequate in some way. We can also put too much pressure on ourselves, pushing ourselves to reach excessively high standards, which can leave us anxious about the possibility of making a mistake. Additionally we may fixate on what could go wrong, or on our own fear and anxiety.
As mentioned, to build confidence in a particular skill, we first need to practice it. Then we need to apply it effectively. This will mean we need to step out of our comfort zone into challenging situations. Whilst at the same time being careful that we don’t go too far out of it all at once and overwhelm ourselves. Gradual steps are key. Next we assess the outcome, exploring what went well, what didn’t go so well and how we could improve next time. Being non-judgemental and self-compassionate is important here. Finally we adapt as needed, doing more of what went well and changing what didn’t. This process allows the comfort zone to slowly expand. We then repeat the cycle described multiple times, until we notice the feelings of confidence developing.
Through evolution we have inherited the fight, flight or freeze response, which has kept us safe and enabled our survival. It is important for sensing danger, so we don’t have any option to switch it off when we venture out of our comfort zone. Our mind will be trying to prepare us for the worst and predicting what might go wrong. This means that we need to find a way to effectively handle the inevitable feelings of anxiety and negative thoughts that will likely show up when we enter a challenging situation. We need to be able to continue to act with confidence and engage fully in the activity we are doing, even in the presence of these thoughts and feelings.
Principles to support growing confidence:
- Become familiar with the thoughts your mind generates when you consider moving beyond your comfort zone. Find ways to untangle yourself from any unhelpful thoughts, so that you can take the actions that are important to you in your life. There are many ways to step away from thoughts and different ones suit different people. One option is to imagine the mind as a radio and give the station a name that captures a sense of the type of thoughts you are having and then say to yourself “Ah, here’s Radio (STATION NAME) broadcasting again” each time the thoughts come up. Try to imagine this radio as being on in the background and that you can make a choice not to listen to it.
- Be compassionate with yourself, watching out for any self-judgements that might be happening as you step out of your comfort zone, and instead encouraging yourself.
- Engage fully with the activity, being as present as possible, allowing thoughts to come and go. Mindfulness can help us to develop these skills. We will tend to get better results if we practice a skill with our full attention than if we are in an autopilot state. We are also likely to perform better if we develop our ability to remain focused in this way.
- Pursue the development of skills that align with your values. This will foster a greater sense of motivation and inspiration.
- Be aware of experiences of anxiety in the body, acknowledge them and give them some space. If we avoid fear it is likely to increase and block us from doing what really matters to us.
If you live in the Exeter area and would like to learn more about ways to develop confidence, I will be facilitating a 2-part workshop on this subject, on Mondays 12th and 19th May, 7-9pm – please see here for further details. I also offer individual counselling in Newton Abbot, Exeter and online, which can include working on building confidence.
AI was not used in the writing of this blog post.