How To Think Positive: The First Step To Building Self Confidence.

Let's talk self confidence...

Self confidence is trusting our abilities, qualities and judgements in any given situation. Basically having our own backs... no matter what!

There are many reasons why we lose our trust in ourselves... usually from negative past references/experiences. For example, someone may have attacked our character because of a simple mistake - that mistake could result in us attaching our identity as a failure or incompetent. Similarly, we could have tried really hard at something, it didn't work out and quickly became a traumatic experience. It doesn't matter what knocked our self confidence, our mind will see similar future experiences as a threat.

Consequently, if the negative meaning we place on an event in our life is strong enough, our mind will try to keep us safe by ensuring we avoid it in the future (even if the current situation is no threat to us at all). It will generalise, distort and delete information to support the negative meaning we have attached, and fuel the fear of facing a similar experience in the future - fear of failure, fear of judgement, fear of rejection etc.

Essentially, our mind will initiate the sympathetic nervous system whether the current situation is a threat or not - the fight, flight or freeze response. Our subconcious brain is now in survival mode. Historically, we needed to survive in a tribe and this is why external validation is so important to us - so we are accepted and a valued member within our communities. Our primal instinct is to remove or avoid threat to ensure we survive. The thing is, we no longer need to survive in numbers to improve our chances against attacks from bears or lions (or whatever else our ancestors needed to fight off), but our subconscious mind didn't get the memo. Instead, we still seek validation from external factors to confirm our worth - we use our external 3D world as a measure if we can survive or not.

Believing we do not have this external validation from others can lead to us feeling stuck with low self confidence, and unable to take the action needed to regain our inner power and go after our goals.

Before we explore the first step to building our self confidence, let me ask you something. Are you finding yourself stuck and struggling to step into greater self confidence? If you answered yes, it's likely you have deep rooted limiting beliefs holding you back. Email yourgrowthgateway@gmail.com to book in your free 30min Discovery Call and we can discuss how to reclaim your inner power!

So what is the first step required to build our self confidence, and stop us from spiralling into chronic self doubt?

The first step is understanding the pattern of self confidence.

Self confidence comes from taking persistent action. It literally rewires our brain by providing evidence that the actions we need to take are in fact safe. So if we take the necessary action, we will accumulate our self confidence over time. But this doesn't mean going all in to the scary bit... that will just create overwhelm. What is needed is small steps of couragious consistent action.

Increased action = Increased self confidence.

Here's an example...

Goal - to be more confident in public speaking.

A small step to flex courage muscle - do several presentations to family and friends.

Once comfortable - the next step could be to do presentations in front of a small intimate group of strangers to flex the courage muscle again, and so on.

This cycle of consistent action can go on several times until the desired level of confidence is reached. Only expand your comfort zone in each step when you feel ready to do so.

It is the courage to continue that counts.

If you're currently struggling with your self confidence, what can you do this week to flex your courage muscle?

Choose something small that creates a bit of discomfort that you know you are safe to feel. Don't do anything that you know will be traumatic for you.

Make sure it's purposeful - moves you a little closer to increasing your self confidence, and is the action needed to go after your goal.

Remember to use affirmations to attach your identity to your new empowered self.

If your still finding yourself stuck and struggling to step into greater self confidence, it's likely you have deep rooted limiting beliefs holding you back. Email yourgrowthgateway@gmail.com to book in your free 30min Discovery Call and we can discuss how to reclaim your inner power!

You've got this!