Finding Confidence

Finding Confidence

When I first decided to write a blog I had lists of ideas, inspiration for topics and I felt like I had so much to focus on that I could go on forever. I had blogs to post every Monday, days or weeks in advance. Then my schedule changed, I had more responsibilities during the day and less time to think and research. I missed my first (self-imposed) deadline. I was devastated but I quickly recovered, I don’t really have any readers yet, no one would know but me. Then I missed the next one, and it hurt less, I told myself that I would just adjust my release schedule to be more realistic. I am still new and again, no one would notice. I decided to change my posting schedule to once a month, it would be easier, and it would give me time on the nights and weekends to write. Then I didn’t write for a few weeks and I found myself having a harder and harder time jumping back in. I felt overwhelmed by the ideas, all the topics to choose from, wanting to be better, perfect, the amount of research I needed to do. My thoughts felt jumbled and I couldn’t get anything on paper. How can I already be stuck when I’ve essentially just started? So I decided to just write and see what happened.

Feeling Distraught

I wrote about my feelings. I feel like a fraud, a failure. I want to be a blogger but I don’t even know what a blogger or a blog is. I’m an introvert that has anxious tendencies, I can make everything scary. How am I supposed to find readers? How can I make people relate to me if I’m not even giving them something to read, let alone something worth reading? I want to help people and yet I don’t know how to help myself. Maybe I should just give up? I won’t leave a void, I haven’t even taken up space yet. Then I looked up what a blog is and basically it’s an online journal. It can be about what is going on in your life; it can be informational or educational. It can be a how to, a day in the life and basically just anything you want it to be. Journaling sounded much less scary. I can journal; there are no rules for journaling. You can just write down what you think. If you do it on the internet you can hope that someone will find it and resonate with you. If they don’t then you move on. Didn’t you say you were starting this for yourself anyway? I’m not going to lie, I’m already questioning if there are rules for journaling and fighting the urge to look up how to journal. I don’t want to give up yet, I haven’t given myself a chance. I hope to one day look back at this and laugh at my fear and confusion as it was the stepping stones to finding me. I hope to one day be successful and offering advice to someone else who is new to the process and show them this. See, I was afraid, I thought I couldn’t do it either but I kept on trying and eventually everything came together. Isn’t that what all successful people say? Don’t we always think that maybe they’re exaggerating? This could be my proof. Mostly I don’t want to stop because I really just want to succeed. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. So what am I trying to do with this blog? I’m trying to find ways to improve the world around us. With that in mind it feels like I need to focus on improving the self in this blog post as it seems I’m having a crisis of confidence.

Fear of Perfection

Earlier this week I was talking with my Grandma and somehow we got on the topic if being human or fallible. We both have this impulse to be perfect. We both have a fear of showing or admitting that we make mistakes. If I had to guess we are definitely not the only people that have this problem. I remember talking with an agent once when I had made a mistake. I was extremely nervous about the whole situation and I avoided dealing with it for as long as I could. In this particular situation, thankfully, they really understood. I apologized profusely and they simply said, it’s okay, we’re human, mistakes happen. Let’s see what we can do to fix it. It basically blew my mind. It wasn’t something that I was used to experiencing. One of my weaknesses is processing making a mistake and moving on. I will admit when I have made a mistake, I try to be really good about that. However, I will dwell on my mistakes for longer than is helpful or necessary. It often feels like I have failed and I have a hard time forgiving myself. I know that this is not productive and that many famous and successful people have profound quotes about making mistakes.

“You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don’t think your way into becoming yourself.” – Anne Lamott 

“You need to gice yourself permission to be human.” –Joyce Brothers

 “Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts.” –Nikki Giovanni 

“Mistakes grow your brain.” –Jo Boaler 

“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow.” – Mary Tyler Moore 

I think you get the point, mistakes will happen no matter how careful you try to be. It is a fact of life but how you respond is the important part. So how can you help yourself respond better, more confidently and not let it take over your life? Well, I think in asking the question we may have given ourselves the answer, having more confidence in our self.

Fake It Till You Make It

There are several techniques that can help build your confidence. The first one I am going to highlight can be boiled down to the ever faithful adage, fake it until you make it. Our bodies are amazing but also potentially easily tricked. Studies have shown that making yourself smile even when you don’t feel like it can release the same endorphins as when you smile spontaneously. Building confidence can work similar ways. One of the things that you can do to fake it until you make it is to practice. The more often you feel uncomfortable or unsure can make you feel more confident with trying new things. Some recommend that each day you should do at least one thing that makes you uncomfortable. This will make you more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. Eventually you will feel comfortable trying new and different things and making mistakes. As this happens you may start to notice that you feel more confident in yourself and your ability to persevere. The next technique is, considered controversial as the results are not always replicable but it doesn’t hurt you or make things worse. You can try power posing. Power posing is the practice of standing in a confident pose. The thought is that eventually you will start to feel more confident, similar to when you make yourself smile even if you don’t feel like it.

Celebrate Your Successes

Another important aspect of building your confidence is celebrating your successes. It’s easy to focus on what went wrong and that can be what makes you feel unconfident. However, focusing on what goes right can make you realize that you are capable and that more often than not you do a lot of great things. Successes do not need to be big and in fact shouldn’t be big. Focusing only on big successes can make it easy to feel like you haven’t done anything worth celebrating. At the most basic level, celebrate simply trying, even if you don’t succeed.  Most people will give up early in the process. You can also celebrate coming up with ideas, trying again and not giving up. (If you are having a really bad day or stretch of time and feel like you can’t do anything, this is the time to really celebrate the small things. Everything counts. Celebrate getting out of bed, putting on clean clothes, brushing your teeth, feeding your pets or yourself. Remember that you are valuable, wanted and needed. The first step can be the hardest but the most important. The national suicide prevention lifeline is 800-273-8255. Or you can text 741741 for the crisis text line.)

Take Care of Yourself

As with many things if you take care of your body then your body will take of you. Exercising is extremely important for your body for many different reasons. One of those reasons is building confidence. Studies show that as little as 15 minutes of exercise a day can improve your confidence and feeling of wellbeing. However, it is recommended to have at least 30 minutes of exercise each day. Exercising can help because exercise releases endorphins which are feel good hormones. Exercising can also make you feel more comfortable in your body. You will grow in confidence as you learn that you are able to do the different exercises. As you build stamina and strength it can give you even more confidence in yourself as you succeed. In fact, the exercises will never get easier you will only get better at doing them. Doesn’t knowing that already help boost your confidence?

Smell Delicious

Our mental state can be revived by subtle changes. Another subtle change that you can make is to put forth an effort to smell nice. Smell has been shown to trigger memories and certain feelings. You can use this ability to help you feel better about yourself as well. If you already have a specific association with a smell that makes you feel better you can use that. If not, you can try to create a new association by wearing a perfume or cologne that helps to make you feel more confident. You can wear this scent when you know that you will be successful. This can help to build a positive emotional experience associated with the scent that you can take advantage of further down the road.

Help Someone

Who would have thought that our overall goal of making the world a better place could actually give us more confidence? Humans have two important characteristics that make helping others improve our confidence and mood. Humans are social creatures and have the ability to experience empathy. As we are social creatures we want to be around and accepted by other people. When we help someone we can earn their respect and acceptance. We also can feel empathetic to their situations. We can imagine what it would feel like to be in their position. When we combine those two characteristics we can feel better about ourselves. When we help someone, and we imagine what it would be like to be in that position and then imagine what it’s like to have those feelings resolved and the acceptance and appreciation we receive in return, our body releases feel good hormones. These hormones obviously make us feel good but they can also make us feel loved, happy, valued, appreciated, safe and confident. When we help others, or make the world a better place ;), we make life better for those we help and ourselves. Sounds like a pretty good solution to me.

So we come to the end, what is it we should do? There are many things that we can do to help build our confidence. Some of them might feel easier than others but all are important for multiple different reasons. Let’s take the first step together and make a giant impact. I believe in you and I’m working on believing in me.

As always, stay positive and much love

Additional Resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgjntmIZm_c

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/smarter-living/how-to-improve-self-confidence.html