Building confidence is a skill.
For there are many ways to look at confidence.
We often do not think about where it comes from.
Or how do we increase it.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS IS WE THINK CONFIDENCE IS ONLY THIS ONE, HUGE THING.
The truth is there are many types of confidence.
We may feel confident in one area of our life and not another.
Having confidence in our career but not our relationships, as an example.
WE MIGHT FEEL THAT WE ARE NOT A CONFIDENT PERSON IN GENERAL.
Yet that general feeling is made up of lots of little feelings.
We can be confident in many ways in our life that we do not recognize or take for granted.
Are we confident to walk? To eat? To bathe?
Do we feel confident to drive a car or get around on public transit?
How do we feel about being able use a phone or a computer?
Or even how to use a pen or pencil?
WE ARE NOT MONOLITHIC.
We are made up of many confidences and non-confidences.
Confidence is specific to the task at hand.
And confidence can also be transferred from one skill to another.
Are you confident at learning a new skill?
Perhaps you learned how to fix your bike when something goes wrong.
Maybe now you can help someone change a tire on a car, when you never did it before.
On the opposite side, perhaps you tried your hand at a business and if failed.
Now someone brings you a new opportunity.
Because of your past experience you don’t have confidence you can be successful at it.
Yet you feel quite confident at your job.
WHEN WE STOP APPROACHING CONFIDENCE AS JUST ONE GIANT THING IN OUR LIVES, WE CAN START TO BUILD OUR CONFIDENCE SYSTEMATICALLY.
For confidence is not about ability, it is about belief.
Do you believe you can do something? Learn something? Experience something?
When we take inventory of all things we are confident about in our life, we can build our overall confidence.
IF WE COME ACROSS SOMETHING THAT WE ARE NOT CONFIDENT ABOUT, WE CAN TRY TO FIND SOMETHING CLOSE TO IT THAT WE ARE CONFIDENT ABOUT.
We can transfer that confidence from one activity to another.
The key is finding the right activity.
Confidence is not only about our history.
IT IS ABOUT HOW WE LOOK AT THAT HISTORY AND HOW WE DECIDE TO USE IT TO SERVE US.
So where are you lacking confidence?
Is there something else you are confident about that you can use to help you build your confidence in it?
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant
Host of The Conscious Consultant Hour
