Rebel Mindset: Confidence

“Confidence is not ‘They will like me’. Confidence is ‘I’ll be fine if they don’t’.” 

— Christina Grimmie, was an American actress, singer, song writer, and YouTube sensation

So if we were sitting together right now and I asked you to tell me your definition of what you thought confidence was - what would you say?

• Did you think that confidence is a feeling or a personality trait or a level of self-esteem? Did you think it was a your level of certainty?

• All of the above are often what people think of when they think of their confidence and they are not that far off

• According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary you can define confidence as: 

  • a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or of reliance on one's circumstances

  • faith or belief that one will act in a right, proper, or effective way

  • the quality or state of being certain

• As an aside - apparently the etymology of the word can be traced to the 14th century and shares the stage with other old-timey words like abaft, artificer, costrel, gorgon and such….but I digress (look the words up they are fun!)

• Ok - back on track - confidence is both a mindset and a behaviour and often it is your mindset that leads to the development of your behaviours like confidence in this example - which means that it is learned

• What does this mean to you and your power to increase your confidence - well when we are in alignment with our values and our values guide our behaviours we are working towards internally building our mindset and our confidence - phew - that was a sassy mouthful of breadcrumbs! Read it again ;]

• I was reading this great article in Psychology Today recently and the author outlined the following steps to build your confidence - the link to the full article is here

  • Behaviour - “fake it till you make it,” since most people will assess your confidence based solely on your behavior - and if we align our values and behaviors, we can proceed as if they were already aligned - “fake it till you make it!”

  • Projection - the persona you develop over time becomes your social reality which then others can form an opinion or judgement about. Worrying about this is a waste of time as you cannot control what others think but you can start working on what you project

  • Preparation - the more prepared you are for a situation in life or work the more confident you will be. “Preparedness in one domain leads to psychological changes in other domains, which are often associated with readiness to engage in actions - this increases one's confidence to practice the desired behaviors”

  • Connections - fostering genuine connections will help build your confidence as you will feel seen, supported and connected

  • Congruence - being transparent and vulnerable illuminates your human side and shows that you can be comfortable with uncertainty - “it is at the intersection of mindset and actions that congruent and confident behavior emerges”

• Finally here are 6 additional tips to hone your confident mindset:

  1. Define what you want to be confident about

  2. Pinpoint why it’s important to you

  3. Monitor your self talk

  4. Incremental Steps

  5. Keep track of your confident moments

  6. Don’t do it alone