Self-Confidence is a great notion. Who has it? Who doesn’t? How about you?
Oh, you know your confident. Awesome. Go on and admit it. When you think of yourself and your confidence, you are being honest. Especially, when you say “Oh yeah, I’m confident.” BTW – I love that in you!
Oh, just a second, you didn’t did you? Just tell a little fib? You’re really not as confident as you tell others? Oh, well, that’s OK since we all do it – stretch the truth I that is. However if you can’t be candid with yourself then who can you be candid with? Knowing your truth is the second critical element to having self-confidence. Your first is making the connection between your actions and reactions to life’s dealings and their impact your self-confidence. Truth is what empowers you to confidently step out of your comfort zone and take the steps necessary in life.
Integrity & Confidence
In “3 Simple Steps to Improve your Self-Confidence” you were presented with your two major life accounts. They are integrity and confidence accounts. All of your actions, decision and experiences either making deposits into or a withdrawals from. Bear in mind, both of these accounts will affect your level of success. Success in your career, your interactions, and your overall personal wellness.
Your confidence dictates how you handle and manage your stress or anxiety. A certain amount of stress is essential in life but severe anxiety can be harmful. Your intention needs to be with managing your stress. Handling yourself during times of crisis as well as you do in ordinary situations. With a lower self-confidence the more difficult it is for you to make valuable decisions.
Examples of normal or common everyday stress can be managing your family calendars, prioritizing how to spend your time or coordinating the ride share for your children’s school trip. While working through these situations your physical, emotional and mental bodies are working as per usual. You maybe experiencing emotions like frustration when coordinating other people’s availability but these frustrations are simply worked through and released. There are no feelings hovering around; in other words you’ve let them go and moved on.
Crisis vs Normal
But what transpires as you go through a crisis or a heightened state of stress? Using the same situational example as in “3 Simple Steps to Improving Your Self-Confidence“: Somebody else has taken acknowledgment for your job well done and management has publicly praised them. You congratulated the individual and gave yourself a pat on the back for taking the high road. Did you simply ‘let go’ of the emotions you felt or is there residual effects occurring in your physical body? Your emotional body? Mentally you’ve let the situation go. Right? I mean, you aren’t stretching the truth are you? Pretending you’ve let it go when in actuality you’ve only just stuffed it down? Are trying to persuade yourself that you’re over it? You went ahead and adopted the motto “Fake it till you make it.” Am I right?
External vs Internal Stressors
Externally you might have let the situation go but you may have triggered your internal stressors. External stressors indicating you’ve not let the emotional element go might be:
- choosing unhealthy foods,
- forgoing your normal exercise routine, or
- less patience when dealing with others.
These external worry indicators can lead to digestive issues which affect your metabolism and energy levels. They can also affect your internal organs so they may not work as efficiently as they were. Yikes! I realize it’s not Halloween but these side effects are scarier than the ghosts and goblins that come knocking! Imagine over the course of several weeks what your body is going through. As you ‘convince yourself’ you are over the situation.
To continue to increase your self-confidence you need to be able to understand your body. Understand it so well you can clearly detect when you’ve ‘stuffed’ a situation and didn’t address it. The only way to know yourself well enough is to be straightforward and to be in touch with yourself consistently. Having ‘the talk’ with yourself is not what I mean. It is very easy to tell stories to yourself about how you are doing. Your ego loves to mis-direct you.
3 Actions to Take
Here are three actions you can take to eliminate your ego from the conversation. And finally get to the center of your truth.
Keep a Daily Journal.
Keep a daily journal of what is happening in your life. Be sure to include your anxiety level. Rank it from 1 (normal every day tension) and 10 (off the chart emergency situation). Incorporate the emotions you were feeling. By journaling you will be able to look back and learn what might have been the ‘root’ trigger to the stress you felt. This will provide you the opportunity to “Step Up Your Emotion” and gain a new viewpoint.
Rate Your Behavior.
Begin setting objectives. Write them down in your journal so you can review, alter and identify newly acquired behaviors you’ve picked up. Take into account you are getting to know yourself and your body on all levels. You will need to rate these new behaviors as (a) helpful, (b) indifferent or (c) unhelpful. When you have rated your behaviors. Review every unhelpful behavior so you can understand why they are non-supportive. And how you will have to alter your actions. Turning them into being helpful or removing them from your routine totally. When you have reviewed the non-supportive elements move onto the ‘indifferent’ list of behaviors and duplicate the process. Your objective is to be honest. Continue to be gentle with yourself so you can improve your self-confidence in any situation you might yourself.
Support Network.
Find support from outside means such as a coach, networking groups, mentors, or consultants. These individuals provide an independent view of what is or might be happening in your life. In order to be open and honest with yourself you also have to be able to hear independent views. Hearing another person’s viewpoint will not easy. Particularly when it is a moment of crisis. Bear in mind the ‘whole’ or big picture and this new information will ultimately improve your self-confidence. Another person’s truth does not need to turn into your truth. But hearing an outside view will allow you to gain a point of clarity within your own perspective. Remember in order to “Execute Actions” in life you must to be open to a new outlook.
Your truth is what empowers you and you feeling empowered enhances your self-confidence. Being self-confident enables you to go after what you really want.