My Blog
Stop trying to be confident... what you should do instead in 2018
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- Posted: 06 January 2018
If you have been told to be more confident or have been working on your confidence – STOP.
Instead, be brave in 2018. Then, at the end of the year, see how much more confident you feel.
Below are a few of my articles on confidence:
Don’t tell me to ‘be more confident’
‘Appearing confident’ is over-rated
The dangers of leaders who appear confident but are not so confident inside
What if the problem is TOO MUCH FOCUS on women’s lack of confidence?
The theme running through is that real confidence only grows through action.
Wishing we were more confident, telling ourselves to be more confident and believe in ourselves, being told to be more confident, reading articles telling us that we need to back ourselves, imagining being confident, pretending to appear confident – none of these really work, not if you want to build real inner confidence.
Be brave, even if you don't feel confident. Here are some ideas on how you could be brave in 2018.
Do something new. When we do something new, we learn to be ok with failing and not be good at it. We get a sense of achievement from improving, even if we’re still not good at it. It is a great practice of being brave. In addition, progress is a great booster of confidence. Pursuit of perfection is not.
I started doing adult ballet nearly 2 years ago as a complete beginner. While you won’t be seeing me on stage (not yet, anyway), I now know quite a few of the moves, know their proper French names and can even do some of the basic moves! I love the feeling of progress as well as the strength and gracefulness of ballet.
Do something aligned to your passion, mission, purpose. When we do something that’s meaningful, something that matters to us, we get past our fears and naturally become braver. Sometimes we even start enjoying things that we were once afraid to do.
Speaking to 100+ people is something I never thought I’d enjoy as I prefer not to be the centre of attention. Now, when I’m sharing something that’s meaningful to me and valuable to others, I forget about myself and enjoy the process.
Imagine you only have this year on earth. Have a go at something you have been afraid of doing so you don’t have regrets on 31st Dec 2018. Start small and scale up. You might be surprised at how comfortable you are with things you were once afraid of doing by the end of the year.
When I started Quietly Powerful, a version of this was a thought process that helped to get me started. I thought, if I only had another 5 years to work, would this be worth my effort and energy? Would I regret it if I didn’t do it? My answers were yes and yes so I got off my backside to get started. Do I feel more confident about what I’m doing? Definitely more than when I started. Do I feel completely confident? No, but it doesn’t matter because I just need to continue to be brave!
Let me know how you are going to be brave in 2018 (in the comments or send me a message) and let’s reconnect at the end of the year to see how you’re feeling.
