The Confidence Factor: What Holds You Back and How to Break Free

Just like any other skill, learning to be more confident will take a lot of time and practice in order to grow. The best time to start training your confidence is today, don’t wait for your self-doubt to disappear or decrease because you’ll never truly be free of self-doubt. Courage is the willingness to step up and take action despite fear and doubt. Practicing courageousness will build confidence.

Top 5 Confidence-Draining Things

There are five things that make people lack confidence:

• The first one is comparison. Have you ever scrolled through social media and felt good after it? With every swipe you make, you unconsciously make a judgment. Even if you don’t want to, your brain starts comparing. Consider your tendency to make comparisons with yourself and others, be aware of it, and deviate from that habit. Stop wasting your time making yourself feel bad.

• Second, we fear rejection and judgment. In the influencer space, we are told that we need to go live on social media and a lot of people don’t do it because when you put yourself out there, there’s this fear that they will judge you or say mean things about you. The fear of judgment and rejection can make your confidence go down.

• Third is a lack of skill or preparation. Going back to the example of going live on social media, some people don’t do it not merely because of a fear of judgment or rejection, but also because they are not equipped with the knowledge of how to do so. When you feel like you are lacking in skill or preparation, your confidence will be affected.

• The fourth reason why one may lack confidence is if they are in an unsupportive environment. How do the people around you respond to your actions? Whenever you try something new, improve on something, or learn something, do people around you support you or discourage you from continuing? For some unfortunately, their reality is that whenever they try to read, or listen, or train, their family and friends are either unsupportive, apathetic, or downright discouraging. This works both ways. If you are surrounded by an environment of people that are supportive of your positive actions, then you will be motivated to continue on ever forward to your goals. You are not stuck with the people that you have, you can have that supportive environment if you try to find that kind of community.

• The fifth reason is negative self talk. For people who can’t help but think of negative things about themselves, I suggest this exercise: whenever a negative thought comes up, get it out of your head and write it down. Once you get it out of your head, ask yourself, “would you say that to anybody out loud?” The things that we tell ourselves, we wouldn’t want to repeat it in public because it’s awful, hurtful, and demeaning and if you know it’s wrong to tell that to others, then stop saying it to yourself. You are just a person too, like everybody else.

Practical tips for gaining confidence

Confidence is a muscle and in order for that muscle to grow stronger, it has to be used and exercised. Here are some things you can practice in order to increase your confidence:

Cultivate competence. Create a foundation for your confidence built out of knowledge and skills. There is what is called a competence-confidence loop, it’s rooted in psychology and human development. The idea is that gaining competence can lead to increased confidence and vice-versa. Brendon Burchard says that the more competence you have, the more confidence you feel in trying new things and taking on new and bigger challenges. Then you develop mastery, become more competent, and feel more confident.

Get yourself a supportive network. Surround yourself with individuals who encourage your growth and have a similar or same goal. For example, if your goal is to be a speaker, then find friends in your network who are speaking because in them you will find people that will encourage you to get on stage, cheer you on, and keep you on track. You can also trust these people to share feedback on how you can get better at what you do.

“If you don't have a supportive network right now, reach out to a friend or a mentor, and let them know what goal you're trying to accomplish so that they can support you in that. It's important that you find yourself around those people who will encourage you and not criticize you, as you try new things.” Chabidaye Jaglal Ramnath