Feeling like you don’t have enough confidence can diminish the quality of your life. It can negatively impact your work, health, and even your relationships.
If you have experienced low self-confidence and struggle with negative thoughts, then you’re in the right place. In this blog post, I will explain why you feel a lack of confidence, and how you can increase your sense of self-worth in a few simple steps.
What Does a Lack of Confidence Look Like?
A well-known book on building your confidence is The Art of Extraordinary Confidence by Dr. Aziz Gazipura. The book, which has amassed hundreds of 5-star reviews on Amazon since its launch, contains many different stories and anecdotes that resonate with people suffering from self-esteem issues.
Confidence is the doorway to success in all areas of life. Whether you want to excel in your career, triple your income, create an amazing relationship, or just feel happy and satisfied with who you are, self-confidence is essential. In this inspiring and liberating book, Dr. Aziz slices through each obstacle on the path towards ever-increasing confidence.
Gazipura, who spent a decade of his life stuck in shyness and social anxiety, used to feel nervous and awkward in his own skin. He felt like there was something wrong with him.
On his website, he writes, “I felt tight in my stomach and shoulders. I was scared about what others would think of me and avoided taking risks that could lead to embarrassment. I didn’t talk to women I was attracted to, and I only had a date once in a blue moon, which usually ended with me liking her a lot more than she liked me.”
He displayed the typical signs of a lack of confidence. You might be suffering from the same issue if you experience any of the following:
- Saying negative things and being critical about yourself.
- Blaming yourself when things go wrong.
- Thinking other people are better than you.
- Believing that you don’t deserve to have fun and be happy.
If this sounds anything like you, then you will benefit from applying the advice I give in this article. But before we do that, you might want to consider the root cause of your problem …
Your Lack of Confidence Is The Result of Negative Self-Talk
If you often have self-critical thoughts, chances are that you have said to something along the lines of…
- “My lack of confidence is killing me.”
- “I can’t get over my confidence issue.”
- “This lack of confidence is ruining my life.”
Talking to yourself in a negative way is a normal thing to do, and it is something that we all do. And when we beat ourselves up, we’re quick to blame all of our problems on our low self-esteem. We might ask ourselves, “Why am I like this?” or “Why always me?”
Sure, we can just stop thinking about it, but it’s not as easy if negative self-talk is a habit.
According to the Campus Health Center, self-criticism can become a habit through repetition. Over time, it becomes an automatic response to challenges, difficult situations, or mistakes.1
Over time, being negative with yourself can be harmful to your own mental and physical health.2 Like any habit though, it too can be changed. Here’s how.
1. Get Used to Rejection and Hearing “No”
When we lack the confidence to pursue something—whether that be a person we’d like to ask out on a date, or the salary raise we’ve been wanting for months—what typically happens in your mind is that you build up a story of rejection.
As soon as you imagine the scenario, you go through all the bad things that could possibly happen.
While it’s true that you can get a “No” as an answer, you never know how the situation is going to play out unless you give it a fair shot.
As Gazipura puts it in his book, “Action is the ultimate key to ever-increasing confidence and massive success in any area of life. The flipside of this is true as well: inaction is the primary reason for low confidence and a lack of success.”
With every “No” that you get, your confidence increases. Rejections, although painful and uncomfortable in the short-term, can increase feelings of self-assurance in the long run. That is, we get better at handling the bad news with exposure.
What’s something that you’ve been meaning to ask someone and what’s holding you back from asking? Are there any decisions you’ve been wanting to make but haven’t been able to? Try to collect some rejections. It’ll benefit you in the long term.
2. Learn How to Rationalize Irrational Fears
If you subconsciously build up stories about why you’re not good enough, you most likely experience a good amount of fear alongside with it. Insecurities and fears go hand in hand.
Perhaps you studied for an upcoming test at school and felt fearful about the grade you might receive. Maybe you wanted to apply for a well-paying job, and besides thinking that you didn’t deserve it, you also felt scared that you might get rejected.
When the voice of fear gets loud enough, we stop in our tracks and resort to our comfort zone.
The key to building your confidence is to separate irrational fears from rational ones. The next time you have to make a decision about your future, but you feel fearful and worry that you might fail, ask yourself the following set of questions:
- How likely is the possibility of failure really?
- What are my fears telling me? Are they protecting me from something?
- What’s the worst possible outcome? How will it affect me?
3. Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs
We all operate life under a certain set of beliefs that manifest themselves in our mind through past experiences.
A child who touches a glowing and bright red stove top with his or her hand will connect that experience with pain and develop the belief that high temperatures are dangerous. While this belief is true, there are many others that are false.
When a friend gives you a mean look at a party, you might start to believe that you’re not a likable person. When you bomb a presentation at work, you might form the belief that you’re a bad public speaker.
If our brain has evidence to form a hypothesis, it’ll use that assumption and turn it into a belief, even if there’s little evidence to support its truth. These kind of beliefs can harmful, especially if they limit you in some way.
Beliefs that limit your ability to be confident look something like this…
- “I got a bad grade on a test, so I must be stupid. I will never do good in school.”
- “I am not getting paid a lot, so I’m worth less than my colleagues. Everybody is better than me.”
- “I didn’t score a goal at my soccer game, so I’m a bad athlete. I will never make it to the next level.”
Thoughts like these can impact your self-esteem negatively. It’s important you reflect on their truth with some questions: How many data points am I basing this belief on? Is it possible that the opposite could be true?
Do This if Your Lack of Confidence Is Killing You
The advice I share in this blog post will only be useful if you apply it. As Julian Hall says, “Knowledge is useless without consistent application.”
That being said, here are the steps I suggest you take:
- Take action: Do something that you’ve been wanting to do for a while, but haven’t had the courage for. It’s fine if you receive “No” for an answer as this will only build your confidence.
- Rationalize fears: The thoughts that cross your mind before you want to do something that you other wise wouldn’t are usually false. Look at your fears with a critical eye and question their intention.
- Assess limiting beliefs: There are many false convictions you hold about your ability to do something. Write them down and reflect on their truth.
What’s important is that you don’t just apply these 3 techniques once, but that you repeat them often. Eventually, you’ll break through the plateau of latent potential. Practice taking action, rationalizing fears, and assessing limiting beliefs, and you’ll notice positive changes in your confidence.
Previous: Your Comfort Zone is a Beautiful Place Where Nothing Ever Grows (4 min. read)
A million-dollar opportunity only presents itself when you leave your comfort zone and stretch yourself. This is something that the world’s wealthiest people understand, and that you must too if you want to achieve greatness in your own life.
References
- “Negative Self-Talk.” Campus Health Center, health.wayne.edu/negative-self-talk/.
- “Scale Back on Negative Self-Talk to Keep Yourself Motivated.” Alabama A&M and Auburn Universities, 1 Mar. 2021, aces.edu/blog/topics/health/scale-back-on-negative-self-talk-to-keep-yourself-motivated/.