Fundamentals of Confidence
(Routes to building realistic self-esteem and confidence)
"How you choose to be in your life build confidence."
Personal confidence is not just about being able to take on new and previously daunting tasks; that is just a side-effect. Personal confidence is a way of being, a way of knowing what you are about and how you choose to be in your life.
Confidence in depth requires honesty and openness, it requires integrity and acceptance. It brings with it a calm yet assertive sense of peace and capability.
Personal confidence is natural and surprisingly easy to encourage, though it takes time and intention to build . It is also part of your way of life and develops and evolves with knowledge and experience.
Vitally, personal confidence can be experienced and learned, it can be consciously nurtured and grown, it can become a lasting and appreciated quality.
This chapter explores the building blocks that are required to build lasting and meaningful personal confidence and some of the ways that it can become eroded.
Building Self Esteem
In the last chapter we touched on our deep beliefs. One of the most important categories of belief that we hold is a series of beliefs about ourselves. These take the form of judgements about ourselves covering everything from physical appearance, to our social acceptability, our worthiness, our mental capabilities, and our personality.
Our internal self beliefs also include a clear set of demands about how we should look, how we should behave, what we should be able to achieve, and what we should and should not be interested in.
These self beliefs, about the way we are and the way we think we should be, result in a cycle of negative criticism. Our self-image does not match up to our demands and our self esteem suffers. With reduced self esteem we also suffer reduced personal confidence.
The undermining of personal confidence because of reduced self esteem can be pervasive across our full experience of life or it may show in only one or two aspects. We may find ourselves confident at work or in particular situations but much less able to function happily in others.
The Foundation Guide
The simplest way to learn about this Guide and what it can do for you is to just do it.
FOUNDATION GUIDE
Esteem/Self-Worth Builder
Take some breaths and centre yourself. Be aware of your breathing whilst following this guide.
1. State or write 5 attributes or personal strengths that you have and that are significant to you by completing this statement: “Just as I am, I celebrate and affirm my …” (eg. my sensitivity, my strength, my integrity, …)
2. Continue to experience the significance of these attributes to you and state or write your intentions by completing this sentence: “In relation to my life at the moment, I choose to bring these forward so that …” (eg. I continue to engage with life fully, realistically, and in my authenticity.)
3. Make a feeling statement: “Right now I feel …” (eg. at ease, empowered, confident)
4. Make a final choice statement: “I choose…” (eg. To be fully myself today, and remember my strengths when I falter)
Notes on The Foundation Guide
This Guide works directly with our self-image, and hence our self esteem. By being truthful with our self-acknowledgement we realistically build self-esteem and self-confidence.
This is what the steps are doing:
Step 1: A truthful self-acknowledgement.
Step 2: A recognition of the significance of the self-acknowledged truths.
Step 3: What we experience as feelings in relation to our self-acknowledged attributes and capabilities.
Step 4: How we want to be or what we want to do when we fully recognise our own attributes and capabilities.
It is vital that Step 1 is based on truth, and not wishful thinking or ‘bigging it up’. There are motivational practices that advise simplistic ‘positive thinking’ as a way to increase confidence or to master skills that we admire in others. This is NOT what this guide is about. The Foundation Guide is based on the acknowledgement of the truth about ourselves, just as we are and including our limitations and our intrinsic humanity. When we know that we are dealing with truth rather than fiction we build robust self-esteem and make much more realistic and self-empowering choices.
At times when going for something significant in life or outside of our comfort zone, we might feel unsure or anxious. This is absolutely normal. At Step 3 we might include in our feeling statement that we are scared as an honest statement of feeling. We might sense a resistance at this stage to moving forward and, when this happens, it is important to remember to breathe and continue on to Step 4. You can modify Step 4 by using “I choose… even though….” (eg. I choose to give my feedback even though I am scared, because I have something valuable to say).
Try doing this guide at the start of the day or else when you find your energies flagging, and experience what a difference it makes.
Arrogance
Skills and skills training
Nurturing Environment
Preparation; Knowing we are Ready
The Confidence Test
Erosion: (Comfort zones, experience, self-doubt, self-judgements, put-downs from those around us.)
Fundamentals of confidence: Self-esteem work, recognising personal strengths and limitations.