Hello, hello my lovelies, how are you this beautiful day? We have been chatting the past few weeks about self-trust. Do we have it and how to increase it to live a more fulfilling and rich life. In last week’s episode, we talked about: Three Reasons Why We Lack Marital Confidence (link) and how we begin to lose confidence in our ability to have a successful marriage because we have stopped taking action in ways that build our confidence. Then the week before that, in episode 12: Three Steps To Building Self Trust, when we talked about ways to start building trust in ourselves, I talked about how this work leads us to have more self-confidence – confidence in ourselves. Today I’d like to dig a bit deeper into the difference between self-confidence and confidence to see how having confidence in certain areas of our lives doesn’t necessarily mean we have self-confidence. What do you think? Are you self-confident or confident or both?
Are you confident?
Let’s start with a definition of confidence. Confidence is a belief that you can do something well or succeed at something, and it is built through the process of doing, of taking action. For example, if you know how to ride a bicycle, you have taken steps to build confidence over time to get on a bike, no matter how long it has been since you were last on a bicycle, and know that you can ride it. This is not something you had before you took the training wheels off and proceeded to crash a few times along the way.
Confidence is specific to the person because it is a skill that someone has practiced or something that a person might have a natural talent for. Strong, driven, successful people like yourself have developed a false sense of self-confidence by practicing and seeking further education in what you do. You have taken actions that have developed your confidence in that thing that you do so well.
I like to liken this to your shield of confidence; you have proven to the powers that be, whoever those people are, that you are fully competent. To prove it, you also might make sure that people are fully aware of your capability, this might make you feel better about yourself because you think they are impressed by you. Many of us, I say us because I’m quite familiar with this form of confidence, use this shield out in the world yet struggle with what we commonly know as imposter syndrome because we still don’t believe in ourselves. Our self-confidence is in the tank; we generate validation, recognition, and affirmation from others, from outside of ourselves.
I experienced this during my 30 year business of coaching athletes. I had gone to college to become a Chemical Engineer; three years later I changed that path to Journalism and Graphic Design. After getting laid off from a dream design job, I decided to start helping all of the people at the gym who had been begging me to help them start their journey to a healthier life. As a single parent needing an income resource, I started one of the most successful personal training businesses in the country and became a professional athlete in the process. All the evidence of success still made me feel like an imposter, simply caused by plenty of confidence but minimal self-confidence.
Something else to consider is that confident people who lack self-confidence often will not try things they aren’t good at because of fear. They are afraid of failing or doing something that might make them feel foolish, embarrassed, or humiliated. They are afraid to experience these emotions for fear their failure or “foolish” appearance means something about who they are as a human, which would have their confidence come tumbling down in a huge heap.
Are you self-confident?
Self-confidence is a feeling of trust in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgment. It is truly an overall mindset you create for yourself about your own ability in ALL areas of your life that matter to you.
Self-confidence is the ability to do something that you might be afraid of doing, but fear doesn’t stop you from doing it because you won’t make failure mean anything about you as a human. When you are self-confident, you recognize failure, embarrassment, humiliation as emotions that could hold you back from doing what you want to do or emotions that you might have to process and feel; that’s all.
Self-confidence can look forward and see the person on the other side of whatever emotion it is that they are afraid of and being able to choose the delayed gratification of knowing that you were willing to take a chance. Taking chances is where growth comes; it’s where wisdom enters; it’s where we learn and evaluate.
Once you can learn how to overcome the obstacle of yourself getting in the way of yourself, you can take steps forward in all areas of your life, including your marriage. This is the work we do in AwakenYou; we learn how to overcome our fears which keep us from living our dream come true life, and we learn how to have our own backs in every life situation. For most of us, the biggest obstacle in our lives is ourselves, yet building self-confidence starts to erode that obstacle and helps us stop blaming the world and start creating our ideal world, life, and marital relationship.
If you want to begin coming up with strategies to overcome the obstacle in the way of your best life and your best marriage, then reach out, and let’s find time to talk. My one-on-one coaching program is designed to overcome this obstacle and clear the way to the ideal life you have stopped dreaming of.
I am a life coach who works with individuals to break down relationship barriers by awakening their true self. My process isn’t about changing your partner, it’s about discovering who you are so that you can AwakenYou in your marriage. If you’re ready to take your life and your love relationship to the next level then schedule your program inquiry call today and let’s decide together if this is your next step to creating the life you’ve been dreaming of.
