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So let’s start off with what confidence is, confidence is an in depth belief in yourself and your abilities that you have what it takes to take action on your dreams and your goals. To me, it feels like having trust in yourself and keeping the promises you make to yourself. When you trust who you are and believe in who you are and you do what you say you will do, you have confidence in yourself to move forward and keep taking action.

Here are my tips for rebuilding your confidence when it’s been knocked. The first thing to do is wake up to the belief that you have in yourself and a belief in your capabilities. So, how do you begin to believe in yourself? You have to be aware of all the greatness that is already inside of you. Starting with your strengths, what are you good at doing? What comes natural to you? When people compliment you or give you praises or positive feedback, what are some of the things that they say? I want you to think of a time that you’ve been proud of yourself, what strengths did you demonstrate in that situation? I want you to write these things down and start to build a strengths log for yourself.

The next thing is really important to know that you’re passionate about and what you love in life and prioritise doing those things. When you follow through with your passions it energises you and it makes you feel confident that you are living a life that you really love. Think about what you care about? What are your values? What’s important to you? When you take your strengths, your passions and the things that are important to you, your values and mix it all together and really be intentional about living life from your place of strength, passion and values it will make you a more confident person and you will feel secure in your sense of self-worth and self-belief.

You know that voice that tell you maybe you’re not good enough to do something or the voice that tells you people don’t care about you and what you think or what you have to say, that voice is not true. Not every single thought that comes into your head is true about who you are. So you have to get really good at challenging that voice.

When you take action and you bet on yourself it builds your confidence, and so no matter what it is you want to do, no matter how big the goal or the dream is, break it down into baby steps and start small. It is scientifically proven that people who look back at their lives with a sense of accomplishment and achievement feel more optimistic and confident about the future. So, if you want to be confident and feel optimistic about your future, write down your wins every day. For example, at the end of each day you can write down in a journal 3 things that went well for you on that day or 3 things you’re grateful for. Write down your wins, whether they’re big or small. They deserve to be celebrated and acknowledged.

Comparing yourself to others is a big way to knock your confidence and is something I used to really struggle with when I was younger. Here are some tips for how you can overcome it. When you compare yourself to other people, you’re usually comparing the worst of you to the best that you see out there, and that’s not even a fair comparison. So try not to compare the you behind closed doors, with what you see other people doing on social media, for example. Another way to overcome comparison is to get sassy with it and to challenge the story in your head. So if comparison says look how successful everyone is, they’re doing so well, you’re getting left behind, you’re doing so badly. You can say someone winning doesn’t mean I’m losing, I’m grateful for where I am and there’s enough room for everyone to thrive. When comparison says look how perfect they are, look how messy your life is. I want you to say there is beauty in my strengths and my struggles. No one’s life is perfect and I will embrace all of me. And finally, a quick way to overcome comparison is to go back and look at your wins and your strengths, don’t get distracted by what other people are doing. Focus on your life and look back on how far you’ve come. Success is not about how far you’ve gone to achieve your goal, success is how far you’ve come from where you’ve started. So look back on your wins and celebrate your progress and that will show you that you are just as worthy of celebration and admiration as the other people you might be comparing yourself to.

One of the biggest confidence killers you might face is fear, for example putting your hand up in class or speaking up in group discussions. Here’s how you can overcome that fear, first thing to realise is fear is simply a negative thought of something in the future that hasn’t even happened yet. So you want to put your hand up in class or speak up in a group discussion, and your mind is going what if you make a mistake, what if you embarrass yourself, what if people laugh at you, what if you say something silly or awkward. You’ve got to realise that you’re thinking what if that is something that could potentially happen in the future, what if isn’t 100% facts. So here are three questions you can ask yourself to overcome this fear. Number one, is the thought you’re thinking 100% facts or are you making an assumption? A lot of the times we make assumptions about our lives and about us that never actually come true. So if you can think what if I speak up and say something stupid, you can say what if I speak up and I share a really good idea. All of these things are possible so lean into the positive possibilities of your life. Second question, I want you to ask yourself, does this thought sabotage me or does this thought empower me? Telling yourself that you might say something stupid or people might judge you if you speak up, that thought is sabotaging you. It’s stopping you from moving closer to the actual goal which is speaking up or putting your hand up. So remember this song, if a thought sabotages you bin it, if a thought empowers you run with it. Empowering thoughts make you feel good and confident and move you forward. Sabotaging thoughts make you feel fearful and doubt yourself. So again, if it sabotages you bin it, if it empowers you run with it. And the third question I want you to ask yourself is, would I speak to a friend like this? Would you ever say to a friend, “oh make sure you don’t speak up in this group discussion cause you’re most likely going to say something silly”. Or “don’t put your hand up in class because you’re not smart enough to contribute to the discussion”. You would never say that to a friend, so don’t say it to yourself either. You are just as worthy of all the love and encouragement you give your friends.

So what do you do if your confidence has been knocked? The first thing to remember is that confidence is a practise, so if it has been knocked it can be rebuilt using very strategic steps so I want you to have hope. Next thing is to check the story you’re telling yourself. If you’ve lost your confidence, you might be having different negative thoughts about yourself. So I want you to remember these things, one moment in the past doesn’t get to define your whole lifetime unless you allow it to, so remember to practise self-compassion and be kind to yourself. Each day is a new opportunity to make better decisions. Also, failure and rejection are things you experience, they are not who you are. You are somebody with worth and you will always have worth, regardless of what happens to you. So don’t internalise failure and rejection as something being wrong with you and let it knock your confidence, instead realise it’s something you experience, it has a start date and an end date and you have the power to turn a new page and start a new chapter for your life. Your confidence may have been knocked because of something negative that someone might have said to you. Maybe you shared your dream or your goal with someone and they didn’t believe you could do it. Well let me tell you this, your opinion of yourself matters more than what anyone else thinks of you. If you believe in yourself and you believe in your abilities, stick with it and don’t let negative thoughts and opinions from other people influence how you see yourself.

Imposter Syndrome is a phycological phenomenon where you feel like an inadequate or incompetent person despite evidence that shows you’re pretty skilled and successful. You often live in fear of being found out as a fraud or an imposter because you don’t feel worthy of your accomplishments and your achievements. Imposter Syndrome can show up in your life in a few ways. One, you pursue perfectionism, you often want to come across as perfect so people will believe that you know what you’re doing, but the truth is perfectionism doesn’t exist. Another way it shows up is less confident in yourself when you’re outside of your comfort zone. When you’re doing things you’re used to doing you feel confident, but when you’re doing things you’ve never done before it is completely normal to feel outside of your comfort zone and out of your depth. When you feel like this, instead of opting to fake it until you make it try learning and levelling up instead. No one has all the answers and most of the time not everyone knows exactly what they’re doing. So it’s ok to ask for help and know that you are on a journey, you are learning and as you learn you can level up in life. If imposter syndrome is about feeling incompetent and inadequate despite evidence that you are pretty skilled, go back to the evidence and set yourself up for success, by reviewing your wins and your accomplishments on a regular basis. If you did it, you can own it. It’s not bragging if you actually achieved it and accomplished those things. So instead of hiding away from your greatness, embrace it instead so that when imposter syndrome comes knocking, you have something to challenge it with.

If you’ve got a friend that is dealing with low confidence, here’s how you can help them. The first thing to remember is that friendships are so important. You can be the most confident person internally, but if you are surrounded by negative people who drag you down it can really knock your confidence. So as a friend it is so important that you create an environment where the people around you feel loved an encouraged. If you’ve got a friend whose dealing with low confidence, help them see their inner greatness. Compliment them when you see them doing something well, encourage them to believe in their self and start small and also offer your help. Using your strengths to help other people can also be a great confidence booster for you. So remember, help them stay positive, help them challenge any negativity that they have in their minds about themselves and show them that they are capable to make their dreams become a reality.