Transcription
Okay. So, I want to introduce you to someone called Alex. Alex walks into rooms and meetings uh with great energy. She communicates really well. She socializes. People actually compliment her and say, "Wow, Alex, you're so confident." She nods, plays the part because on the outside she does look confident.
When she leaves these rooms, her mind starts to question things. Did I say the right thing? What if they don't actually like me? Maybe that was too assertive. What if they find out I didn't really know much about what I was talking about? And this really consumes her. Who relates to Alex here? Okay, pretty much everyone.
See, Alex doesn't need more confidence. She has that. What Alex needs is self-confidence. Now, there's a difference between confidence and self-confidence. Confidence is external. It grows with praise when people give you compliments. It grows when you succeed, when you're winning, when you get the applause. But what happens when that all goes away? Often the confidence does as well.
Now, self-confidence is an internal game. It comes from within us. It's steady. Often it's quite quiet actually. But it's this knowing in yourself and a self trust that no matter what externally is happening, no matter what circumstances are there, that you have got you. Whether it's setbacks, whether it's great things, whether it's people that you know you can figure it out. Both skills are important.
The problem is most of us, we glamorize being confident, right? We want people to know that we're confident. We want to project it. In some ways, we're kind of pretending. The problem is without self-confidence, confidence just becomes a mask. But with self-confidence, it becomes more real. Again, something that comes from within you.
Now I have been a leading mental fitness expert for the last eight years and this particular subject has really interested me in the last couple of years and I'm really excited to share some more insights about it because the gap between you being confident and then you actually feeling self-confident shapes your reality in ways that people rarely admit. And so I literally have 10 minutes to make you dangerously confident and I'm excited to do this.
So there are some signs that will show you if you are confident but not self-confident. The first being you really overrely on external validation. That means someone else's opinion about your work, about your character, about your success. That is what you actually believe. And the problem with this is often it means that we can't hear our own opinion or our own voice and opinion is quite low of ourselves.
The second thing, so if you are confident, you generally thrive when things are going really well, but when things start to go a bit wrong, it really consumes you. And the way I like to describe this is where your confidence is quite situational. It goes up and down. And I see this a lot in high performers, specifically athletes, because if you're winning and you're succeeding and you're loving it, then of course you're going to feel good. You have the competence in that area. But then when things aren't going great, which happens, life happens, maybe you've had some losses, then we really feel low about ourselves. So we lack consistency there.
And then the last one which I find particularly interesting is we use confidence to please others. We perform it rather than it being an expression of your actual truth. And I see this very often because we're basically mirroring expectations rather than reflecting your soul, what's actually within you. And it's because the world tells you what confidence should look like. Whether you're a man, whether you're a woman, this is how you should be confident, but it's a personal game and it's an inner one.
So, if you resonate with any of these, don't be worried. This is just a signal. And it's a signal to say that, hey, we can actually strengthen your inner confidence. We can make it better. We can make it dangerous so you can achieve your goals. You can go through life feeling good within yourself and therefore in the way you think, feel, and perform.
So, what are we going to do about this? Um, I started working with Alex and what was great is we really boiled it down to three key steps that can help you build the skill of self-confidence because that is what it is. Everyone can learn it. Everyone can go from just being externally confident to actually having that inner confidence.
So step number one, you have to take ownership of your self-image. What does that mean? Most of us, we outsource our self-image. We let the world tell us this is who you should be. Maybe we learn it from when we're young. Maybe we have siblings, friends that we tend to mirror. But if you can spend time intentionally defining who you want to be, what that self-confident version of you looks like, feels like, how do they walk, how do they talk? You can change a lot in your life because you're taking it from, oh, will they like me to I'm going to choose who I'm going to be today. It doesn't matter if people don't like me because you're aligned to your own values and your own opinion here.
Now, for something like this, I would highly recommend using techniques like visualization where you can actually mentally rehearse that character, that self-image. But to make it really simple, so all of you can go away today and literally start implementing this now. I challenge you to ask yourself a question every morning or every day, which is who do I choose to be? What would my most self-confident version look like, feel like? Act.
Okay. Step number two, building strong selfrust. This is such an important step because from speaking to a lot of people from elite athletes to leaders to CEOs to 17 year olds at school underneath self-confidence is really this idea of do I trust myself? Especially when maybe you've had hardship or something's gone wrong. Can I trust myself again to keep showing up? The best way to do this is you've got to get very, very good at keeping the promises you make to yourself. No matter how small or big that might be. Let's say you tell yourself, "Okay, I'm going to go to the gym three times a week." And if you don't do that, your self-confidence is just going down and down because you are telling yourself, "Hey, I don't trust my words. I don't trust myself here." So if you think about those little promises, whether it's I'm going to ring a friend today or I'm going to take one step towards a big vision I have. If you can keep keeping those promises to yourself, you're going to build this muscle of selfrust.
And the last one, detach from outcomes. Easier said than done, but the reason this is so important is because it really addresses that initial signal of having confidence that really waivers when things are good and when things are bad. We are obsessed with results and we tie our worth and our confidence and our moods and our state to if we win or lose. But I challenge you to think well actually what else can we celebrate? And the action you have to take here is celebrating those little victories in your effort, not just the results. We won't always get the goals we want. We won't always win. But if you can build a relationship and an internal validation system where you remind yourself, hey, that was a great job, great effort, you tried your best. That will compound into you again building that skill of self-confidence.
So, just as a reminder to really build this one, we've got to take control of our self-image. So, asking who should I be today? Two, selfrust. You've got to make those and keep those promises you make to yourself. And then three is really start rewarding yourself for those smaller efforts and smaller inputs that you put into your life.
And the last thing I'm going to say is that I obviously said in 10 minutes I'm going to make you dangerously confident. I've given you the tools, but now the work begins. And it might seem a bit simplistic, but you know, if there's one thing I've learned is we do over complicate it. I challenge you for the next 30 days, if you can start implementing these three things, and you do it daily. Just for 30 days, watch what happens.
And so, I'll just end by reminding you of Alex. Alex continues to walk into rooms and meetings and she still brings that energy, that confidence, that clarity. But now she doesn't care if people are judging her. She doesn't care too much about whether she says the wrong thing. She genuinely trusts herself. And that's because it's magnetic not because of what she's doing, but it's because of who she became and who she is. And so today just reflect on that and think now how can I be a bit more self-confident in my life rather than just relying on external confidence. Thank you.