The Confidence Myth

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Everywhere I turn recently there is someone talking about raising confidence. I may even be a culprit of this myself. I have been thinking about this!! Not in the vein of we don’t need that entire confidence clap trap, but more in line of our expectations.

The personal expectations that we have are often tough. When we lack certain skills in life such as confidence, there is a part of us that is slightly weakened. Or at least this is what we are led to believe.

Human being’s are amazing and where a person may have less confidence, there will be something about them that shines. A skill that they may not realise they show the world, or a skill that the person may not even know that they have.

It has also come to my attention that just as with most of our traits, there is a scale. I know a person that tells me that they have no confidence, yet they are happy to do you tube videos and publish their life on social media. To me that takes a huge deal of confidence. I struggle with doing this stuff.

There are also areas where a person may be more confident than others. In slips the whole introverted/extrovert. The truth is that being human means that we are all dipping in and out of emotions all of the time, be it confidence, happiness, joy, hurt etc. Not one of us has the liberty of living in perfection.

Perfection after all does not describe and never could describe the human experience. Plus, there is no such thing as perfection, we can convince ourselves that there is, but truly what we are talking about is being a perfectionist.

Oooops, I slipped into perfectionism, I’ll tackle that one in another article.

I used to lack confidence in everything, I know anyone reading this that knows me will say, you, lack confidence, never!!! Well it is true there was an element of me that was wrapped up with my self-esteem and worthiness, oh and my lack of self love that had me struggling to believe I was capable of anything, or even enough.

This brought me to the conclusion that the problem is, we tend to think that people ought to be consistent. Yet, the truth is that people are not wired that way, they are messy and they may be loud, lack confidence, be too softly spoken, laugh strangely, talk too loud etc etc. We just are, what we are.

Our confidence levels tap into this and it goes up and down, it changes and it may be better in some scenarios and with certain people… Being tuned into this and allowing ourselves to recognise that there are some situations that send our confidence plummeting and other situations that help it soar, can help us to be more confident.

Myth One

The myth that some people are more confident than others: It’s a myth, because every single one of us at some point in our life, will have struggled with confidence, with feelings that stop us from being who we are.

Once we recognise this myth for what it is, and note that confidence is a trick. The truth is some people don’t have it over others, it’s just some people have learnt how to be confident and we can all do that.

It is about love and understanding, we are all human and our confidence is something that goes up and down. The truth is you can fake it till you make it.

As it is a state that you can dip in and out of, it is also a state that you can learn to know within yourself. In fact just as you can remember a happy memory, you can also remember one where you were confident. Everyone somewhere in their life will have a confidence story. Something that they did that gave them wings.

Wherever you have displayed confidence proves that you can and will be able to be that confidence again. Remember the feeling and re-enact the memory so that you can be confident in other situations in your life. Maybe you stopped someone from doing something awful by speaking your mind, or you protected a pal from bullies at school… Remember it and live it whenever you need to …

I am talking about general confidence here, as I know that there are times when our level of confidence can get marred by anxiety, fear and feelings of lack. Honestly even stress can impact on how confident we feel.

Myth Two

Just be confident, don’t worry about the anxiety, your feelings of lack or fear, you will be okay. It's not as simple as this. The truth is that no other person can raise your confidence for you, when you are in the spaces of dis-connection it is best to lean into the feeling and work through it, until it is gone.

It will pass and you will be confident again and it is okay for confidence to ebb and flow.

Myth Three

Myth three states that confident people are confident, because that is how they are. Actually, this is probably not the case, they will also deal with feelings of fear and other emotions that will floor them. However, maybe the difference is, that they just get back up and dust themselves off, or they don't talk about it and they put on a facade to move through their angst.

Now we’re on getting up and dusting ourselves off, I would like to tell you that confidence is intrinsically linked to your feelings of love and connection to self. When you love and care for yourself you can understand your needs and know when you are able to be confident and when you can’t.

We all have reserves of confidence that we can show the world, it’s just for some of us the reserves are a bit lower than others. There is nothing wrong with this less is more and more is less, either way it does not matter. We are all in this together and the truth is that when someone is lacking in confidence it is support that they need.

If you are struggling with being a confident person remember the myths and that everyone suffers at some point or another with their confidence, Richard Branson said that even when he had experience of speaking to audiences there were still times when he was nervous about a speech that he had to give.

We all struggle, so don’t worry too much about it and if you want to raise your confidence or you want a little help, just reach out to someone to support you. Haven’t got anyone, or feel too lacking in confidence to ask. Well then enact some self love and be your own support network. You can have your own back …