How to be confident in yourself.
Never lose your confidence – it is your means to a successful life.
Being successful in life means putting yourself out there. Whether it’s across the world in every media imaginable or just in your own industry, you have to put yourself out there.
But when you do you will attract ridicule, resentment, and in some cases anger. It’s a fact of life that some people will not like you. It’s also a fact that many people will be jealous of you and they certainly won’t want you to succeed.
Confidence Stealers
Nothing steals your confidence more than ridicule and accusations. Some of my biggest challenges have been in public whilst some have been in private. I made gigantic mistakes and I wanted to hide and disappear for 12 months, but that’s exactly what I would not do.
My confidence was shattered. I felt I had been betrayed over and over again. In spite of it all, I still believed that something good would come out of the darkness.
Even though I did not have confidence necessarily in myself at the time, even though I came so close to ending it all, I had confidence that things would turn out okay if I just learned to live another day, to believe in myself and the world for one more moment.
I said to myself, ‘David, you’ve hit rock bottom, you have two choices, one was to let my detractors and tormentors win or to look up and dust myself off and continue with life.’
I asked myself the question. “How to be confident in yourself.
At that time in my life, I hardly radiated confidence but I had to start somewhere.
Your Attitude Affects Your Confidence
You see, your attitude towards your failure or your disappointment determines your attitude moving forward in life.
More than anything else, it is important to believe you have a purpose in life. Something bigger than yourself. You need to have confidence in that.
You may think you have missed the mark, that it is all too much, but as Kobe Bryant said, ‘We don’t quit, we don’t cower, we don’t run. We endure and conquer.
Failure can often be the starting point of a new venture. When a child learns to walk, it has to fall down a lot to learn the new skill.
Failure increases our focus on what caused us to fail and how to improve on it in the future. That failure becomes a starting point for your next effort proving that failure is not final. Failure is just part of the process to the success you are working for.
Don’t Throw The Baby Out With The Bathwater
How many times have you heard of someone trying something for the first time and then never trying it all again? One classic example is a business person that tries one type of social media advertising.
If after the first time, they get no response then they say that the ads don’t work and are a waste of time and money. Instead of looking at the type of ad, the placement of the ad, the reach of the ad, and the ad spend they throw the baby out with the bathwater. Their short term thinking and lack of confidence in the process defines their life and the success of the business.
Develop Your Confidence
Confidence like many characteristics is contagious and so is a lack of it. It affects and spreads through every area of our life and every sphere of influence. It stops us from living full and rewarding lives.
Remember: if you lack confidence, your lack of confidence will affect those around you.
Why do we lose confidence? Something may happen to us out of the blue. Maybe we feel we have failed or we think others are better or more able than we are. But is it even true or just BS (your belief system)
You have to understand that your confidence is ‘your’ confidence, not theirs. You have to be your biggest cheerleader, you are the hero in your story, the go-getter in your world.
When you develop your confidence, others close to you develop theirs too. Remind yourself of your capabilities and what you have done in the past. Address the things that are affecting your confidence and work around them.
Do you have that ring of confidence?
Keep your confidence healthy, exercise it daily, and keep it in good shape.
Always remember, your confidence will bring you great rewards in life.
Say to yourself ‘I am a confident person’.
To your success
David
