Skip to content
I know that you are smart and competent.
Now answer this:
What would you be able to do if, also, you had unstoppable confidence?
I know the answer: You would do anything you wanted in your life, career, and business.
I hear this all the time from clients.
Today I will share with you a process that I use to build my confidence and self-esteem. I used this process religiously at the beginning of my career, and now I still use it periodically to maintain my progress.
The process is simple and takes less than 5 minutes to do each day. You can do it on your way to work or even before you go to bed. It does not matter what time of day you do it, as long as you do it.
The Key to Building Self-Confidence Is Your Beliefs
Regardless of how much you know, or your background or education, if you have beliefs that say “you are not good enough, you are not old enough, you are not sophisticated enough, you are not a good enough communicator, etc.” then your confidence will suffer.
Unfortunately, we are always picking up negative self-beliefs about ourselves. We unconsciously pick up parts of our mindset from direct and indirect feedback in our environment. As professionals, we have to protect our confidence and defend our minds against these negative beliefs.
Since negative self-beliefs get picked up unconsciously, and we can’t stop them directly. The best way to protect and build your confidence is to “consciously” plant strong and positive beliefs about yourself to counteract the negative effects of limiting beliefs.
The 9 step process for building your confidence
1) Acknowledge that you might have negative beliefs. No need to harp on that and no need to know what they are. Just acknowledge that you have them and move on. By looking at your limiting beliefs in this way, you will deemphasize the negative ones and make room for positive ones to blossom; the negative ones will atrophy, the positive ones will grow and give you confidence.
2) Pick some beliefs that you want to develop that you know will give you confidence. If you don’t know what to pick, just pick from the list of beliefs below. This will start building your confidence and give you momentum until you pick ones of your own.
– I am a leader
– I am charismatic
– I am a great communicator
– I am lovable
– I am more than good enough
– I am a great person
– I am ……… (you pick)
3) Acknowledge the resistance you have towards any of these beliefs. It’s ok for discomfort to surface up, it just means you don’t have that belief internalized yet.
4) Now pick just one of the beliefs and write it at the top of a piece of paper or at the top of a Word document in this format: Why am I_____________(fill in the blank using the belief).
If the belief you want to work on is “I am a leader,” then the sentence will look like this: Why am I a leader?
5) Now spend one minute coming up with seven reasons for why that statement is true.
6) Acknowledge that you might have difficulty finding answers at first. This just means that your mind does not have that belief yet. And force yourself to come up with seven reasons.
7) Do this same process again the next day on a blank piece of paper. You can use reasons from the day before to answer or come up with new ones.
8) Do this process every day for 7 days. By the seventh day, this process should be easier, which means your brain is adopting this new positive belief.
9) Then let the belief go and work on a new one from your list for 7 more days.
By the time you are done building these positive beliefs, you should have a noticeable and measurable improvement in your confidence.
An actual and transparent example from my own work.
Here is a belief I am working on and I know it will give me more confidence:
I am a great speaker.
So I write it up in this format:
Why am I a great speaker?
Then I answer 7 times:
1- I am a great speaker because I speak at least 3 times a week
2- I am a great speaker because I teach public speaking
3- I am a great speaker because I said so
4- I am a great speaker because I love communicating
5- I am a great speaker because I am smart
6- I am a great speaker because I train for it
7- I am a great speaker because I speak two languages
Notice that the reasons I use are simple, to the point and they make sense to me. When you do yours, make sure that the reasons you pick make sense to you. I am committed to do this once a day for the next 7 days because confidence is important to me and my success as a leader and as a presenter.
Are you committed to doing this as well? I would love it if you share your belief and your reasons in the comments below.
Conclusion:
You just learned how to systematically build your confidence.
If you are smart and competent, then building a strong confidence is all you need to reach the level of success you deserve. As a professional, you should not leave your confidence to chance. Take responsibility for developing a strong confidence just like you would with other important areas of your life.
Of course, there are other pieces to the confidence equation but your beliefs are the biggest contributor.
