One of the keys to overcoming low self-confidence is to define what you mean by low self-confidence. This is important because we sometimes assume everyone means the same thing when using the “confidence” but that’s not the case.
For some, confidence means you believe you can achieve a goal you have. . For others, confidence means you believe you can do anything. Others think confidence means knowing what to do in a current or future situation.
People also use the word confidence/confident to describe certain observable behaviors like setting a boundary, the lack of fear or anxiety, or someone standing up for themselves when they think someone isn’t treating them fairly.
Once you know what you mean when you say you have low confidence, you can now address the root cause.
When confidence means Knowing how to do something
If you think confidence means you know how to do something, that confidence confidence then has to come from having the abilities or understanding to accomplish your goal. If you lack the capabilities to complete your goal then it’s impossible to have confidence. What can happen is you unknowingly take that lack of confidence, which is really a skill/knowledge gap, as a reason to feel bad about yourself. This unconscious process is one of the root reasons why people say they have low confidence.
What is overlooked is that you don’t have to feel bad about yourself because you don’t have the confidence to do something. Instead, you can recognize that you dislike the fact that you don’t have that confidence, identify what you need to do to upskill yourself and take action to address the skill gaps you identified. With this approach, your confidence will build with the grain of time. For your physical and mental sake, we recommend you maintain internal peace while you build your confidence by giving up the idea that you have to feel bad about yourself whenever you recognize or are aware that you lack the confidence to do something.
Confidence that you’ll figure it out
Humans are imperfect so it’s practically impossible for someone’s confidence to come from knowing how to do everything. It is however possible to have confidence that you will do everything in your power to figure it out. This type of confidence comes when you are chasing after things you you genuinely care about and want to achieve.
Whenever you lack the confidence that you can figure something out take a moment to reflect if you’re chasing after something you truly want. You may find that you don’t really care about the goal but think you should. If it’s a goal you actually care about then you may have to break up your goal into smaller subgoals until its a goal you feel more comfortable about tackling. If you want help with this let us know.
Lack of fear or anxiety
If your definition of confidence means you don’t have fear or anxiety, then the root cause of your low-confidence comes from the fears and anxiety triggers you have. The more you eliminate those fears and anxiety triggers, the more confident you will be. For help eliminating fears and anxiety, we recommend you view our anxiety and social anxiety prescriptions. We may also in the future release a dedicated community where people can help each other handle social situations.
Not being anxious around others
For some, confidence means not experiencing anxiety when around or interacting with others. If you define confidence this way, building your confidence will require you to take note and find the root cause of the different anxiety triggers you experience socially and then eliminate them. Our social anxiety prescription will help you do this work. We also have a dedicated resource to help you eliminate anxiety triggers.
Our recommendation
Get to a psychological state where you will be ok with yourself and not allow yourself to feel bad regardless of: what you do, whatever happens to you, what other people say about you, or however unpleasant a situation you’re currently in is. Some people call this self-compassion or radical acceptance. To achieve this state, you have to address the thinking patterns and beliefs that cause you to feel bad in certain situations. note: Some of these thinking patterns and beliefs may be unconscious. You can use our discussion forums and solutions to uncover and dismantle these beliefs.
What about uncertainty?
Many humans dislike uncertainty which is why we (humans) gravitate towards things that provide certainty. What you must keep in mind is that we are all humans. Humans have falsely been predicting the future like when the world would end with “confidence.” We recommend you keep this in mind when evaluating whether anyone can provide 100% certainty. Even some of the world’s most profitable businesses admit they can’t provide certainty. For example, Amazon tells its customers that it will be of service to customers 99.99% but not 100% of the time.
It may be impossible to eliminate all uncertainty, but it’s possible for us to maintain our internal peace in the midst of uncertainty. If you reflect you’ll probably find that you label individuals who keep their peace in times of uncertainty as “confident.” To become like this, you must recognize that you don’t have to be anxious or feel bad about yourself whenever you are uncertain about something or in a state of uncertainty. Instead, you can acknowledge that you dislike the uncertainty with as much intensity as you’d like and then use whatever goals you have to decide what to do about it. Note: Uncertainty is sometimes the result of a lack of knowledge or skills. When that is the case, uncertainty will dissipate when you do the work to address those gaps.
Some institutions or people will knowingly or intentionally want you to believe that being uncertain is “bad,” unacceptable, or something to be fearful about. What’s not addressed is whether there is any tangible benefit to feeling bad about the uncertainty. If you genuinely want to shift out of a state of uncertainty, is feeling bad going to help you do something that you already want to do?
There may be situations where you aren’t motivated enough to address the uncertainty you’re facing. Some people may view that lack of motivation as being “bad” and something you must address. We (all humans) sometimes give in to these outside perspectives and make ourselves feel bad as a way to motivate ourselves to change. We may not allow ourselves to be free of this emotional pain until we address the source of the uncertainty. This thinking assumes that not wanting to address uncertainty is unacceptable for one or more reasons, while ignoring that we may not have the time or resources to address the uncertainty because we are focused on other things.
In some of our other solutions and the “We can only improve so many things at once” article, we share how businesses and people often have to select a small set of priorities to focus their time and energy on. If a certain kind of uncertainty doesn’t fall within your top priorities, it’s unlikely you’ll have the motivation to address it right now. That doesn’t mean you won’t have the motivation to address it in the future.
Some people think confidence comes from thinking you’re better than others.
If you are an individual who deep down doesn’t agree with this kind of thinking, then confidence may be tough for you to build. Fortunately, we don’t think this is confidence but arrogance, and the world does, in some cases, allow room for arrogance because it often goes unchallenged. Some people believe they are fundamentally better than others because of things they were born with, have, or do. In our solution for dismantling the belief that “Some people are better than others,” we break down how there is no way for any human to know who is fundamentally better than someone else. That judgment is almost always based on a human opinion of some sort, not fact.
Note: The solution to dealing with arrogance is to recognize it for what it is and challenge it when it tries to overstep and do something you think is unfair to you. For help on this, we encourage you to use the discussion forum or the social skills group (coming soon!) to handle different social situations. As always, we are here as a resource.
Leave a Reply