By Kylie Smith Clayborne | Purpose Fairy
For many of us when we boil down why we aren’t showing up as boldly as we’d like it because we are afraid of being judged. Judged by our family, friends, the people we love.
Here’s the thing- we all judge.
Judging is a part of what our human brains do. It is a helpful useful, decision making part of our brains. However, we often let the judgments of ourselves & others create stories in our minds and those tales can stop us from going after the things we really want.
They stop us from growing, taking chances and living boldly. We let these stories creep in and the play out in the background of our minds for so long that we don’t notice them after a while.
I did this for so long. I was so good at morphing into what I thought others would approve of that I scarcely knew who I was. It was my way of dodging judgment because I didn’t like the feeling I felt when I thought others didn’t like me. I realized that no matter what I did people were judging me anyway. Gah! All that time and effort!
This realization was the beginning of stepping out of this cycle for me. If I’m being judged anyway then I might as well start living the way I want.
Rebuilding Your Self Confidence
The shifts didn’t happen overnight but I just kept reminding myself to prioritize my feelings about me and let others have their opinions. It wasn’t really any of my business that they thought about me and my choices. Removing the barrier of what other people think set me free!
The final big piece of rebuilding your self-confidence is the important distinction between Self-confidence and Confidence. This concept was new to me so if this sounds like something new to you stick with me here because I really think this will be a powerful tool for you.
Confidence is the stuff we look to our past for. The things we have built skill around. Things we feel confident in because we have done them before or a skill set that comes naturally for us.
Self-confidence is something that we cultivate from the inside and it doesn’t rely on external circumstances for validation or worth. It is what you think about YOU!
How you feel about you either generate or depletes your self-confidence. You can literally think anything you want about yourself and no one can do anything about it!
So, the good news is that if you don’t like the way you are feeling about yourself, you can change it.
Your belief in you will be what you lean on when you venture into unknown territory either in your job, building a new skill or meeting new people. You don’t have any past experience to point to for confidence so it will be your self- confidence that you will need in these situations.
Confidence may be built during these times but either way it is how you feel about you that really matters! It is you rebuilding your self-confidence no matter the outcome.
