Kick Doubt Out — Build Your Confidence in the New Year

Confidence isn’t a feeling. It is a knowing that comes from repeated success.

For some of us, confidence comes with the package, like brown eyes or gorgeous deltoids. For others? Not so much.

My mom was the kind of person that could easily charm people when she wanted. She was tall, attractive, and armed with a wicked wit. Artistic and flamboyant, she seemed larger than life. Loud. Brash. Unstoppable.

Confident.

After she died, I found the blue metal tackle box where she kept her oil paints. My mom was an artist but she rarely painted. Despite the appearance her bluster and her big personality might have given, they were all for show. She had no self-confidence. The oil paints in that tackle box? All dried up and useless and decades old.

Despite having real talent, my mom died with her work inside of her because she never was able to access the confidence she needed to succeed.

The reason? She went looking for her moxie in all the wrong places.

Once you have done a thing thousands of times, there is no fear. On the road to success, a lack of confidence can seem insurmountable but the reason insecurity creeps in is simple. You haven’t yet done the work needed to succeed.

Confidence is like trust. You have to earn it. It isn’t a one-time feeling that is triggered by the flip of a switch. It is a knowing that absolutely cannot be taken from you.

Why else do you think Mr. Miyagi made Daniel San wax that car so much?

“Success is the sum of small efforts — repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier

Maybe you have worked hard — very hard.

But if God himself (or herself or whatever) showed up, would you be able to say without squinching at all, would you know, that you had done your best? Whatever it is. Expert grape peeling maybe.

Would you be able to look anyone in the eye, including God (not sure you can look God in the eye but this is hypothetical), and know to your bones that you did your best?

That kind of confidence, that kind of knowing, comes from the work. In this case, having peeled thousands and thousands of hypothetical grapes.

Which, might honestly be a good skill to have if you are ever in the presence of a God, but I digress.

Athletes provide wonderful examples of dedication to a specific skill set and hard work. Over time they commit their bodies and minds to the same effort so many times that they learn to have faith in their ability to do the thing.

“…every day in practice was like that for me, it was a competition. So when the game comes, there isn’t nothing that I haven’t already practiced. It’s just a routine. Whatever happens in the game, okay I’ve done this before.” — Michael Jordan

I find goal-setting exhilarating but like many people, I sometimes get stuck in mental nets that are cast by our culture. Some ideas are so negative and so pervasive that they form a type of mental quicksand because they suck you in and suffocate your energy.

A few examples.

Fear …that it is harder than quitting heroin …of embarrassing myself …because nobody believes in me

That kind of bad thinking can bind you and keep you stuck in a rut for a lifetime. You don’t have to take my word for it. Look around. The world is full of people looking for mentors, looking for solutions, looking for love and safety.

They lack confidence because they have never successfully overcome anything.

This isn’t me judging people. Don’t read it like that. No. This is me telling you something true. It is one tiny facet of life but I know there is truth here.

Life may (or will or has) beat you up so much that you haven’t had a chance to succeed at anything. You might be thinking, “Who are you to judge me and tell me it’s because I haven’t succeeded? How can I succeed? I am stuck in a hopeless, crap-filled situation.”

I believe you.

And, if you are looking for a path forward, action is your friend. Not blind action. Careful, considered action. Why? Because you need a win.

Sane, small steps done consistently over time.

Grapes don’t peel themselves.

Tubes of paint don’t magically open and fly onto the canvas.

Mentors don’t walk in the room and lead your talented ass to glory.

If you want the confidence required to convince a mentor to teach you and help you achieve glory, you have to do all of your homework.

Fear isn’t capable of holding you back, not physically, and we give it more respect than it deserves. Fear is capable of taking root in your mind and growing deep roots when you let it. You may not realize that you are complicit in fear’s diabolical campaign to undermine your confidence but you are.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” ― Frank Herbert, Dune

The thing is, fear can be transformed into confidence. Confidence and fear are two sides of the same coin. If you are terrified, stuck, or unhappy with your situation, you can transform your fear into confidence. Fear is the path that leads to your success.

Practice creates success.

Success grows confidence.

Confidence kills fear.

These are good things to know.

Step One — What Is Your Problem, Anyway? Self-doubt has its roots somewhere. Maybe your heart was broken by family or maybe you fell off the stage on opening night. Or maybe you were fired — multiple times. Or no one ever loved you. Whatever it is that puts out the fire in your belly, first, you must admit it to yourself.

And, not to get all woo-woo, you have to let it be okay. Because the self-doubt, the messed up knee or the broken resume simply are. They exist. These things happened.

And you lost your confidence.

Or maybe you never had confidence.

It just is. A simple fact. You lack confidence and guess what, that’s okay.

The journey back to confidence may be long or short for you depending on multiple factors. If your goal is highly ambitious you may spend years or decades until you reach it. Something more attainable might be reached in days, weeks, or months.

Success in one area is contagious. Your confidence may return slowly but if you build on success, it will grow. No one else on earth needs to know for this to be true. Depending on what you are working on, success might be entirely internal and private.

What matters is that you accept what is. You accept who you are as is. And this acceptance of yourself as failed or broken can be an act of self-love.

A loving self-acceptance is powerful, especially when you combine it with the determination required to do a thing.

In my case, I accepted that I messed up my whole life. I had to start over again in my 50s. This is no easy thing. Some days I look back and I can’t believe how many opportunities I ruined. But you know what? I truly hated myself then. And you can’t live in the past.

I forgave myself because I was just like my mom.

I had no confidence.

Step Two — Use Your Mind Don’t Let It Use You Ahhh…the mind. It’s a busy little beaver that lives in our heads and tells us all sorts of things.

Non-stop. All day. Every day. Times infinity.

Okay, let’s be honest. Our minds get mean quickly and turn against us.

But we have ways to fight back.

Meditation is super helpful, even in small bits when you aren’t “doing it right”. Writing your troubles on a piece of paper and then quickly tearing it up and throwing it away. Going for a walk or a run to get the blood pumping. Playing Tetris on your phone.

Whatever it is that works for you, do all of that and the work you need to do.

But do the work.

For me, making my comeback has been an act of love. I’ve had to face a lot of hard facts but the absolute hardest thing of all has been learning to ease up on myself.

I used to believe that if I was just harder on myself, I would succeed. Let me tell you, I wanted to make things work in part because I wanted someone else to love me. I guess I always thought that the reason no one loved me or showed up for me was because I wasn’t good enough. At anything. If I could just whip myself into shape and offer up some improved version of myself, maybe someone would realize that I was wonderful on the inside and infinitely worth loving.

What I didn’t expect was for that someone to be me.

And because I was already old when this happened, this newfound self-love, I was able to pair it with a lonely little bit of confidence that had built up over the years.

Years of working.

Years of getting things done.

Years of failing.

The doors of knowledge and understanding inside my head opened up and light beamed out of them, metaphorically speaking.

Confident people have a knowing because they have learned or done something so many times that they are unflappable. It feels very good to operate from this calm, knowing space.

And I was confident that I knew how to make a comeback. Not a comfortable one. There are many bottles of Advil involved but damn if I’m not making it happen. One step at a time. I have become my own mentor, my own cheerleader, and my own best friend.

I’m not oblivious to my flaws or to the fact that that sounds a little lonely. Honestly, it sort of is. I mean, do I wish, even though I am old, that I was married to a hunky, supportive man who laughs at my jokes and says things like, “I prefer it when you don’t shave your legs.”

Of course, I wish that.

But I have learned that life must lived “as is” and this is how we must love ourselves as well. Being lonely and hating yourself is terrible.

I know.

That path led me to destruction.

This brain of mine is not jammed with negative, fearful, self-hating thoughts anymore.

Learn to be aware of what is happening inside that brain of yours. Listen. And as you go, keep the tricks that work for you. Honor them. Practice them.

And love yourself.

And do the work you need to achieve your goal. For me, this idea is profound because, with each success that I have, my confidence grows.

My confidence is a tree made from stone. It grows slowly but deeply. It is unshakable. When things get hard, and they truly do, I can lean on this confidence that has grown out of my experience, out of my success.

Know your brain and have a strategy for calming your mind. Keep that brain on track so that you can focus on the work itself.

“Good habits can make rational sense but if they conflict with your identity, you’ll fail to put them into action." — James Clear

Whatever it was that pushed your self-confidence down and kicked sand in its eyes needs to be evicted from your head, and your heart.

No mentor can do that for you.

No amount of money can do that for you.

Nothing you can buy will make you confident.

In my experience, trying to push away feelings or numb them is legitimately unhelpful. It just doesn’t work. The bottom line is that your thoughts create your feelings and if you aren’t in control of your thoughts, well, you aren’t in control at all.

When you come from a place of confidence, you are 100% in control. A tree made of stone. Unshakable.

Step Three — Dedicate Yourself to the Journey It would be wonderful if we could just flip a switch and change our feelings in an instant but this isn’t the way humans work. Sure, sometimes a person has an epiphany but you can’t count on a lightning strike to restore your inner equilibrium.

The bottom line? Building confidence takes time.

Creating, or restoring, confidence is a multi-layer process and it requires dedication over time. Think of training for a marathon or even a 5k. You start small and if you stay true to yourself and your commitment, you’ll make it to the finish line.

Confidence is the same way.

And training for a marathon is a great way to grow your confidence, too.

Step Four — Run Toward the Roar Now that you have wrangled your thoughts into submission and dedicated yourself to the journey, it’s time to use that brain of yours for strategic planning.

Identify the area you want to improve your confidence and choose a goal.

A few examples.

Goals …go on a date …run a 5k …interview with Google …save $1,000.00

Choosing one goal at a time is best because you want to build success. Once you have a goal set in your mind, break it down. I mean it. Dig in. What is your biggest impediment? Be very honest here. If you want to run a 5k but you won’t get up before work to run, you need to break that down.

What will you do?

Will you run at lunch?

After work?

Are you truly lazy or do you need new shoes? Are you too embarrassed to run in your neighborhood? Maybe you need to go somewhere else to run.

Whatever it is that gets in your way mentally, you have to face that thing. It might seem so stupid that you dismiss this block but if dismissing it worked, you’d already be succeeding.

Face the challenge, no matter how small.

Run toward the roar:

“In Africa, lions hunt in packs. And when they go out to hunt, they take with them the oldest female of the pride. By this point, she’s old and [infirm] and toothless, can no longer catch her own prey, a little bit like me. But she has the deepest roar. And what the lionesses do — and it’s the lionesses who do the hunting — the lionesses position this old lion in the middle of a field facing the bush. The bush could be a mile away. And the prey are between the old lion and the bush, and all the lionesses hide in the bush. And when this old lady roars, the prey run away from the roar to their death. And so the concept is “go at the problem.” Go at what you perceive to be the problem. And what you’ll invariably find is [that] it’s a toothless old lady.”

— Paul Assaiante, The Knowledge Project #183

If I could go back in time, I would tell my mother to paint. No, I would beg her to paint. “Just do it.” I would say.

My mother never stuck with it because she was afraid. My mother waited her whole life for someone to see her. I know she did. She wanted a mentor. She felt unworthy. Unloved. And she was.

She hated herself.

The few paintings she did leave behind are pretty good. She did have talent. But those paintings also reek of self-doubt. I can see what she didn’t finish in them. I can see what she was afraid to try. Where she was afraid to fail.

Don’t leave your paints in the box to wither into dried-up husks.

Do. The. Work.

Just do it.

Don’t let yourself tell yourself any more lies. Don’t look to the world around you for support or acceptance. You won’t find it. Well, probably not. Anyway, nothing that other people say will satisfy your desire like success will.

Success that you earned. Success that you know that you earned. Because to have the kind of confidence that allows you to go eyeball-to-eyeball with the almighty himself (or herself or whatever) you have to know that you did it.

That’s confidence.

That’s 100% confidence.

And let me tell you, brother (or sister or whatever) it feels damn good. Next time self-doubt starts to whisper bad things into your heart, stop it with good work. After all, you’re on a mission to succeed.

I, for one, am confident you will reach your goal.

Like what you see? There is more to love. My newsletter is free! Subscribe so you never miss a post.