Three Steps To Earn Your Confidence

These are the prerequisites.

I’ve been writing about confidence for the last couple of days because I had an ‘aha’ moment that showed me how crucial it was to earn my confidence so I’d start doing what I said I would do.

I’m talking about the big picture things that will help me make a living by creating content — writing consistently online, uploading videos to YouTube, and engaging more on my social media platforms.

When I had this realization about confidence, I also realized there were a few key things I did along the way that allowed me to get to where I am right now.

Where I would rather try and fail and try again, rather than not know if I could do it.

The funniest part is that it’s a lot less complicated than we think.

One of the reasons we get in our own way is that we fear embarrassment.

We fear looking funny or foolish in front of others, but I’ve realized that’s not how most people will view you.

Most people will see you as courageous for trying. Which is true — you’re taking a leap of faith.

And that leap of faith may change your life.

It all starts with following through with the small, mundane things.

My mom used to have this saying (in Spanish) that she always told me when I was a kid.

It was about stewardship, and it more or less translates to ‘if you’re able to take care of the little stuff, then you can take care of the big stuff.’

Of course, I brushed it off as a kid, but now that I’m financially independent (and have to take care of every single aspect of my living), I understand what she meant.

If we cannot properly steward our current resources, what makes us think we will be rewarded with more?

It’s like the person who performs the least at work getting a promotion — it doesn’t make sense, and it wouldn’t happen (unless it's nepotism, that’s a different story).

In 2021, I made ‘stewardship’ my word for the year.

I wanted to manage my time, money, and resources better.

In the process of learning how to do this, I learned a key lesson. Most of the time, we don’t need more stuff, money, time, or whatever we think we need.

Most of the time, what we need is to better handle what we already have at our disposal.

This creates a new skill of handling your resources more efficiently and, at the same time, establishes belief in yourself.

When you follow through with the small things, you build belief in yourself and your abilities.

This newfound belief gives you the courage to try new and different things.

When you believe you have the ability to handle things efficiently, you also believe you can handle more.

I lived through this when I started bartending. Shortly before I started bartending, I committed to track my finances so I knew exactly where I stood.

Not long after that, I got the opportunity to bartend during the weekends.

When I was offered the job, I made another promise — I would use the extra income to help put myself in a better financial position rather than spend it however I wanted.

The two things that I described above happened and led to this next step — if I hadn’t challenged myself to handle my money better, I wouldn’t have built the belief in myself that I could do something new and different.

I probably would have turned down the bartending job offer.

But fortunately, I didn’t. Even though I knew nothing then, I believed I could learn it.

And I didn’t just learn it; I became the best at it.

And it all had to do with what I described in the first point — I took care of the small stuff first.

The funny thing is that one simple change led me on a completely different trajectory in the long run.

Now, I’m a full-time bartender/server in the best financial position I’ve ever been in.

And it’s all thanks to believing I could.

When you continue to try new things, you build a foundation of belief in yourself — this is confidence.

To build it up and maintain it, all you need to continue doing is following through.

I won’t lie and say that I wasn't intimidated when I changed bartending jobs; I was very much scared that I would screw up.

Fortunately, I had built my belief and knew I could learn and that making mistakes is part of the learning process.

And learn I did. I remember the summer of 2022 I had the most challenging bartending job I’ve ever had.

It challenged everything in me. I was tested like I hadn’t been tested before — I had long shifts (10 to 12 hours), dealt with demanding customers, a large volume of drink orders, etc.

But with every shift I completed, I added another layer of confidence.

After moving on from that job, I realized that if I could bartend at that place, I could do it anywhere.

That belief translated to other areas of my life. After that summer, I went back to writing on Medium more consistently.

And committing to Medium added yet another layer of belief in myself.

Fast forward to now, and I’m back to uploading videos to YouTube (my second side hustle) because I believe I can make something happen there, too.

Quick update — my last video has gotten over 1k views, and I’m stocked! It was also based on a blog I wrote here on Medium, so that’s pretty cool, too. Here’s the link if you want to check it out and support it!

Starting small and following through with the little things will open doors and give you opportunities to take on more.

And the more you take on (and properly handle), the more you will build a belief in yourself and your abilities.

And this belief that you can, that you will figure it out, that you got what it takes, or you can learn it, that’s confidence.

And we can all earn it.