We have talked before about how to have more confidence in yourself and feel surer of your abilities, but this is the first time I have summed up the three most important points and the shifts in thinking we need to make so that our self-assurance does not rise and fall with what we have, but rests on who we are.
The biggest difference between people who succeed in different areas is that, unlike most people, they are comfortable with the possibility of failing. They do not stake their confidence on achieving a particular result or on one specific moment in their lives. They know they will achieve things if they have that confidence in the first place.
We can also feel more self-assured if we prepare properly. There is no better way to feel confident and sure of ourselves than knowing we are competent at the task ahead.
A boxer does not place his confidence in the night of the fight, but in the years of training behind him.
We have already discussed the three pillars of self-confidence (unshakable confidence), and we also solved the confidence riddle, whose dilemma went like this:
“I’m not sure of myself because nothing has gone right for me so far. If I did something well, or if I succeeded, then I would have more confidence in myself. But to achieve anything, I need the confidence I don’t have.”
At that point, we would be stuck in a kind of vicious circle.
Tips for feeling more self-assured and confident
- Prepare, prepare and prepare. Knowing that you are ready for something will make you feel secure.
- Be very clear that you are not what you have and own. If you stake your confidence on your current possessions and they vanish at some point, your confidence will vanish with them.
- Act as if you were already the confident person you would like to be. Pretending to be a certain way until you actually become that way works, whatever anyone says.
See also: How to win someone’s trust with this trick psychologists use
Featured image: George Grantham Bain Collection, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
