People talk about self confidence a lot…how important it is and how everyone should feel confident. But is it really all that important. So what if you doubt yourself constantly, at least that way it makes you work harder to always be your best, right?! Wrong!
The short answer is yes, your sense of confidence in yourself is important and it is something that you should work on if you know that your self confidence is not so great. You’ll know if you lack confidence in yourself if you find yourself always apologising to others for…well…everything. If you find yourself stressing out and getting overwhelmed about making things ‘perfect’ whether it be your work, a social event, the tidiness of your home before visitors come around and so on. If you’re someone who would describe themselves as a control freak, you have trouble letting others do something for you just in case they don’t do it the way you want it or if you find yourself losing the plot if you step away from a plan that you have made maybe say on holiday or your plan for exercising that day.
You may want to argue that with each of these behaviours I have just identified that these are the attributes of what commonly gets called the A type personality, the high performer, someone who likes to get results…this is true but often what drives this behaviour is not just a personality type, it is an underlying fear of not being good enough, not being liked or loved, a fear of being ‘found out’ or of being judged…all of which reside in a belief that you are not good enough within yourself AKA low self confidence. If this doesn’t describe you at all and you firmly believe that you are amazing, then you’re good and you can probably stop reading. If however your doubt in yourself hangs over your head more often than you would like it to then read on. 
So a good friend of mine once shared a story of her daughter with me that I believe paints the importance of having self confidence beautifully, you may even relate to her daughter’s story yourself. She shared with me that her daughter was starting to get interested in cooking food and was experimenting with different cooking techniques in the kitchen. Her latest technique was flipping pancakes. When she first started to learn this new skill, her attempts were not so successful, and her pancakes were folding over or just simply not flipping. She got frustrated and disappointed with herself which only made things worse. She wanted to give up. It was at that point that my friend came in and guided her, letting her know that “the most important part of the skill was having the confidence in yourself to do it. If you hesitate or doubt yourself it won’t work. You’ve just got to get in there and give it your best shot” Sure enough, her daughter’s next attempt was successful, she was over the moon and from then on in she had far more successful outcomes than not.
I’ve also heard that having self confidence is like having lots of poker chips to play with at the casino, the more chips you have, the more likely you are to play the game and have a go. But if you don’t have many chips then you play cautiously and sometimes miss out on great opportunities.
My own 15 month old daughters (yes they are twins, it’s not a typo) show me great lessons in having confidence. They are both what I would describe as fearless and both my husband and I are constantly amazed at what they can get themselves into and on top of…like the couch and the dining room table. We don’t know how they manage their feats sometimes, but they do and it often comes down to the fact that they don’t know that they can’t so they can. They have great confidence, just like we all did when we were their age.
So how do you improve your self confidence? There are many ways, but the most important step in improving yourself confidence is to address whatever fears or beliefs from past experience(s) you have had that are causing you to not feel so great about yourself or doubt yourself. Many of these will have been created or occurred in your childhood with your view of the world as a child. We hold onto these fears and beliefs as adults, even though we would see things differently now as a adult, because we either don’t realise that they exist within us (they have just become normal) or we don’t know how to change them. I’m here to tell you that you can change them and if you want to know how, get in contact with me.
The other vital step in building your self confidence is to get out and do something, take action, get out of your comfort zone…face the fear. It is only through doing something that you can have the experience to learn how good, how loved, how amazing you really are. By staying safe and avoiding challenging situations you only continue to live within the boundaries of what you think is already true – at that is why you lack confidence. Of course doing this is far easier once you deal with and overcome the fears or beliefs that are holding you back, but taking action and doing something out of your comfort zone is important in ‘sealing’ the new beliefs that you will create through the process of clearing up those fears and limiting beliefs.
Why am I so passionate about this? Because doubting yourself and having fears hold you back was my experience of the world many years ago and it wasn’t a life I was very happy living. I’ve had the experience of turning things around and I’m so thankful that I did. I wish I had of done it sooner in my life, but unfortunately I didn’t know that it was possible or how to go about doing it, that is why I’m sharing this with you.
It is also the drive behind my passion for delivering outstanding, luxurious health and fitness retreats. For me, your relationship with yourself is born in your level of self confidence and this in turn impacts on the way you treat yourself, including and probably most importantly in the way you take care of your own health and fitness. So there are a number of ways that my health and fitness retreats help women improve their self confidence…
1. It places you in a environment of supportive, like minded people, both myself and the other women on the retreat, who I can guarantee will help you see your the best qualities even if you have been blind to them for a long time.
2. Throughout the retreat I host workshops that will allow you to identify and clear fears and disempowering beliefs about yourself.
3. While you are on retreat with us you live a ‘healthy and happy’ lifestyle…good food, movement, time to connect and time to relax so that you walk away with your body physically feeling good…this in turn helps you set the state to feel good within yourself.
4. It gives you tools and strategies for improving your own health and fitness beyond the retreat, healthy behaviours build a healthy relationship with yourself and success outcomes
5. Coming on retreat can be a little daunting for some people, but this is just one more way that this experience allows people to gain a boost in their self confidence. By placing yourself in a unfamiliar environment, you give yourself the opportunity to learn that even when you do step into the unknown, you are always ok (because you will be, I promise!)
So all in all, working on your self confidence is important if you find that you are someone who holds yourself back from opportunities for fear of being judged or not being good enough or if you experience high stress levels in the lead up to events or in the process of achieving goals. Your life doesn’t need to be lived with these unresourceful emotions or stress levels.
If you know someone who could benefit from working on their self confidence or if you yourself would like to work on your own self confidence, feel free to get in touch with me. Start to move towards a better quality of life right now.
Until next time, stay happy and healthy
Sharon
