It’s hard to write about practical steps to getting self confidence without sounding trite. I made a huge improvement in this area over some years and when I reflect back on what did it, I realise that it was just a handful of practical things.
When I talk of confidence, I don’t mean the superficial stuff – putting lipstick on, tossing your hair back and knowing that you got it, girl. And not the fake it til you make it stuff either. (I’m not knocking this because I have used the approach of acting the part until I felt the part successfully too. It’s just not what I’m talking about here.)
A lot of confidence or self esteem is about trusting yourself, knowing you’ve done hard things and survived and trusting that you can do the same in the future. One thing is to reflect on the things you’ve gone through. Even if they weren’t a huge success, you can reflect on what you would have done better. I struggled with self esteem a lot in my twenties, and I didn’t have a track of professional or life successes yet, but I did have a couple of major things that I had survived. For example, when I was 17 a close family member of mine died back home. I was in shock. My family put me on a flight to the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic is not where I was headed, it was not a place I knew. The ticket was just cheaper than going to my destination. So after 48 hours of crying, 8 of them on a plane, with little sleep, I arrived in a place where they didn’t speak much English and where I realised that Slavic languages are not really that much alike. My family had told me that there must be a bus terminal near the airport where I could catch a bus across the border. I found the bus terminal, but was told that bus tickets are booked in advance, and I wouldn’t be getting on a bus that day…. The adventure continued. It’s still not that funny to me, so I’ll skip the details. But in my early twenties this is something I could think of to know that I am made of strong stuff. I might cry through difficult times, and maybe I didn’t get through that situation through my grit but by sheer lack of choices. But I made it through. So find any tough situation that you lived through. Even if you didn’t live through it elegantly.
In thinking through your life experiences so far, perhaps you see that you really haven’t done hard things. This can be a source of future confidence growth. When I was doing my reflection, I realised I wanted to have some big experiences in life, and I wanted to develop some characteristics. Both of those took time… years. The experiences that I wanted were to travel and to live abroad. After some planning, I took a contract teaching English in Asia for a year and then travelled for 6 months. All in all it was a year and a half of my life…. A small percentage really, but so rich in experience. When I think of how that gave me confidence, I can break it down to a couple of things again – the more superficial thing of having some cool stories to tell (although some friends are pretty sick of hearing my Korea stories. But it was such a life changing experience!), and the deep realisation that people are different. The more I realised that people are different, have different expectations and are driven by different things in life, the more I internalised that we don’t have to be a particular way, to be worthy.
In reflecting on my personality characteristics, I realised that I wasn’t a finisher. I really didn’t have perseverance. I reflected on this and slowly came to want to improve this. I started practising finishing things and holding to little promises – like making a workout plan and sticking to it. Not because one workout mattered, but because I promised myself. And it helped me develop trust in myself. There’s a comfort in making a small goal and knowing that you have a decent chance of achieving it because you’re a reliable person.
I slowly grew in my professional and life confidence over the years, as we do when we mature. But I made a couple of leaps in my 30s and 40s. In my thirties I ran into a small issue with my boss at a new job. I saw a counsellor through the workplace support program to help me talk it out. The issue seemed to go away, almost on its own. Actually it was through the magic of what the counsellor taught me – that I don’t have to overreact to things. And this started me on a long road of therapy and learning cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) tools. In the beginning I said that I would talk of the practical things I did – and I’m not sure that six years of therapy is super practical, so let me carve it up more. The practical things I got out there were the CBT tools – questioning assumptions, learning about distorted thought patterns, learning to slowly, painstakingly slowly lessen my reactivity. (There are many free CBT resources like online self paced courses and workbooks). And the other thing I got was getting into meditation. I still do it. Usually only 10-20 minutes. And that has changed my brain a lot. I get more confidence because I feel like sometimes, if only for moments, I’m the master. Sometimes I see the weird things my brain tries to do and I can watch them with detachment. I don’t feel so whipped about by my emotions, by every little critical or belittling thought.
Finally, I made another huge improvement in my forties in the deeper area of self-esteem. Studies show that the more time we spend with people, the more we like them (save for people we clearly don’t click with). Same goes with ourselves. Two years ago I got Covid at Christmas and ended up spending quite a few days alone, even without my kids. It was the longest I had been alone in decades. I took it as an opportunity to do some quiet winter hiking and reflecting. And over about 2 weeks, I found that I started loving myself. Turns out that when I go for a hike, after a few hours by myself, I come to this point of great love for myself. That relates to self esteem because self love is a great knowing and acceptance of myself. Which means that I blame myself less, I’m kinder to the mistake machine that is me. So when I have to make a big decision in life, I don’t worry as much that I’ll make “the wrong one” and then feel disappointed in myself. When I make a small mistake, I don’t take it so hard; I call myself an idiot fewer times. I literally find it easier to look at my middle aged face in the mirror and not shriek back in horror. I feel like I know who I am. The shallow part of confidence theory may make you think that in order to have confidence I have to think good things of myself – I have to accentuate the positive. Actually, in knowing myself deeply, I know that there are ugly parts of me. But I accept them. It is very difficult to shake the confidence of someone who accepts themselves 🙂
