Confidence
How to gain and grow your confidence
How it works
Whether you realize it or not, your subconscious mind is constantly judging yourself the same way you judge others. Everything from your thoughts, habits, actions, or what you say is being judged by yourself and can start to form low self-esteem. This happens because we each have a value system that we hold ourselves accountable to and judge ourselves for not achieving. The less of our actions and life choices that match with our values the lower self esteem we are likely to have.
How to gain confidence
Affirmations are something many people believe to be a solution to low self-esteem however they are often ineffective and possibly harmful if our actions do not align. We can start to self-doubt ourselves in all aspects of life including interactions with others. Our subconscious accounts for 90% of our overall mental function and that’s why it can sometimes seem like mental struggles are out of our control. The goal is to work on your relationship with your own subconscious finding values that fit your life and living in accordance with them. Every time you go against something you believe is good for you, you create an opportunity for self-doubt. However small it may seem simple actions such as sleeping in, not going to the gym, not eating healthy when you told yourself you would, add up in your subconscious mind and form a negative judgment on who you are and your credibility as a person.
To discover your values ask yourself questions such as:
- How does my ideal self act when no one else is around?
- How does my ideal self interact with the people around me?
- Does my ideal self make mistakes?
- How do I respond to those mistakes?
- Do I learn from them?
Sometimes it can be useful to write down the values you discover and take them to a trusted friend or preferably mental health professional such as a therapist to find out if it is a healthy value system.
Summary
The most important step moving forwards in gaining confidence is to create healthier values and expectations of yourself. Some values may be unrealistic and should change or some behaviours may be negative and should change but the main goal is to live acting in accordance with your ideal self and values. You begin to form a relationship with your subconscious mind and become proud of who you are. For some people, this may take discipline which we discussed how to gain in our previous blog. With confidence, you can live how you want, say and act how you really want to without constantly judging yourself because you are confident in who you are.