4 Ways to Boost Your Confidence and Create Success

What does the word CONFIDENCE really mean to you? When I use the word, it implies the following:
• An attitude that “I can do this”
• Willingness to take the next step
• Love and belief in self
• Trust in Spirit
• Accepting responsibility for your actions

Confidence is a sliding scale – we have various levels of confidence depending on the task or goal at hand. Some are very confident in their ability to speak publicly, while others tremble. Others are confident in their ability to lead a project team while others are severely lacking in this skill. Each of us is unique, and our confidence will likely vary day/day on the same task.

No matter what our confidence level, we can constantly improve. Here are some suggestions to increase your confidence:

1. Trash your black and white definition of “failure”. Instead of thinking of it as a final label, thinks of it as something that happened at a particular time to a particular effort. It was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. You’re a capable and intelligent being – you will learn from this “failure” and do better the next time.

To increase your confidence, reframe your thoughts and start thinking of life as an adventure. Know of anyone who’s failed at an adventure? Me neither. When you view life as an adventure you automatically move into a more fun-loving mode and everything you do is just more exploration from your base camp. No one can possibly know everything about even the simplest of subjects. Loosen up – have some fun. Explore.

2. Say YES more often to the things that make your heart dance. Rather than get stuck and rigid in the things you should do because you’re a good boy/girl, take a moment to check inside and see if the proposal is making your heart dance. Do you light up at the thought of doing it? If this is the case, do this more often to help broaden your horizons, increase your confidence, and realize that you were living by your self-imposed rules all along.

When you do this you’re acting in alignment with your Spirit and this is a path on your goal of becoming who you really are. This builds trust in yourself, strengthens your awareness, and unifies your being. Just keep taking the next step – you’ll be fine!

3. Embrace your perceived shortcomings. We’re all unique beings with our own strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and knowledge. To really be confident and successful, accept all parts of yourself, even what you see as your imperfections. Chances are you picked up these silly notions from your childhood and haven’t taken the time to put them down and leave them behind you. You are probably the only one who notices them. They’ve become a part of your story. So now’s the time to change your story for the better.

Rather than spend your time trying to excel at everything you do, I suggest taking an inventory of the things you truly love doing and excel at. Focus on these and find others who excel at the skills you need help with. This is the beauty of a virtual organization – everyone is doing what they love and doing it at a very high level of proficiency.

4. Mind your internal dialogue – develop the discipline to check in on your thoughts and see if they’re helping or hurting you. Our mind can be our ally or our enemy. We choose. Check in periodically and see if the story that’s running in your head is a good one or not. Start to develop the mental discipline to check in and start changing a story that no longer serves you. Remember – we’re all creators. If you don’t like what’s happening, you’re the only one who can change it.

We all deserve to live joyful and fulfilling lives. Now’s the time to claim your power and start creating a totally awesome life!