2 Keys To Boosting Your Inner Confidence

I've been mentoring and coaching for a few years now, and the biggest thing I've learnt - both for me and for my clients - is that inner confidence is the key to it all.

There are all kinds of strategies, ways of thinking, patterns of behavior and practical tips for improving your life and feeling better about yourself, but they're all redundant if the foundation isn't there. That foundation is the real you, the YOU that you know deep down you are. It takes self-awareness and a sincere willingness to find those parts of you, and to bring them out and live them in the world.

In this article, I talk about two ways to start the process (and journey) to real inner confidence.

1. Know Your Values

Personal values are a big deal for me, and I often get carried away when I talk about them. I make no apology for that though – they’re one of the most important things you can know about yourself and are vital for cultivating a genuine inner confidence. Your values are ten thousand feet down inside you, right at the very core of who you are; and they’re the building blocks, the foundations and cornerstones for you. A value is something in yourself, in others or in the world that’s most important to you, and could include things like beliefs, principles or standards of behaviour; one's judgement of what is important in life.

Why is it that some people and situations leave you feeling angry, frustrated, demotivated or deflated? It’s because one or more of your values is being denied, suppressed or repressed – and we experience that as a negative experience because it’s denying a fundamental piece of who you are. You know those times when you’ve felt really alive, dynamic or energetic? Those are the times when one or more of your values are being honoured, and you can increase your capacity to feel vivacious, buoyant and alive by living according to them.

Your values are all yours, and no matter what happens, no one can ever take them away from you. You can have absolute confidence in them because they’re there all the time just waiting for you to notice and use them. When you know your values, you can start to make choices that align with them. It’s so simple and it feels incredible because it means that you’re allowing your authentic self to live in the world.

2. Exercise the Muscle

Confidence is a muscle, and like any muscle you need to exercise it so that it doesn’t shrink and waste away. The problem is that unlike your biceps or glutes, which tend to stay in the same place, your confidence muscle can be harder to find. How do you develop your biceps or firm up your glutes? By doing exercises that are designed to work that muscle over a period of time until you see the results you were looking for.

It’s just the same with confidence. Let’s say that you’re the kind of person that doesn’t take many risks, the kind of person who goes through each day doing what needs to be done and doing it well, but not really stretching yourself past your comfort zone. You might talk yourself out of doing something because it’s too scary or because you think to yourself ‘I’m not good enough,’ ‘that’s not who I am’ or ‘I don’t really want it anyway.’ 

That kind of person lives within what they know, and what keeps them safe and comfortable. The fewer risks they take, the less confident they need to be and so the less confident they become.

To work your confidence muscle you need to be prepared to take risks – big or small. You need to be willing to stretch yourself in unfamiliar ways. To try something new or try something in a different way. You need to open yourself up to the many possibilities around you and encourage yourself to increase your capacity to know yourself better. 

The more open you are to risk, opportunity and possibility, the more confident you need to be, and so the more confidence you’ll develop.

That’s your confidence muscle – the question is, what are you going to do to exercise it?"