The key to success is maintaining and building confidence. However, what is confidence anyway? It’s this state of being. It’s how we feel about ourselves and our outlook on how we see things through our own eyes and through our own hearts because it links directly to our emotions. With the increasing shifts that companies are making today to stay relevant, many people lose their confidence. They feel like they don’t know what to expect anymore, and they feel lost and unsure of themselves. How do we handle all of this? Carolyn takes a deeper look at how we can build confidence daily and how we can maintain it to make ourselves successful.
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Building Confidence Daily
I was in Boston working with people in the financial services industry. It was so much fun. When you think about it, that industry has changed so much. It’s amazing how you can see the changes over the years and the shifts that companies need to make to stay relevant today. In today’s environment, everything has changed and you can’t just sit in the status quo because you’ll find yourself in nowhere land and not being relevant to anybody. Companies are constantly changing. If they change with the times, then they’ll see their business increase. The focus these days in any business, regardless of where you are, should be on your people because they’re the ones that build your business. You need the technology that continues to grow and that needs to be there as well, but your people are the real differentiator.
Those are the ones that interact with your customers that make people want to do business with you. I’m excited to talk about this topic because there are so many times when people lose their confidence. Things change maybe within their environment. They could feel out of place. They feel like they don’t know what to expect anymore. They feel lost and unsure of themselves. We all go through this from time to time. I’m sure that all of you can think of a time when you felt like you just couldn’t do something. You felt like no matter what you do, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to be able to complete the task. The sad thing is that sometimes we begin to believe that we can’t do things and then it all changes. It’s that self-fulfilling prophecy that I’ve talked about. When you believe that you can’t do something, you won’t be able to do it. When you believe yourself that you can, the success rate is that much greater. When you believe you can’t, you’ll allow yourself to fail because, in your mind, you never thought you could do it anyway. You never thought that you were going to succeed so failure is the expectation.
When I think of all the people that I work with, there are so many people who worry about their self-worth every single day. They worry about if they’re capable. They worry about if they have enough of what it takes to be successful. Some people struggle with confidence. I wanted to discuss some of the things that I’ve talked with people about and how they’re able to help themselves. There are so many things that we encounter throughout our lives and things are constantly changing, which makes us a little crazy because as things change, we don’t feel as confident. We’re learning something new. We’re experiencing something different so we don’t feel good about it yet. These are all the things that happened to all of us. The key is how do we handle it? How do we ensure that we maintain and build our confidence to make ourselves successful?
Don't look for validation from others because self-worth and self-confidence start within yourself. Click To TweetI was talking to a group of leaders and we discussed this topic. We talked about this mind shift that can affect how you operate. I thought I would talk about building confidence daily. What is confidence? It’s this state of being. It’s how we feel about ourselves. It’s how our mindset is linked to either the happy place or the sad place. It’s our outlook on how we see things through our own eyes and through our own hearts because it links directly to our emotions. I was talking to a friend of mine and she’s going through a tough time. She’s getting divorced from her long-term husband and is in the midst of trying to find a new job. To her, her whole world is upside down and she’s feeling very depressed about her life. She doesn’t know how she’s going to be able to begin to date again. “Will people like me? Will I ever be able to find another person that I can fall in love with and have as a partner?” These are all the things that are going through her mind. She’s always felt that things were going her way. She was on top of the world and she doesn’t know how to handle this change.
As I use this example, I want to break it down into different pieces to look at. First, we’re going to start with the fear that she’ll not be able to find a job. I know her. She’s got this great experience and has a great background that people are looking for in the communications industry. When you look to see job openings, there are plenty of jobs in communications that she’s qualified for. Think about it. If you’re not feeling confident about yourself and let’s say you get a phone interview, don’t you think that kind of self-doubt will come across over the phone or worse yet, you may seem desperate? Your ability to share what you’re capable of delivering may not come across because you don’t feel that confidence in yourself and our emotions can make or break us. If something is going to happen outside of our control, it’s going to happen regardless of how much you worry about it. Spending your days in a worrying state is not going to help you in any way. You need to manage those emotions. You need to manage them in a way where you can use them to your advantage. You have control over your emotions.
Manage Your Emotions
One of the things that we said we needed to focus on is managing our emotions. That seems easier said than done. It is not that easy or so it seems to manage our emotions, but we all have the ability to do that. One of the things that you have to do when you’re feeling down and out is to find people who are positive. You’ve got to find people who are going to help you get out of that down and out state. You can’t surround yourself with people who are going through the same thing or who feel just as bad as you are because then things aren’t going to change. I don’t know if you know the movie, Jerry Maguire. This movie came out in 1996. Let me give you a little bit of the backdrop. Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger fell in love and they eventually get married. At some point in time, their relationship deteriorates and they separated. Renée’s sister in the movie has been on the bandwagon of being a male basher hater for a while now because she hasn’t had successful relationships. She is part of this support group where they come to somebody’s house and they sit around the coffee table. They drink a bottle of wine. They have some snacks and all they do is talk about one by one how bad their relationships have been. Now that Renée is separated from her husband, she’s part of the group.
Think about it, this group is not helping her. They’re not helping her get out of the funk. The group is not looking for ways even to help themselves, to look within themselves, to find out possibly what they could be doing differently to attract the right kind of men because the world is big. There are plenty of people out there to meet. The group solely focuses on men bashing and they’re looking for examples of why men suck. There is no positive outcome that can come out of this group. They’re all negative and therefore they’re going to keep you in that negative state. You’ve got to find people who are positive. You’ve got to find people that can help you build your own self-confidence. Sometimes when you find the people that are feeling just as bad as you do, it makes you feel a little bit better because it seems as though you’re not the only one going through this. That’s where it has to change. It doesn’t help you get past the issue, so you have to begin to figure out how to see things from a positive perspective. Turn a negative into a positive.
There are so many things that you can look at within yourself that are positive. You may just need a little help in identifying what they are. That’s why it’s so important to find those positive people in your life that can help you through the tough times. The other thing to consider when you’re managing your own emotions is not to get too hung up on what other people think. You must determine what you think about yourself first. You must begin to see the value within yourself first. Don’t look for validation from others because self-worth and self-confidence start within yourself. Our emotions can make us or break us. They are so powerful and our mind is the most powerful tool that we have. Think about it. When you’re not feeling confident, your negative emotions are high. You’re looking for all the things that are going wrong in your life. In the story I told you about my girlfriend and how she feels that everything in her life is falling apart, she can’t get past that because all she sees are the things that are going wrong.
Imagine if she surrounded herself with people that felt the same way, she’d be in that funk forever. You’ve got to be able to shift your mind from the negative to the positive. Our emotions are linked to experiences that we go through. We remember those experiences and how we felt during each one of them. We can’t control other people, but we can control ourselves. How do we control our emotions? Begin by thinking of times when things were great. Think about where you were, what were you doing? How did it make you feel? Think about all of the things that make you smile. You have the ability to create your own experiences, so you’ve identified the things and the times when you were feeling good. Set aside time within your day to do the things that make you smile. Set aside time during the day to do the things that make you feel successful, things that you’re good at, things that you love to do. If you’re a great cook, then make a great dinner. If you feel great after a workout, then go to the gym. Find the things that make you smile and set aside time to do those things, the things that you love doing. All of these things will help you manage your emotions and feel better about yourself.
Words matter. They can boost your self-esteem or bring it down. Click To TweetIdentify Your Strengths And Accomplishments
Building confidence daily means that you’re doing things to help yourself succeed. You have to let go of those negative thoughts because they aren’t going to help you in any way, shape or form. That mindset shift alone will help you build your confidence. You’ll see that you’ll begin to feel good about yourself and when you look in that mirror, you’ll begin to smile. Let’s talk about some tips for building confidence. One of the ways to help you through this emotional rollercoaster is to begin to think about yourself differently. The first thing to do is start by making a list of all of your strengths. When you think about it, interestingly enough, this at times seems very difficult for people. Most of us are much harder on ourselves than anyone else. We see ourselves with all of these flaws that we have and we forget about all the great things that we have to offer as well. It’s important to begin to see all the value that you have and all the positive things about yourself.
One way to do that is to make a list of all the things that you do well. These are your strengths. Don’t just put one thing on the list. Think about who you are and what your strengths are. You can even get someone who knows you very well to help you with this list. They’ll probably be able to name ten things that you’re fabulous at right away before you come up with just one. This exercise is very powerful and can help you begin to see things differently. The second list that I want you to make is write down a list of all of your achievements. What have you accomplished so far? Think about all the things that you’re proud that you were able to accomplish. Your friend can help you with this list as well. This exercise is to help you begin to see things differently. Now that you have these lists, the important thing to do is to post them where you can see them every single day. What this is doing is it’s helping you begin to see things from a positive perspective.
Imagine if the first thing that you see when you wake up is a list of all your strengths and all the things you’ve achieved in life so far, how do you think that would make you feel? When you see this list, it should put this smile on your face. It should make you see in your mind’s eye where you were when you accomplished those things and how it made you feel. It’s like reminiscing with your friends or your family about those good old days. It’s where you sit around in the family room discussing all of the great things that happened years ago. In my family when we do this, we’re all remembering these great things, all of the happy and funny things that we went through together and it always puts a smile on my face. Your homework is to make these lists and post them in a place where you will look at them every day. That’s step one and two. Make those lists.
Take Care Of Yourself Inside And Out
Another tactic to use to build your confidence daily is to think about how you’re operating. What I mean by that is, are you taking care of yourself fully? I mean this in total like mind, body and spirit. I’m talking about paying attention to all of your personal hygiene. Sometimes you may think that this is something that people should always think about, but it may not be. Think about it. If you work from home and you don’t have to leave the house, you don’t have to brush your teeth or your hair because nobody is going to see you, but it’s important to take care of yourself. If you’re home alone and you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re going to stay in that funk. I know I shouldn’t have to mention this, but when people are feeling depressed or down in the dumps, many times they go through the motions of life and do as little as possible. The next tip is you’ve got to get dressed. Put on clothes that are going to make you feel good. Whether you work from home, whether you work outside your home, put on clothes that make you feel good about yourself.
If you look in the mirror, you should feel happy about the reflection that you see. You should remember that your appearance is what people see. That’s what they see first from you. Think about it this way. If you go to work with wrinkled clothes, what is the impression that you’re sending to other people? Every time you have an interaction with someone, you have the ability to form an impression. What impression do you want to live with other people? When other people feel good about you, you will tend to feel good about yourself as well. That is the whole discussion that we had on positive people and positive thinking. Spend a little time. Allow yourself to feel good by focusing on yourself. All of us have things that we want to accomplish. Sometimes life gets in the way, we put those things on the back burner and sometimes we never take them off. We all forget about them sometimes. Then one day, we think to ourselves that we never did the things that we wanted to do.
Do Something You’ve Been Putting Off For A While
One of the other tactics to help build your confidence is to do those things before it gets to that point. Build your confidence by doing something that you’ve been putting off for a while. Go after that specific goal, but one that isn’t going to be taking you years and years to achieve. It’s got to be something that you’ve wanted to do. It could be as simple as cleaning out the garage. It could be organizing your closet or throwing away old clothes or whatever it is. I don’t know what the specific thing that you’ve been putting off should be or would be, but it should be something that you wanted to do. Most importantly, something within your control that you can accomplish without things standing in your way. Don’t pick something that you’re going to have to rely on other people for. This is something that you personally can do for yourself. When you do it, you’ll feel this sense of accomplishment. You’ll feel good that you finally did the thing that you’ve been talking about for a while. I remember when I first started applying for Survivor, I had been talking about it for ten years. For those ten years, the timing wasn’t right for me.
Do not let other people make you feel small or inferior. You get to decide how you feel. Click To TweetWhen I finally went to an open casting call, I felt good that I finally put in motion something that I had been talking about for so long. Trying out for Survivor is within your control. Meaning that standing online or making your video is within your control, but getting picked is not. If you’re already feeling like things are not going your way, you don’t want to pick something that you can’t 100% succeed at. There was no possible way for me to know yes or no, whether I was going to make it on Survivor. I just kept applying. This is maybe not something that you would want to put to-do if you’re feeling already in a down and out state. Something else that’s linked to this concept is learning something new. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a language, try yoga, learn to sing or learn to dance. It doesn’t matter. It’s whatever you’ve always wanted to do and wanted to try something new, learn something new, learn a new skill. It’s something that will make you happy. It’s something that you will be able to add to your list of skills.
For me on my bucket list, it’s to be fluent in Spanish. This is something that I’ve had on my list for a while now. I’ve attempted to do it on and off throughout the years, but never put forth the effort. I will tell you that I am going to do it eventually. I will be able to speak fluent Spanish and then I’ll be able to add it to my resume that I am bilingual. Yes, I will. The point is when you learn a new skill, it makes you feel better and it makes you feel more valuable, but there’s also things to remember when you are learning something new. In the beginning, it can be very difficult. There will be a portion of your time when it feels hard. It will feel awkward and that is not the time to give up. Just because it takes time, you have to work hard to achieve a goal. You have to give your all. You have to give yourself some room through those awkward times. Plan for them. Know that as you learn something new, there’s going to feel a little bit of awkwardness and discomfort because you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know how long it’s going to take you. In life, there are going to be times when things don’t go as planned. There will be obstacles that you will be faced with.
Do That Power Pose
Having confidence in yourself will help you through those tough times that’s why it’s so important to understand different ways that you can increase your confidence every single day. You’re going to have those tough times. We all have them. We can’t always get away from them. We just have to know how to get through them. Another tip that I wanted to cover is the idea of these power poses. I talked about it on one of my previous shows, but there has been research that show power poses can be very effective. What’s a power pose? It’s a pose that makes you feel strong. It’s a pose that makes you feel good. It’s a pose that makes you feel powerful. Think about one of your favorite superheroes. For me, it’s Wonder Woman. That Wonder Woman pose is where you stand up tall, your hands are on your hips and all of a sudden, you take this deep breath in and you feel like Wonder Woman. Let’s say you’re going into this big meeting or you’re going into a job interview, doing a power pose right before that will help you get your self-confidence and you’ll ace the meeting or you’ll ace the interview.
Focus On The Positivity In Your Words And Music
A power pose can be Superman. It could be whatever it is that makes you feel that way. It’s that strength that comes from it. When you’re sitting down, you’re slouched over, you’re feeling sad and you put on the saddest movie you can find, you’re staying in that sadness state. You’re not building self-confidence. Conversely, if you stand up, do your power pose, put on a movie that shows you that you’re on top of the world, then your mindset shifts as well. That’s what we’re talking about here. We’ve talked about a lot of tips and I have just a few more that I want to discuss to build your confidence daily. Have you ever heard of the phrase words matter? People don’t realize how much that is true. There are some words that simply create self-doubt. Words can boost your self-esteem or bring it down. Think about it. The words like, can’t, try and won’t, those three words alone allow you to fail. They even expect you to fail. If you substitute the word will for the words, try and won’t, by making that simple shift, you’re putting more commitment into making things happen.
If you say, “I’m going to try and do something.” It didn’t work but I tried. If you say, “I will do something,” then you’re committing to doing it. It’s a subliminal message, but it’s there. If you substitute can for can’t, you’re allowing yourself to succeed. Words matter. Use words that are going to put you in a state of mind that is positive. Eliminate all those negative words from your vocabulary. I know that when I’m in a funk, I find the pump-up music that makes me feel like I can do anything. The beat and the words to the song are so critical. When I was growing up, I used to blast the song by Helen Reddy and the song was called I Am Woman. The beat of that song wasn’t so much of a pumped-up song, but I always liked the words to that song. Those words were fabulous. The song was about the fact that I am a woman and I can do anything I put my mind to. Those are powerful words. Those are the words that get you in the right frame of mind and get you into this mindset of, “I can do or try anything.”
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a basketball game or a sporting event. Think about the music that’s played before a basketball game. We would play Celebration by Kool & The Gang before every game to get the players pumped up and ready to play the best game of their lives. Research shows that a song with a heavy bass helps people feel very powerful. It gives us this sense of power and that’s why the loud beats are played at most sporting events to get the players ready to play the game. Find the song that resonates with you. Find the song that’s going to pump you up. Find that beat that gets you into that, “I can do any state,” and play it. Put it on your phone and play it every morning. Make sure you hear it. Start the day by listening to that type of music because those things help. You’ll feel so much better and alive after a very powerful song. The last tip for boosting your self-confidence is don’t compare yourself to others, be yourself.
There are so many things in our lives that aren't perfect. Nobody is perfect. That's what life is all about. Click To TweetBe Yourself
There are so many things that each and every one of us has to be excited about, but sometimes we see these things in other people and we get down on ourselves because we don’t do the same thing as them or we aren’t as successful as they are. In our minds, we believe we can’t be as successful as they are. Each one of us come to the table with a different set of skills. We have the ability to do anything we want to be anything we want, as long as we put forth the time and the effort to get there. When you begin to compare yourself to others, it’s an unfair comparison because circumstances are different. Past experiences are different. There are so many factors that come into play that’s not a fair comparison. Don’t get caught up in that because it’s not going to help you increase your own self-confidence and it can lead to these negative thoughts and envy, which is not going to help you out.
I loved this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt. She says, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” You have to allow that in your mind to make you feel inferior. You have the opportunity to not allow it. It’s our choice. We don’t have to listen to other people that aren’t going to make us feel good. Do not let other people make you feel small or inferior. You get to decide how you feel. You get to decide your emotions. You get to decide how you approach each day. You can ignore things that other people say. You don’t have to worry about what every single person thinks because you will never make everyone happy. What you do have to worry about is what you think and how you feel about yourself. That my friend is self-confidence. Building confidence is a process. It’s something that you have to work on every single day because there are so many things that we go through in our lives that are hard. There are so many things in our lives that aren’t perfect.
That’s what life is all about. Nobody is perfect. Even if sometimes you think that other people are, they’re not. They’re human just like you and me. We talked about the tips for building self-confidence every day and it starts with managing your emotions. This is tough. It takes work, but we can all do it. No matter what the situation, you get to decide how you act. Some of the other tips that we talked about were identifying your strengths and your accomplishments. Write them down, look at them daily. Post them where you can see them every single day because those link to all the things that you bring to the table and all the things that you are good at. Write them down. Look at them daily. Take care of yourself inside and out. Eat right, feel right and look right. It’s the total package of mind, body and spirit. You’ve got to feel good about yourself. You’ve got to eat the right things. You’ve got to get the right sleep. You’ve got to take care of yourself. Those are the things that make you feel better.
Get things done that you’ve wanted to do. Get things that you’ve put on the back burner for a while. Make it a priority and feel good about your commitment. We talked about learning something new, something that you’ve always wanted to learn. That’s a commitment, make it happen. You have that ability. Focus on the positivity in your words and in your music. Find the things that pump you up. Do that power pose that is going to make you feel great. Those are the things that can help you shift your mind from negativity to positivity. The last thing is don’t compare yourself to anyone. You are yourself. Be yourself. Be comfortable within your own skin. Be proud of who you are and what you’re capable of because you have the power to do anything that you want. Life is going to throw some curve balls at you. You’re going to need your confidence to help you get through them. Some of these challenges, they’re going to be difficult.
You’re going to learn through them, but you can’t wallow in failure. You can’t wallow in sadness. You can’t lose your self-confidence because things didn’t go your way. Our lives are a journey and building confidence is a daily process. There are so many topics to cover to help ourselves succeed in life. There are times when we need these tips to get us through the rough patches. The Carolyn Rivera Show is here for you. I love to hear how people are taking the content and using it to help themselves succeed every day. Go to my website at www.CarolynJRivera.com for more content and for all my shows. Helping you achieve more than you ever thought positive, that’s my specialty. Believe, commit, achieve. That’s the secret sauce you’re looking for.