How to Build Confidence and Trust Yourself

Confidence is something I’ve struggled with a lot in life (and so have my clients). And my lack of confidence came from a slow breakdown in self-trust over time. Can you relate ?

Luckily, I have some tools that I hope will serve you if you also have moments of doubting yourself and your choices.

The purpose of this post is to give you a greater understanding of what causes a breakdown in confidence and share 5 practical tools to come back to your truth.

So let’s get into it!

Confidence is something we are all born with.

Don’t believe me? Just look at any child and how they operate in the world. Fearless in their expression, curiosity, and how they live.

So what happened?

How did we go from feeling inherently confident…to doubting ourselves?

It took years of conditioning and second-guessing our truth. The lack of confidence is a learned behavior.

Even well-meaning teachers, authority figures, society, and even our parents have inadvertently projected their own fears, values, and sense of “right and wrong” onto us…

…to the point that the loudest voice isn’t even our own.

We learned to outsource our confidence to external sources for fear of rejection or pain…

….then we experience shame when we behave in ways that go against these external projections.

For example, the ADHD child that is told by their teacher they aren’t smart because they are bad at taking tests (external projection).

VS the child knowing that they are more interested in building connections and is incredibly great at leadership and has a deep intelligence about human behavior. (internal truth)

The conclusion could be that the child may think, “Although I know I’m good at other things, the teacher feels I’m not smart because of this test….therefore, I must not be smart”. (bypassing internal truth in favor of external projection)

Cue the deep SHAME around their ability to perform to external standards.

So how does this show up today?

This chronic trust in others knowing/being “better” than us leads to a feeling of disconnection and distrust in our own core strengths.

Instead, we focus on a narrow viewpoint of what is “right, successful, and good” for us…which is rooted in what others believe and not our own.

The truth is, we deeply already KNOW what is right for us.

But we might hesitate because of we’re not used to automatically trusting ourselves….so we lack confidence in our decisions and choices.

The good news?

If a lack of confidence is a learned behavior….the return to confidence can ALSO be a learned behavior.

Here’s 5 ways to take steps to reconnect to your confidence: