by stephen warley

What makes you feel confident about anything in your life?

Sit with that question for a moment.

Confidence is frequently described as gaining belief in yourself as you develop experience with a new skill or grow more comfortable with a once unfamiliar circumstance.

But what about feeling confident in every aspect, decision, interaction and moment of your life?

That’s the question Julia Pereira Dias, a past member of our 30-Day Accelerator, was trying to tackle in a book she was working on about relative confidence.

Julia invited me to join her and her family at their home in the Brazilian Amazon during the summer of 2019, and while there, we had loads of conversations about confidence that inspired me to write this post.

defining “confidence”

Julia believes we often confuse “confidence” with “competence”.  She is seeking to understand what it means to feel confident in every aspect of our lives, whether or not we are acquiring a specific new skill, knowledge or experience.

I define confidence as gaining trust in yourself by knowing yourself for yourself through an ongoing process of self-awareness.

It’s exploring your limitations, knowing your limits or whether or not you feel like expanding beyond your comfort zone.

I believe the number one reason most first-time business owners fail is because they lack self-knowledge! Feeling “confident” without self-knowledge is arrogance!

Remember, you are the first resource of your business and it’s biggest obstacle!

You need to evaluate yourself as you would any other resource in your business. That evaluation process will not only help you make better decisions, but will also make you more confident about your decisions!

If you want to get to know yourself better, consider enrolling in our 12-week Self-Assessment Challenge.

For example, while I was in the Amazon, I climbed an acai tree for the first time. I climbed halfway up the tree, about 15 feet in the air, but I didn’t go to the top because I was concerned about how to get back down!

I gave the locals a laugh and they told me that I forgot to bring down the acai!

I didn’t accomplish my goal of harvesting the acai, but I still felt confident and didn’t care what anyone else thought!

I was well aware of my limits at that moment and did better than I thought!  I also knew I could choose to further explore my limits by trying to climb again another day.

Confidence is understanding what motivates you, the boundaries of your comfort zone and how you learn best.

Practicing Confidence

I believe many of us lack confidence in ourselves because we haven’t taken the time to really know ourselves.

As Julia pointed out in our conversations, we spend too much time seeking the opinion of others, instead of trusting ourselves.

We trust what we find familiar and don’t trust the unfamiliar.

I believe we don’t trust ourselves because we are unfamiliar with our true selves.

As you become more familiar with yourself, you’ll gain trust in yourself. As you trust yourself more, you’ll gain more confidence in yourself.

Julia identified a simple 3-step process for building a confident mindset across your entire life:

1) Self-Awareness

The most effective method to learn about yourself is by developing a self-awareness practice because it enables you to know yourself for yourself.

I define self-awareness as observing your actions without judgment to identify if the consequences of your actions are in alignment with your stated goals.

Start practicing self-awareness by developing a writing habit!

Here are some journaling ideas to get you started.

2) Curiosity

When you seek the permission of others in everything you do, you silence your inner voice!

Listen to your inner voice by giving in to your natural curiosity.

All of those questions popping into your head throughout the day are your natural curiosity in action!

No one has ever experienced the world like you and no one will ever again!  Just because something worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you! Get curious to know for yourself!

Here’s a quick experience to gain more trust in your curiosity: for one day, each time you have to make a decision, go with whatever your inner voice thinks instead of the advice of someone else. See what happens!

3) Laugh At Yourself

I think this is the best piece of advice from Julia!  When you have the ability to laugh at yourself, you begin to enjoy the messy process of learning instead of focusing so seriously on the end result.

There’s nothing more confident than being able to laugh at your setbacks and knowing you’ll learn from them!

Check out our 12-Week Self-Assessment Challenge to help you learn how to build a self-awareness practice to learn more about yourself than ever before!