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How to Start a Blog

by March 12, 2020

These days more and more people are choosing to start a blog for different reasons. Some use blogging as an outlet to express themselves. Some use blogging platforms to highlight their skills or creations. Many see blogging as a way to monetize their knowledge, skills,…

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Inaction breeds doubt and fear. action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie

Do you struggle with feeling like everyone is judging you – what you look like, what you wear, what you do or don’t do, how well you do your job?  Are you afraid to try for a promotion because you don’t feel competent enough? Have you ever let yourself be passed by because you didn’t feel qualified? Do you have dreams of what you would like to do such as being your own boss or building a company but you hold yourself back by thinking it is too hard for someone like you?

No matter how confident other people look to us, there is a strong possibility that they are not as confident as they seem to us. People might put on a good show and appear to have it all together, to be at the top of the world, so to speak, but this doesn’t mean that they are always confident.

Confidence And Happiness

Confidence, like happiness, seems to elude many of us. We want to be happier and we want to be more confident. If we were more confident, then we would be happier, right?  Let’s look at what confidence really is and how we can gain this ability.

We tend to think of having confidence as being the result of applying a formula – if I just do this, then I will be more confident. While it is true that changing certain behaviors can help us to be more confident, it is also important to see that confidence is a state of mind, a perception of how we see and feel about ourselves. Confidence first comes out of a willingness to admit failure and be comfortable with it, a willingness to be uncomfortable and it also comes through adversity and survival of  adversity.

Failure, adversity and uncomfortable situations all build our confidence because they teach us that we are able to handle more than we think we can.

5 Ways to Be More Confident In Any Situation

 

1. Build Up Your Skills

Having confidence is often tied to what we believe we can do. When we have certain skills, we stand out, to a certain extent from those who do not have those skills. Skills give us value in the eyes of others because we can use them to help, to build, to provide a service and to help us build our own life.

Acquiring new skills that we didn’t have before gives us personal satisfaction and confidence that if we acquired these skills then we can acquire others. It is when we believe that we are not capable that we become less confident. 

Application

Look at there areas where you struggle with lack of confidence. Maybe it is speaking in public. Then find a way, maybe a course, that you can take to develop this skill. 

2. Don’t Compare Yourself

 Comparing ourselves to anyone is a surefire confidence destroyer. No one is the same and everyone has their own strengths and weakness as well as their own struggles. We are all just trying to get by the best that we can.

When we compare ourselves to others we are setting ourselves up against an external standard. We look at how we see ourselves and compare this perception with what we think we should be. Nothing can be more discouraging than carrying the weight of not being good enough because we don’t measure up.

Application

Decide today that the only person you are going to compare yourself to is yourself. Then decide to compete against yourself, not for the purpose of putting yourself down, but in order to improve and be the best version of yourself you can be to offer the world.

3. Talk to Yourself

Talk to yourself instead of listening to yourself. This may seem like a strange thing to do. After all don’t crazy people talk to themselves? If you think about it,  you are giving permission to others to talk to you all day long, some are family, some of them are colleagues and some them are the media you choose to listen to.

Why not choose who you will listen to and why not tell yourself what you need to hear? If the media noise constantly tells you how bad things are or if colleagues put you down, isn’t it your responsibility to tell yourself  what is positive and good? You can change how you perceive yourself by what you tell yourself.

See difficulties as challenges (reframe) rather than problems and, remember, you are not a problem

Application

Decide today not to apply negative and untrue information to yourself. Decide today to speak to yourself and about yourself in constructive and confident-building ways.

4. 

4. Get the Facts Straight

What we perceive as our reality may not even be reality at all. Our brain processes information through our filters such as our beliefs and values and also through our experiences and moods or emotions. 

The same event can be perceived very differently by two different people simply because of their respective information filters. In the same way, we may see ourselves one way, such as being incompetent or unlikeable, whereas other people around us do not see us that way at all.

It is important not to judge ourselves based on what we see or feel because we are not objective and will come to false conclusions . It is sad when we make poor decisions based on how we view ourselves and not on reality.

Application

Get accurate information. Ask others for their perspective and weigh this against the facts, not how you feel. Read books that will help you to see your potential rather than your shortcomings.

5. Develop A Curiosity Mindset

A curious person is an interested and interesting person. Children are naturally curious and children lean a lot in a short period of time. And, children ask a lot of questions. They don’t give up easily because they want answers. 

Developing curiosity is good for us on several levels. First, curiosity keeps our brain active because it is involved in learning. Curiosity keeps us humble and teachable. When we are in a mindset of being willing to learn, we will naturally learn more and develop more confidence. A curious mindset naturally makes us more attractive to others because people generally like to talk about themselves and teach others what they know.

Application

Decide today to find more things you would like to learn about – perhaps something you had never considered.  Decide today that there really are so many things to learn about and so many people to learn from. Everyone can be your teacher.

Did you enjoy this post? Please leave a comment below.

Check out this blog post –  How to Not Let Fear Control You

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