As a recap from Pt. One:
Self Confidence is being secure in yourself and your abilities. It’s your ability to trust yourself, knowing that you can experience any emotion (including failure) without being harmed, and it’s your overall opinion of yourself.
Let’s break those down:
Your ability to trust yourself. This is knowing you will do what you said you will do and starts with consistent follow through on your word with yourself. You will do the responsible and useful thing for yourself, even when you don’t feel like it. Think of it as self integrity. Example: following through on your training plan.
Your willingness to feel any emotion and embrace any emotion. Because the worst that can happen is an emotion. This is what we need the first time we do anything when it’s easiest to fear embarrassment. Most of us spend too much time in self doubt or worry because we don’t know that we can handle anything that comes our way. Example: committing to big goals despite of a fear of disappointment.
Your ability to have your own back and support yourself. It’s knowing that when we go into an unknown situation, we will not beat ourselves up because of any particular result. Example: continuing on even when a race or training session gets hard while knowing the result won’t be what you planned for and loving yourself anyway.
Your ability to manage the thoughts you have about you. This is your opinion of yourself because whatever you tell yourself about yourself will create or block self confidence. Most beliefs are recycled. We don’t realize how much self doubt and and anxiety our beliefs produce because we’ve always thoughts this way.
Self doubt is thinking thoughts like: “I don’t know how.” “I’ve never done it before.” “It’s too hard for me.”
Self Confidence is thinking thoughts like: “I will show up and take action.” “I believe in me unconditionally.” “I can decide to believe whatever I want.”
Self Confidence is important because it takes shedding an old identity and putting on a new one and requires that we overcome our brain’s natural ability to stay safe. Most of us don’t have Self Confidence because we don’t trust ourselves and don’t know how to manage our minds when things go “wrong.”
To increase Self Confidence, you have to work against your humanness, your programming, and your beliefs/thinking. You have to train your brain to produce Self Confidence naturally. And that’s not easy!
Creating more and earning more Self Confidence is about being in the work above. Bit by bit. Day by day. It’s simple, but not easy. Pick one and commit to it for a week and you’ll be surprised with how your brain responds.
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT WHAT IT TAKES TO HAVE A PERFORMANCE MINDSET?
