Confident people make healthy decisions – and healthy decisions make confident people.
Our previous blog speaks about four areas of wealth: our health, finances, freedom of personal time, and our social networks. Self-confidence is essential in growing and maintaining each of these areas of wealth, not just our financial situation.
Self-confidence is not something we can learn like a set of rules; confidence, ultimately, is a state of awareness. Positive thinking, regular practice, training, access to information, knowledge (application of information) and talking to other people are all useful ways to help improve and boost our confidence levels in all areas of our wealth.
Self-confidence comes from feelings of well-being that stem from acceptance of your body and mind (your self-esteem) and holding a belief in your own ability, skills and experience. Although self-confidence can mean different things to different people, in reality, it simply means having faith in yourself.
A coach or advisor’s role in your life is fundamental in building confidence. It’s easy to set an intention and think about goals, but when we need to put plans into place and achieve them, our self-confidence is crucial in how successful we will be. If we have low self-confidence, we may find ourselves setting projects and goals that we never start, and if we have too much self-confidence, we will find ourselves running in blind or before we’re ready.
Remember, building self-confidence begins with a positive attitude, but we also need experience, information and support.
In a blog on the skillsyouneed.com website, that focuses on personal development, they speak to the areas of low confidence and overconfidence, explaining them like this:
Low confidence can result from many factors, including fear of the unknown, criticism, being unhappy with personal appearance (self-esteem), feeling unprepared, poor time-management, lack of knowledge and previous failures. Often when we lack confidence in ourselves, it is because of what we believe others will think of us. Perhaps others will laugh at us or complain or make fun if we make a mistake. Thinking like this can prevent us from doing things we want or need to do because we believe the consequences are too painful or embarrassing.
Overconfidence can be a problem if it makes us believe that we can do anything – even if we don’t have the necessary skills, abilities and knowledge to do it well. In such situations, overconfidence can lead to failure. Being overly confident also means we are more likely to be arrogant or egotistical, making it harder to build relationships of value.
Stepping out of our comfort zones, identifying and seizing opportunities and supporting people around us requires healthy self-confidence. There will be days when we get it right, and days where we will be under- or overconfident, and that’s okay. What’s important is that we work towards being assertive and intentional in how and why we do what we do.