If I told you that you are an amazing person, absolutely capable of being confident and worthy of the life you’ve always wanted, would you believe me or would you roll your eyes and think that I sounded like the cover of an inspirational #goals notebook? If you are rolling your eyes right now, I get it. You’ve heard it all before: just tell yourself you’re awesome and apparently all your woes will go away.
Okay. You told yourself how awesome you are but nothing changed. Now you’re discouraged and sceptical. Maybe this confidence thing isn’t for you after all. Don’t give up just yet!
People who have the confidence that you dream of aren’t more special than you are. There are no qualities or personality traits that give people a right to feel confident. The difference between people with confidence and people without confidence is that confident people believe they have a right to take up space in the world. It’s that simple.
So, who has the right to take up space in the world? Everyone! But it’s up to you to stake your claim. How do you do this? By giving yourself permission to be confident.
The world is a funny place that is full of contradictions. In one breath we are being told to stand up for ourselves and speak our truth and in the next breath we are being told be quiet and stay in our lane. Too many of us have spent our lives being socialised to put other peoples’ needs first. Women in particular are fed shovel loads of rubbish about how we should behave in a “ladylike” manner. We are taught to be careful about upsetting other people and we are raised with the fear that if people see us as too assertive they won’t like us. Subsequently, we spend eighty years on this planet with a life half lived.
Enough is enough.
Before we do anything we have to give ourselves permission to do it. It doesn’t matter if we’re walking the dog, eating an apple or buying house. Every action we take is preceded by us giving ourselves permission. Even if the resulting behaviour is something that we’re not proud of, for example a messy night out on the town or trolling people on social media, we have still given ourselves permission for that behaviour.
Confidence is the same. The act of being confident is always a choice. Confidence has neither an always-on nor an always-off setting. It’s more like a switch that you can learn to activate whenever you want to. The more you use the switch the easier it is to turn on.
There is a space between stimulus and response and it is in this space that we choose our actions and behaviour. Therefore, there is always a moment where can choose to give ourselves permission to be confident. If we don’t give ourselves permission to be confident in this moment that’s okay. Each day we have countless opportunities to give ourselves permission to be confident.
Exercise: Each time you wish you had more confidence give yourself permission to be confident in that moment. State the moment in which you want to be confident and why that moment is important. It doesn’t have to be a big moment. Start as small as you like and work up from there.
For example, you bought a pair of jeans but when you got home you didn’t like them. You want to return them but you’re worried about getting attitude from the sales assistant. Say to yourself “I give myself permission to be confident and return these jeans. I deserve to have jeans that I feel comfortable in.” Say it as many times as you need to. Then return the jeans.
For example, you have some great ideas but you find speaking up in meetings intimidating. Say to yourself “I give myself permission to be confident and speak up in the meeting. My ideas are worthy of being shared with the team.” Say it as many times as you need to. Then speak up. The first time will be terrifying but it will get easier with practice.
For example, your friend is constantly putting you down under the premise of making a “joke”. You’re tired of being insulted. Say to yourself “I give myself permission to be confident and to ask [your friend] to stop making jokes at my expense. I deserve to be respected.” Say it as many times as you need to. Then ask your friend to respect your feelings and stop with the “jokes”. Hopefully, they stop immediately, but if they don’t ask them again. If they still ignore your request for respect then you need to consider why this person is in your life. We will cover how to handle this situation further in a future post.
Apply the permission to be confident approach to every situation where you need a bit of a pep talk. Modify the script however you like as long as you are telling yourself that you have permission to be confident in that particular situation. The brain loves instructions, so give it some good ones!
Giving yourself permission to be confident doesn’t guarantee any particular outcome, but it certainly increases your chances of getting what you want. This is the Confidence Advantage. Good luck!
