How to Exude Confidence

Lisa Marie Bobby:

I think we all aspire to be the kind of person that exudes confidence, right? But it can be so hard to operate and show up in this way when as humans, we don’t always feel confident. Maybe we even struggle with self esteem. That’s why on today’s episode of love, happiness, and success, we’re doing a deep dive into authentic confidence.

What do I mean by authentic confidence? That’s the kind of confidence that is stable. It isn’t attached to what you’re doing or whether or not you’re succeeding. It is this unshakable, deep rooted belief in your own value, your own worth, your own competence. And it’s the kind of confidence that’s built from the ground up.

Not About the way you feel, but through your actions and your ability to have self respect.

Just imagine waking up each day with a sense of certainty and who you are and what you’re capable of, not because of what other people think of you, but because you have consistently shown up as the person that you want to be. You trust and respect yourself.

That’s what we’re doing in today’s episode. We’re exploring how confidence like this isn’t something that just happens. It is something that you build step by step over time through deliberate, value driven actions. So let’s get into how you can start becoming the confident, self respecting person, the kind of person that you admire, beginning with the very choices that you make today. And if this is your first time here, thank you so much for joining me today. I am your host, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby. My background, I’m a licensed psychologist. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. I am a board certified coach. I’m the founder of Growing Self Counseling and Coaching. And you know, at the end of the day, I’m, I’m a therapist.

I’m a coach. I work with people day in and day out. On exactly these kinds of things, Dr. Lisa, how can I feel more confident? How do I build my self esteem and just feel like the person that I want to be in the world? I get all kinds of questions from my clients, but also from, from you, my listeners.

Through YouTube, through my podcast, I know that so many of you are struggling to feel confident and to trust yourself, right? Trust your own judgment, your own ideas to feel good about the actions that you’re taking and know that you are actually doing the right thing and how difficult it is to attain this.

State. So I’ve been listening to you and that’s really why I wanted to make this show all about you. So today we’re going to talk about how to develop authentic confidence. But of course, this is not where the conversation ends with me.

We’re going to be tackling this on this week’s live stream. So if you want to talk about your own struggles and, and your journey of feeling more confident, developing your self esteem, really feeling like you’re growing into the kind of person you want to be. I want, I want to hear what’s going on. Join me on Thursday.

You can submit your questions in advance. through growingself. com forward slash dear hyphen Lisa, or just hop in with me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and we’re going to talk about it. I’ll take your questions. I’ll give you feedback, share my perspective,

so hopefully you can take the things that you’re learning about today and really start to apply them to your own life because that is what the love, happiness and success podcast is all about I started doing the show years ago out of a real desire to be of service in the lives of other people.

You know, I’m a therapist by trade and I would see clients all day long, but still always having this awareness of service. That not everybody can, can get into counseling with somebody like me or coaching, you know, it can be time consuming. There are financial resources involved and not everybody has access to it.

So the love happiness and success podcast was sort of my answer to that. How do I bring the things that happen in the counseling and coaching room out? into the world so that people just like you can put them to use in your lives. And so that is what this show is all about. And, and so I have a lot of stuff to give you today, but also I do have one request, which is that as you’re listening to this, I want you to be thinking about who else in your life could benefit from hearing this information or this perspective, and then paying this forward by sending it to them, sharing it with them, encouraging them to listen or watch.

Um, I’m doing this as a labor of love for you. You don’t have to pay me back, just pay it forward. And that’s how together we can make the world a better place.

So let’s talk about how to grow into the kind of person that exudes confidence, not in a yucky, arrogant, narcissistic way, but in that quiet, calm, certainty, that deep rooted belief in yourself, your own competence, your own judgment. The first idea that I would like to share that may feel new to you. Even radical, is that confidence, like love, confidence is not a feeling.

You can’t expect to feel confident. You have to do confidence. When you begin operating as a confident person, instead of waiting for the magical feelings to happen, you will begin to develop an internal felt sense of confidence over time that is a deep Deep rooted belief in your own competence and trust in yourself. And this belief comes from learning how to respect yourself through your actions and your behaviors and your own ability to manage your mind.

Confidence is not something that just magically appears. It is built through hard work, consistency, and this commitment to Becoming the kind of person that you really want to be. So the good news here is that confidence is something that absolutely can be developed. It is not something that is just going to happen and you’re not going to have a switch flip and all of a sudden feel confident.

But when you know how to do the work to attain self confidence, it can be yours.

One of the primary misconceptions about confidence that can really mess people up is this erroneous idea that confidence comes from external validation. It is about our accomplishments or our achievements or the way we look or the things that we do that are received by others as being impressive or laudable or that we’re getting positive feedback from other people.

If you want to develop authentic confidence, the first thing that you need to do is release that mindset. Confidence, real confidence, is never external. It comes from within.

Specifically, we build confidence from one thing. And if you take nothing else from this episode or write this one down, authentic confidence is built when you observe yourself doing things that align with your values and operating in a way that you respect and admire, maybe in others,

because when you begin behaving in ways that are congruent with the person you want to be, you naturally begin to develop trust and respect for yourself. And this is the foundation of confidence is feeling good about yourself. Respect. Respecting yourself, trusting yourself. Confidence has nothing to do with being perceived by others in a certain way.

Authentic confidence is all about building your relationship with you.

So in order to get here, one of the first and most important things that we all need to do on this quest for confidence is to decide, first of all, that this is something that we want to work on, but also then be making a choice to become the kind of person that you admire, respect, or trust and figuring out What that means to you, and that involves digging into your own value system to understand what really matters for you.

So consider this, like if you admire people who are self disciplined or who, you know, wake up early to exercise or who, uh, parent well, or who take care of themselves, or have been able to attain things in their careers, or even, even have a certain quality of life, or even somebody who’s organized or, um, socially competent, right?

Um, all of these things, you figure out what are the metrics upon which I am judging myself and what are the areas in which I would really like to grow and develop? What are the qualities that I admire the most in other people can give you some visibility into thinking more about the kind of person that you want to be.

It may also be interesting for you to reflect and even do some journaling or work with your, your coach or your therapist to think about the times that you feel unconfident or that you are struggling with self esteem. Invariably, it’s connected to a few things. First, either you are comparing yourself unfavorably to other people who you do admire and respect and kind of wishing that you could be more like them.

Or you may also be frustrated with yourself that you aren’t able to be the kind of person that you really want to be. And as you Dig into this, you may decide or discover that you have actually damaged the trust that you have in yourself because you haven’t held boundaries. You haven’t followed through.

You’ve wanted to do things that you haven’t done and then beat yourself up for it. But this accumulation of experience. Um, uh, experiences has made you doubt yourself. What kind of person am I, do I make good decisions? Can I manage myself? Well, can I be the person that I want to be? And what does that even mean?

If you have work to do in this area, it will be very difficult for you to feel confident or worthy because a, you might not have clarity into what it is that you need to do, but B, you will be struggling to actually be that kind of person. The other reason why you might be struggling to feel confident or or have self esteem is if you have an incorrect understanding of how this works, that confidence is something that some people just feel and other people don’t.

It’s like this mood state. You know, it’s like, I want to feel happy. I want to feel confident. I want to feel in love. Like, Confidence, yeah, after you do the work and, you know, build it, you can feel confident, but the path to getting there is actually just a lot of hard work, like everything else worth having in your life, your career, your education, your relationships, your financial health, your physical health, we all have to work at those things with intention.

Confidence is exactly like that too. But until you understand that and know what to do in order to attain it, you might feel just frustrated and see it as something that other people have and that you will never attain and kind of like wishing that the confidence fairy would like sprinkle the magic dust on you and that’s not how it works.

But that’s good though, because confidence, you can, you can do something about that.

So, the foundational way of developing confidence is identifying the things that you feel are things that you admire and respect and that are attached to the kind of person that you want to be and then observing yourself following through with these. So for example, if you really admire people who have invested in their health so they Eat well, they are vibrant, they exercise, they have lots of energy.

And you’re like, that is so awesome. I wish I could be that kind of person. So the way of attaining that is figuring out what are the behaviors associated with that? Maybe exercising more or changing your diet or getting more sleep or drinking more water, taking the supplements. I mean, there can be so many different things attached to that, but the outcome.

It is not just about becoming fit or healthy or having more energy as you do these things. And as you watch yourself doing these things and following through, it becomes about growing into the kind of person who does these things. things, who embodies these qualities. As you show up for yourself and impress yourself with who you are, it changes the way you feel about yourself.

It changes the way you view yourself. You have become a trustworthy, respectful. Respectable, admirable person because of how you’re operating again, not for other people But for yourself and that changes the way you feel about yourself

So just to share a personal story of what this looks like. So for me, and I think many people struggle with this, but you know, we all have this some iteration of this on different dimensions of life, but for the longest time. I really wanted to be the kind of person who took health more seriously. So getting more exercise, having a better diet, like better self care.

And I always struggled to do this. I think I had a mentality that other things were more important than my physical health. So I always had a million excuses, or I’d be like, tomorrow, I’m going to go for a walk or whatever it is. And then I didn’t. And over time, I mean, This damaged my self esteem, my, my confidence in myself, not just related to the health behaviors, but because I was teaching myself that I was not the kind of person who could follow through with something that intellectually they knew was important.

I mean, what’s more important than your health, right? I really wanted to be someone that exercise regularly, but I just couldn’t make it happen. And then so, you know, our journey of growth is always individual. We all have our different paths. But for me, the catalyst was beginning to understand the relationship between physical health and my mental health, emotional health, my, my brain health, let me cognitive health.

So I mean, as somebody that struggles with ADHD, like I need to work on this in order to, to function day to day. Right. And so I just. started showing up. I identified all of the exercises, routines that did not work for me as evidenced by my failure to follow through with them. But I finally found one that did.

And I started just making it part of my routine and it started happening and it was hard at first, but, but I shifted my mindset. I had to change my thinking around. You know what? This is attached to my long term life goals. This is the person that I want to be, and this is really helping me. And this is a good value of my time to invest in.

You know, part of my mindset previously was like, I’m too busy to exercise, but so I began doing it, white knuckling it. It was horrible, not going to lie every class. I felt like I was going to pass out, but I kept showing up. And the interesting thing happened that not only did I, you know, begin to feel like, oh, the class was getting a little bit easier and easier.

I wasn’t quite so out of breath. I could start to keep up with the 75 year old women in my class that have been doing this for the last 10 years. Like these ladies are in shape. Um, but I began to notice that A great example of what I’m telling you about today is that I began to really have a lot of respect and admiration for myself.

I was showing up to these classes and the way that it impacted my sense of confidence, like I’m the kind of person that can do hard things and you know that that built and built over time. And I’ve experienced that in other areas of my life, certainly around some of my educational goals or career goals like that, but like, this is something that I had been teaching my clients for years and years, but to have this new example, a fresh example of how we damage our trust in ourselves through our behaviors and how we repair our trust in ourselves and in correlation, our confidence When we do the right things that we want to do and know that we should do, how it really impacts the way that we feel we stand up a little bit stronger.

We feel a little more pride in ourselves. And I think that we feel more confident and empowered to take on new challenges when we have proven to ourselves that we can show up and do the hard things consistently. It builds on itself. Actually, the author, James Clear, who wrote the book Atomic Habits, which I’ve talked about on this podcast previously, and whose work I’m just such a huge fan of, wrote extensively about this as well, that the key to developing and sustaining a habit that will, over the course of many months and years, Change your life’s trajectory in the most powerful ways.

I mean, it’s not the big things that we do. It’s the little things that we do consistently, but how those habits that we engage in, in small ways, change your self concept and change your perceptions of yourself, change your definition of yourself. And. When you begin changing your own personal identity, the way you think about you, that is what starts showing up differently in your relationships with other people.

You begin bringing that new you into your connections with others. And if you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you’ve heard me say this before, but I will say it again. We all teach other people who we are and what to expect from us. And you may have had a relationship with yourself that was Based on trust and respect. And you did not have confidence in yourself.

And so perhaps because you lacked that self esteem or self confidence, you became very other focused, you couldn’t give it to yourself. So you looked for it in other people looking for the gold star. Stars looking for the praise, looking for the positive feedback from others so that you would feel okay about you.

And hey, we’ve all been in that place and that is something that happens to everyone. If we struggle to feel confident in ourselves, we automatically become hyper focused on external validation because it seems like that’s all we have. So when you shift this and develop a new identity, change your relationship with yourself, you’re going to have to reintroduce.

This new self to your relationships with other people so that they understand that you are a person who is worthy of trust, who is respectable, who is admirable, who is capable of hard things, and who looks within rather than without to decide your own worth. So you may need to help other people change their stories of who you are after you’ve done this internal work of changing your story of who you are to yourself.

And that’s okay. That’s part of this growth process.

As with many aspects of personal growth, the first step is making contact with your dark emotions, which means going into what is currently making you feel so badly about yourself. When you feel Unconfident? Like, what does that mean? Is it a lack of self discipline? A habit of procrastination,

maybe you feel like you don’t know the right thing to say around other people? Or you feel like your social skills aren’t in alignment with others? Or is it that you don’t feel confident in your own choices? Or in, um, the way that you think and the way that you feel, do you not always trust that to kind of look to other people for a confirmation of how you should think and feel and behave?

Like, what is the lack of confidence or low self esteem attached to specifically? And you could also look back even further to see, was there some kind of trauma attached to this? Did you experience a rejection or a betrayal at some point in your life that taught you that you were not worthy of love and respect because somebody else decided that was true?

And then by proxy, you believed them. Well, they, they don’t like me. Therefore I am unlikable and, and essentially given your power away. So like thinking about where is this even coming from? That is step one. And then, whatever that is, understand that your self esteem is directly tied to your growth in one of those areas.

Now, it is very hard sometimes to crack into this kind of deep self awareness. And this is where working with a really good therapist or coach can help you. You can also get here by journaling, talking to a friend. Doing some deep self reflection, but it’s hard because this is really rooted in our core beliefs and in our mindsets that can often be very, very old.

And the hardest thing about these is that they’re so old that they seem just real, like we don’t have, um, perspective into our own thinking process. We can’t get enough psychological distance to say, Oh yeah, I believe that I’m a bad person because, you know, this. Kid that I dated in high school broke up with me in a really traumatic way.

And I took on their, uh, opinions of me as my own. And that was a mistake. Like it’s hard to get into that unless you have somebody asking you power questions and helping you peel that onion in a more active way that can feel challenging. Right? Challenging in the sense of it’s helping you think about things a different way, or, oh yeah, I never considered it through that perspective.

It’s kind of like we need to tenderize the meat a little bit in order to crack these rigid, old, unhelpful ways of thinking that may have kept calcified and are currently keeping you stuck in a mental narrative or a mindset that is creating these feelings of low self esteem or, or lack of confidence.

So that’s truly the first step is understanding where this is coming from. Once you have some clarity on where this lack of confidence is coming from, where the low self esteem feelings are rooted, and you can make it more concrete, then it becomes something that you can work on. What would growth and improvement in this area look like for me, and how do you tie that into some specific mindsets, thoughts, or especially behaviors that can begin to retrain you and develop your trust in yourself, where you can see yourself being the kind of person that you want to be.

Not feeling like it, you’re not going to feel this way at first, but being the kind of person that you want to be and trusting that over time, if you’re consistent with this, the feelings of confidence will follow

a couple of more exercises to help you crack into this and feel free to pause this right here. Grab a pen or pull out your phone. Do some digging, do some journaling, ask yourself, what kind of person do you want to be? If you did have high self esteem or if you did feel confident, what would be different about you and your life and detach right now from this thought of, Oh, well, I would just feel?

Like I was worthy or I would feel confident that mindset is going to keep you stuck. So I’m going to take that one away from you. So absent that feeling, what would you actually be doing? What is your life like? What would you be like? Who would you be? What are the behaviors then that align with the vision?

And then you can translate that into action because when you start acting in ways that align with these values and this connection to your highest and best self, you will naturally begin to respect yourself more. And this is the foundation of higher self esteem. It does not come from without, it comes from within through your observation of yourself being a competent person who has great judgment and who can do hard things.

Things that’s what this is all about. And if you’re not trying that, if you’re not doing the hard things, if you’re not challenging yourself to grow, you are going to stay stuck in this place of feeling incapable, unconfident, unworthy, because you haven’t done that work yet. And this reality is, in my opinion, one of the reasons why we need to get rid of merit trophies and, you know, allow our children to experience the struggle of having to work to get where they want to go. Uh, you know that, oh my gosh, you didn’t study for that test. And you got an F right. So what do you need to do differently next time?

What are the study habits? What are the mindsets? What are the things that you can do differently? Yeah. Like turn in the homework, read the book, do the things so that your kids have the opportunity to experience themselves as people who work really hard and because of their hard work, create more positive outcomes.

That is the core of empowerment is rooted in this book. personal responsibility, that my actions are tied to outcomes, and that I need to figure out how to be the kind of person who can do the things to get the outcomes I want. When your kids, when we all do that, come out the other side and are like, yeah, I did that.

I’m doing it. That feels so good. So good. And that is authentic confidence that is yours to keep. Nobody can take that away from you. Nobody can give that to you. You have to build it and earn it, and then it’s yours forever.

One other tip I do have for you is to emulate the mindset of a confident person. So, in my experience, I mean through my own personal experience, but also as a therapist and a coach, a confident person is not necessarily someone who never feels fear or anxiety. or doubt. Those both of those things are actually quite healthy and necessary.

So somebody that doesn’t experience fear or doubt has other problems that are often more significant. So confident people can sometimes like, Oh, am I doing the right thing? Or Ooh, is that a good idea? But this is not a negative thing to them. Instead, they are able to actually sort through this, like, I’m going to listen to my fear.

Maybe that is a bad idea. Maybe I should slow down or, you know what? I’m second guessing myself right here. Maybe there are other variables that I could consider. So this is something that strengthens their trust. in themselves because that what they’re showing themselves is I am a thoughtful person who makes good decisions, especially about important things.

And what that turns into is someone who trusts in their ability to handle challenges and make good decisions. And maybe even try some things and then fail, fail, and be okay with that. Because one of the characteristics of an authentically confident person is that they have developed a growth mindset, which is this understanding and core belief that becoming more competent or becoming more anything, more effective, better in relationships.

Becoming the kind of person that generally feels more confident and has higher self esteem is a process that requires work and effort and that takes experimentation and trying of certain things and maybe not getting great outcomes the first time around, but not giving up and continuing to say, okay, so I tried something didn’t work the way I wanted to, but what did I learn from that and then taking in that feedback so that they can continue to improve over time.

Like me and my exercise classes, I tell you what, I mean, over the years I tried so many different things, but even when I was like, you know what? I need to try this again. I’m, you know, getting older and this is something I need to take more seriously. I must develop better health habits. I tried yoga, I tried swimming, I tried walking, I tried so many things and none of them worked for me.

And so at any one of those moments, I could have taken that and be like, yep, that’s it. I’m just not the kind of person that exercises. But I kept going to find, okay, this is it. is a place that I feel good. This is what, you know, kind of energizes me and what I feel committed to and what’s fitting into my life.

So I’m going to keep doing this, but I seriously had to go through like eight different things before I found that. So I just wanted to say that out loud for you because this is not a switch that flips. And if you don’t have a growth mindset, if it’s turning into, well, I can’t do this or this is too hard or X, Y, Z, you know, we’re, as opposed To this growth mindset of like, yeah, this is hard.

And that’s why I need to keep working at it. I can figure this out, but it’s going to take time. I’m learning every time I fail. Um, this is the mindset of an authentically confident and confident person is that they keep going and expect that it’s not going to be a straight line. People who give up and say, I will always feel this way.

It will be hopeless, are the ones who expect it to be a lot easier. Then it really is, or this is just a feeling that I’m going to have, or somebody’s going to give it to me. And again, sorry to burst that bubble, but somebody has to, and that person is me today. I’m so glad you’re here to receive this message.

And I hope that that takeaway helps you change the mindset into, yeah, I need to work on this and I can, and I will.

So once you’ve done the things we’re talking about today, gaining awareness around where lack of confidence is coming from, changing your mindset around how confidence really works in people’s lives. Also then changing your self perception and beginning to cultivate a growth mindset, the way that we develop confidence and self esteem is through tying, whatever the things are that we need to work on.

Into actions and behaviors in alignment with our values that we then engage in consistently over time. And that is the key. You cannot do any of this a few times and expect to feel differently at all. Success here and growth here is going to be measured in at least weeks, probably months, maybe even years.

You have a whole lifetime of training yourself that you are one way and you are going to have to prove it for a while through your behaviors in order to begin to feel differently and to truly grow in to a different person. Whether it’s exercising, learning new skills, managing your time better, consistency like this is what builds trust in yourself.

And it’s very much a wax on wax off kind of process. So just expect that

If you haven’t yet read the book by Dr. Carol Dweck called Mindset, go ahead and do that. You’ll learn all about growth mindsets, which is really again, about how to embrace all the challenges and you will experience challenges, but to reframe them as opportunities to learn and grow rather than.

new threats or wounds to your confidence or self worth. So if you don’t have this growth mindset, you’re going to venture forth in the world and try new things and take a few in the face and it is going to make you feel worse instead of better. You need to protect yourself and arm yourself with a growth mindset going in because an authentically confident person is one that firmly believes in their ability to.

Take all this feedback and use it to improve and adapt and understand that that is not an obstacle. That is actually the path.

Of course, through all of this, it is so important to have and practice healthy self compassion. So as you’re doing this work, respect the work. Like this is hard work and be treating yourself with a lot of kindness, especially during those moments where you are feeling vulnerable. You’re trying new things that feel hard and not always succeeding.

Like whatever that means. If you see yourself making mistakes and feeling like that. Oh, this is so hard. Be soft with yourself, you know, because confidence again, is coming from knowing that you can handle setbacks with grace. And that again, comes from the kind of relationship that you have with yourself.

When you are self compassionate, it raises your self esteem and it raises your confidence. It becomes okay to do hard things because you have a soft place to fall within yourself. You might begin practicing things like more positive or self supportive self talk, like replacing negative statements or criticisms with more positive affirmations that reinforce this positive self belief that you want to have.

So instead of saying, I can’t do this, or I am, I am incapable, say, you know, intentional, and you might have to write this down. I am capable of learning and improving and doing it is hard, and I’m experiencing that right now, right? So this is all part of the way that we grow, not just externally and how we show up with others, that part comes later.

This is the internal work that we have to do first.

So if you’re still with me, you might be thinking, okay, great. Thank you. Yep. I get it. It’s all internal. But that The title of this podcast was how to exude confidence, right? I want to appear more confident to other people, Dr. Lisa. So what are we going to get to that part? And you’re absolutely right. We are going to talk about that right this very second.

But the important piece of this is that in order to do that, to exude confidence and appear more confident to other people, you have to do this. internal work first. Sure, you can fake being confident, but that will only get you so far. You will still be quite fragile if you just start, you know, dressing differently or holding your shoulders back.

Like, sure, you’ll appear more confident, but you, somebody will scratch you or you’ll take like a little dip. Dink! And you’ll fall over and collapse into like shame and like, you know, low self esteem. I don’t want that for you. So what I wanted to do in the first part of this podcast is really give you the strong foundation of developing that stronger, more confident, trusting relationship with yourself because that is the roots of the tree that will then allow you to exude confidence In your relations with other people and help you feel and appear, well, really appear more confident than you probably feel sometimes.

So the question everybody’s waiting for, how to appear more confident than you feel. First of all, it is totally natural to sometimes, oftentimes, feel less confident than you would like to feel, especially in new or challenging situations, especially sometimes in social situations.

And going back to one of the very first points of this podcast, confidence is not a feeling. And if you expect to feel confident, you are going to be disappointed because that isn’t how it works. We are courageous and brave when we show up in situations where we feel a little bit dicey on the inside, but we’re still able to.

Do the things we need to do and show up as the kind of people that we want to be because of doing the work of managing these feelings and not having an expectation that we need to feel a certain way in order to act a certain way. And that is where this seeming confident and exuding confident comes from is by focusing on how you are showing up in the moment, especially.

Especially with other people, especially when you don’t feel particularly confident because they’re going to be a lot of times when you don’t. So here are some tips for how to do that.

Tip number one is to remember that your brain and feelings are connected to your body. It’s like you have a neck, right? It all works together. And there are some physiological hacks that you can use in order to feel more confident. Things like taking slow, deep breaths intentionally puts your body into a I’m okay.

A kind of feeling that will actually change the way that you think and will help you experience yourself as being more confident than maybe you did before you did the deep breathing. Additionally, things like posture, standing tall with your shoulders back, putting your arms at your hips instead of, you know, like crossing your arms and being all hunched over your body language can influence how others is.

Perceive you, but also how you feel in that moment. So take up some space, stand tall and make your physiological appearance proud. People experience you that way. And you’re going to feel a little boost to

additionally, something as simple as making eye contact when you talk to people shows that you’re engaged and confident in your message when you’re able to hold someone’s gaze.

When you are talking with other people, speak clearly, not too fast, not too slow, make sure that you are speaking loud enough. Sometimes when we don’t really feel that confident, we can physiologically become kind of quiet and tentative. So things like a soft voice. Confidence or rushed speech can make you feel anxious, while this clear, deliberate way of talking exudes confidence.

You might need to practice this. If you’re going into a high impact social situation, you know, go ahead and rehearse a couple anecdotes in the shower or talk to yourself. Talk to yourself in the mirror the way that you want to be talking to other people. Experiment with making a recording of yourself, talking a recording of video, just of yourself on your phone, and challenge yourself to grow in this area.

If I was watching this person talk right now, would I experience them as being confident and someone that I would trust and respect and admire? No. Okay. What do I need to do differently in order to be more of who I want to be? These are learnable skills.

And lastly, even just a smile on your face, a genuine smile can make you appear more confident, also more approachable, more friendly. You are more likely to have positive experiences with other people if you are radiating positivity, right? And that will boost your confidence because this builds on itself.

When you go forth into the world and you have good experiences. experiences with other people. You’re like, all right, I can do that. And it’s that much easier the next time, rather than if you’re feeling nervous and you’re not doing a good job of regulating your emotions, and you might seem kind of like tense and grumpy, like other people don’t know what’s going on inside of you, they might not know, like, oh, they’re shy, or they’re nervous, they might be like, you’re like, oh, I’m nervous.

That person isn’t very friendly, right? And they will not treat you that well as a response. And so you walk away from that interaction being like, Oh, right. And that is going to damage your confidence and your feeling of competence around going into the next social situation. So If you need social skills training in order to learn more about what to do in these situations, go ahead and get it.

There are lots of great evidence based programs out in the world, books, many books on this subject that will teach you the micro skills of what to do to show up with people in positive ways. But putting a smile on your face is one of the easiest, certainly cheapest things that you can do that will help you get much better results.

And then lastly, we do need to talk just a little bit about physical appearance and how that relates to confidence. Now you do not need to look a certain way in order to be confident. And it is actually going to send you into a downward spiral. If you tie your appearance or physical characteristics or any other like metrics, how much money you make, what kind of career you have, like the car you drive, any of those outward things cannot be anything that is related to your confidence or self worth because you will always lose.

Someone else is always going to be more successful, more fit, more pretty, more accomplished, all of the things and you cannot compare yourself to others. That is only external validation. Seeking in a different outfit, right? So let go of that. Now, what is important is for you to be thinking about what makes you feel authentically confident, what are the.

Outfits or what are the health habits or the things that help you show up as the kind of person that you wish to be and that you wish to be seen as not making your self worth dependent on anybody else’s reaction. We’re not looking for compliments. We’re not trying to be like the best dressed person.

person at the thing, but like a quiet confidence and, and making sure that you are having that relationship with yourself, that you are investing in the things that make you feel good and that make you feel like more of you. And it is jeans and a t shirt, but jeans and a t shirt that you really like. You think this t shirt is Hilarious!

And you like wearing it. It makes you feel happy when you do. Great. Do that. And then you go forth into the world saying, Hey, this is me. This is who I am. This is the kind of relationship that I have with myself. And you are teaching others that you are confident in you. That’s what this is all about.

Because at the core, true, authentic confidence is all about believing in your own competence, your ability to make good decisions, your ability to manage yourself well, and your ability to follow through and And do the things that are important to you and that lead to positive outcomes in your life.

This is not about the gold stars. It is about shaping your own identity and becoming the kind of person who you like and admire and respect, not just in how you appear to others, but in how you show up for yourself.

At its core, true confidence is not about anything external. It is all about believing in your own competence, your ability to make good decisions, your ability to manage yourself well, and your ability to follow through and take the actions that will lead to the outcome. Outcomes that are most important to you.

It is about becoming the kind of person that you want to be, the kind of person that you like and respect and admire, not how you appear to others, but how you see yourself. Confidence comes through the development of an identity that you believe in. So how you do that for yourself. Self is what self esteem and authentic confidence is really all about. Authentic confidence is about becoming the kind of person who you like and admire and respect and trust, not how you appear to other people, but how you see yourself. It’s about your relationship with you and your own identity, your perception of your own identity.

And remember too, that becoming more competent is a solvable problem with a growth mindset. You can develop the skills and behaviors that lead to confidence through small, consistent actions, or even significant lifestyle changes, watching yourself follow through and do the things that you admire and respect.

I’m going to be talking about how to build self worth, confidence, and competence step by step. And it is absolutely within your reach.

So, what kind of person do you want to be? What does confidence mean to you? What is it attached to? And start taking small steps towards that vision today and watch as your confidence grows. Again, not how you appear to others, although that’ll come, but how you see yourself. And thank you so much for joining me today here and taking this in.

I hope this was helpful for you. If it was. Please share this with somebody else in your life who might also be struggling to feel confident or worthy so that they have the benefit of this perspective. And also take advantage of all the free resources that I have for you because again, when the rubber meets the road, we have to learn how to do things differently.

And I have a lot of resources for you. If you come to my website, growingself. com. You can come into my blog and podcast section and browse around all these different content collections that will help you get some new ideas and figure out like what you need to be doing differently in order to get traction.

You might expect. Explore communication skills, how to have healthy relationships, how to get more traction in your career, personal growth, all kinds of things. Take advantage, too, of some of the free two part trainings that I have created for you, specifically if you want to get better outcomes in relationships and you’re feeling like, why can’t I do this?

Check out my Communication That Connects. Totally free two part training, growingself. com forward slash communication, because it teaches you some of these like micro skills that you can begin practicing. You will get better outcomes when you communicate with your partner and that will build your confidence and your ability to do so.

And then lastly, of course, if you want to talk about this further, I am here for you. Connect with me on Thursday, jump into a live stream. Thursday at 12 p. m. Mountain 2 p. m. Eastern. And we’ll talk about feeling more confident and increasing your self esteem. I want to hear about what’s going on in your life and I’ll provide feedback in real time during the live stream.

So you can join me on the socials, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or of course, um, Um, send your question in advance, growingself. com forward slash dear hyphen Lisa, um, you could ask anonymously that way, but also get notifications, reminders of where the live stream is happening and we’ll also email you a recap.

Okay, that’s it for today. Thanks again for joining me and I’ll see you next week.