As a confidence coach in Toronto, I’ve seen that every person has the ability to tap unlimited confidence.
Read this article for ideas that you can implement effortlessly for more confidence today.
If you prefer audio, check out my podcast episode on this topic:
I’m a life coach in Toronto, Canada.
Confidence comes up in my coaching practice all the time.
People have all kinds of self-esteem issues and really suffer from them.
Take my own example.
I used to be very shy.
I did not have a positive example of confidence in my life.
This was especially bad when I went to college.
In this new environment, I felt like everyone was watching and judging me.
It was so bad that for the first year, I couldn’t even eat in the canteen.
The idea that people would see me putting food in my mouth seemed daunting.
Sounds crazy to me now but that was how I felt back then.
I would buy a couple of pieces of bread and eat them in the corridor or the bathroom.
It wasn’t until the fourth year that I became confident enough to eat in the canteen.
So if you feel insecure, I totally understand.
A confidence coach Steve Errey writes:
“With those thoughts in your head and that ripe plum of fear and anxiety in the pit of your stomach, it’s easy to find yourself trying to please others, pursuing perfection and wanting to prove yourself at every step.”
It took me years of inner and outer work to get to the confidence level I have now.
Let me share some of my learnings with you.
Tip 1: Build a virtuous cycle of confidence.
Help other people to be confident.
By doing so, not only do you help them, but you also help yourself.
You exercise the principle of making a student a teacher.
When you teach something to someone, you understand it better yourself.
Another principle at work here is “give to get.”
By inspiring confidence in others, you get more of it in your own life.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Ask others about their opinions or just ask questions. They will feel significant and more confident as a result. For example, as a confidence coach, I did this a lot with my mother when she visited me in Toronto.
- Celebrate every small achievement. Recognition empowers people to be more confident about themselves.
- As a leader, encourage people to come up with ideas instead of asking you what to do. For example, when your kids come to you for solutions, don’t answer their questions but let them come up with answers so that they exercise their decision—and confidence—muscles.
As your loved ones become more confident, it creates an atmosphere of confidence in your group.
And then this atmosphere influences you in a positive way, making you more confident.
And then your confident tone and attitude make everyone else feel even safer and more confident.
See, this is a virtuous cycle.
Tip 2: Do outer work.
Outer work on confidence is about physically combatting with your insecurities.
For example, I was afraid of talking to strangers.
So I pushed myself to walk up to random people and talk to them.
What I did, in essence, was training my confidence as a muscle.
I then literally exercised it doing a lot of reps.
And it grew stronger.
The problem, though, is that outer work is less effective than inner work.
I was forcing myself to do it on the surface, whereas inside I didn’t want to do that at all.
It was like a band-aid.
Even though I built those muscles, they started to atrophy as soon as I stopped this work.
So I realized that I should emphasize inner work.
Instead of forcing myself to look confident on the outside and simply numb my insecurities with reps, I should become confident on the inside.
This is where inner work comes in.
Yet, I found those external exercises a useful addition to inner work.
Even if didn’t change my confidence, I did some groundwork for a habit that I then honed with inner work.
So I recommend most people at least experimenting with them.
A good thing is to get a confidence coach in Toronto to help you go out and support you through the process.
Don’t overcomplicate it.
Simply get out there and talk to strangers.
Ask people to do things for you despite your fear of rejection.
Tip 3: Do inner work.
(It’s best to start this work with a coach. They will explain these concepts quickly and effectively and guide you through your initial steps. Find a confidence coach in Toronto to get you started. After you gain momentum, you can go on your own.)
Realize others don’t care.
I used to think that everyone was watching me and felt insecure.
But with time, I realized people were always preoccupied with their own issues.
For example, I would send an email to someone containing two bullet points.
That person would often read the first point and skip the second one.
Coach Corey Wayne said:
“We should not care about other people’s opinions because 300 years from now, nobody will even remember us.”
I would take it further: most people don’t notice us even now.
They are just too busy with their own agenda.
Don’t take yourself seriously.
When I realized no one really cared about me like I thought they did, that felt liberating.
The next step was stopping to take myself too seriously.
I used to be angry with myself whenever I made a blunder.
Those around me would feel sorry for me and the whole vibe would go negative.
Now, I make fun of myself instead.
For example, when I play soccer I laugh at myself if I miss a good shot.
But other players usually beat themselves for this type of thing.
This is a great reframing for my subconscious mind: instead of being afraid of making blunders, I celebrate them in a fun way.
It boosts my confidence and puts people around me at ease.
Observe other people.
Use their example to reflect on your own self-esteem.
Take my mother, for example:
She lacks confidence.
By watching her closely, I realized that a big reason of her insecurities is looks.
More specifically, the cognitive dissonance between her physical signs of aging and her model of the world where she feels young and active.
So that’s a self-image problem: she doesn’t want to accept herself.
She doesn’t like to be in photos, for example.
This kind of self-image issues cause a lot of trouble including a lack of confidence.
By looking at her example, I started to work on loving myself more.
Like being in pictures more, looking in the mirror more, smiling more to myself, making fun of my appearance.
Another example is my cousin:
He’s a narcissist.
By observing him, I realized I could benefit from his characteristics of a narcissist.
And my confidence went up as a result.
Use affirmations.
A simple self-esteem boosting affirmation could sound like this:
“I am 100% confident because 300 years from now, it won’t matter anyway.”
I use affirmations fanatically to reprogram my subconscious mind:
- I pick one affirmation for at least one month.
- I keep repeating it as I exercise throughout the day.
- I affirm it to myself during yoga.
- I keep the affirmation on a whiteboard in front of me during the day.
- I sometimes repeat it as a mantra during meditation.
Visualization
That’s another technique similar to affirmations.
An intuitive parenting coach Nola Peacock suggests:
“What I find very helpful to become more confident is to visualize what I want to do. For example, if I have a talk to give, I visualize myself in front of my audience speaking with confidence. I see them looking very interested in what I have to say and giving me a standing ovation as I finish. This really helps to boost my confidence.”
Journal about confidence.
Journaling is a big part of growing in any area of your life.
Observe yourself to see when you’re confident and insecure.
Notice what helps you feel more confident.
Journal about it to remember and re-use it.
Bonus: how can we stay confident with age?
What would you say if I told you you could turn around your self-esteem issues?
As we grow, we tend to feel more insecure.
One reason is that our bodies and energy levels change.
Another reason is that we make mistakes and regret them.
But what if these things could motivate us to have higher self-esteem, not lower?
Here’s a podcast episode with my best 3 methods for developing self-esteem:
https://romanmironov.com/blog/3-ways-to-build-confidence-as-you-age-they-work-in-my-self-esteem-coach-practice-ep-13/
In closing
One last thing: notice how kids who have happy and confident parents are often confident as well.
They see a confident posture in you as a parent and model it in themselves.
So work on your confidence both to feel better yourself and to influence people around you in a positive way, especially your children.
Break through your barriers with your confidence coach in Toronto
A life coach Elisabetta Franzoso said:
“Work through coaching, counseling and retreats of various kind to ‘open the heart’ and maintain it open.”
You can do so by hiring me as a life coach in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
I’d love to discuss any confidence issues you may have.
If you need help getting more confident, hit me up here.
The first session is free and gives you a complete understanding of the value of my confidence coaching.