Upgrading your style is more than just about clothes. Enhancing your mind plays a huge role in being/becoming the person you want to be. The Tailored Mind series offers practical and applicable answers to the “how?” for that old adage: “just be ‘better'”.
The Annoying Absolute: “C’mon man, just be more confident!”
The Absolutely Reasonable Question: “Yeah, but… how?”
Ahh, confidence – that slightly elusive and ambiguous concept. What is it? How does one attain and keep it? To answer those questions there are lists, lists and lists all over the internet explaining how to develop and/or increase it. With all that info readily available, I don’t want to spend too much time rehashing it. Why reinvent the wheel? Instead, I’ll spend a little time on an easy process, and some time on the mental/emotional side of becoming confident.
The following is a very quick way to figure out what confidence means to you. Most people already have an idea or image of what it means, or looks like, to be confident – lets tap into that. First off, visualize yourself as your most confident. Go ahead, close your eyes, and see yourself. I’ll wait. . . . What do you see? Create a list of attributes that make up your vision of “confidence”.
For example, your attributes of confidence might include:
- Grounded
- Eye-contact
- Good posture
- In shape
- Dresses well
- Chooses what’s good for him/herself
- Doesn’t need to ask permission from others
- Positive
- Curious
- Presence
Okay, so #1 might not have to be on the “do” side.
Now create action steps.
Remember our Be + Do = Have equation? This is a great opportunity to put that equation into action. Make those Be/Do lists!
1. Begin by writing down the list of attributes that came to mind when you envisioned your more confident self.
2. Next fold a piece of paper in half and label the two columns Be and Do.
3. In the ‘Be’ column, list the attributes of confidence that you envisioned. In the ‘Do’ column create the action step: how are you going to ‘Do’ that attribute?
4. Pick one or two attributes to work on at a time, until they become habits.
There you have it. A quick and easy process to figuring out what confidence means to you, and what action steps you can take to achieve it. If you think this sounds too-hokey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. The act of writing, of physically putting what’s in your head onto a piece of paper and then examining it, can lead to a lot of clarity. We operate in so much noise, that you’d be surprised how a simple exercise like this can really cut through.
So . . . you’re confident now, right?
Well, there you go. You have everything you need to be confident, including pages and pages of Google search listings, and this very easy process. So, are you confident? No? Why not? “Well, Amber, I did the visualization, I made my lists, and I spent a lot of time thinking about confidence, but…”
What it really boils down to is this: building confidence and sustaining confidence
IS A DAILY CHOICE.
According to The Slight Edge, life is basically a balance scale; on one side is Success and on the other is Failure. Each and every day we are offered the opportunity to choose, in many different areas, and those choices go on either side of the scale. As you look at your list of Be/Do, the Do side is your Success side. The more often you consciously choose those actions, the more your confidence is going to grow and be sustained. On the other hand, the more often that you choose actions that don’t serve you, i.e. Failure choices, you will be actively undermining yourself and your confidence.
In the end, it actually doesn’t matter what the specific action is. If one of your confidence attributes was to be in shape, your “Do” could be anything, that’s up to you – maybe it’s get up 15 minutes earlier and do some push ups, or add 30 minutes of cardio in daily – it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you CHOOSE it. You consciously choose to better yourself everyday, and through those constant “success” choices, your confidence will grow and be sustained.
About the Author: Amber is a Licensed Professional Counselor and her goal is to help others become the best versions of themselves that they can be. When she’s not helping motivated clients reach their goals, she moonlights as the graphics guru here at Dappered.