Have you ever experienced the limiting effects of low self-confidence? Have you missed out on opportunities because your confidence in yourself to be able to achieve was not there? Do you find yourself worried about what other people think of you?
I don’t think there’s a single one of us who hasn’t struggled from time to time with confidence. Even some of the most confident people I know have shared that, they too have struggled with feeling like an imposter at times in their own field of expertise! They have felt like they have nothing to offer to others or they fear failure and what others might think of them. The struggle is real. And none of us, no matter what we do, who we know, how much money we have, what we look like, are exempt from this struggle.
I’m going to share five ways I believe we can find confidence and stop shying away from areas we feel God calling us to.
Number One: This first one is absolutely key. In order to have self-confidence, you must know and live out of your True Identity. We find our true identity only in God, who He is, and who we are because of who He is and who He says we are. To be honest, we really shouldn’t have confidence in ourselves at all apart from God. We’re pretty feeble human beings on our own strength and power! The only way to have confidence in self, is to have confidence in God and what He is capable of doing in and through us. When we live and move out of an understanding that it’s God’s strength, His love, His faithfulness, etc alive in us, then we are able to live in confidence! When we know who we are in Him, we are secure, and we don’t have to live out of fear of what others think of us.
Number Two: In order to have self-confidence, we must be intentional to quiet all the chatter and voices in our heads and choose to only listen to what God says about us. All of us have voices in our heads that want to keep us frozen, that tell us we’re not good enough, strong enough, talented enough. That tell us our past is too broken. That we’ve made too many mistakes. But those are all lies and they will keep us stuck if we listen to them.
A wonderful way to start eliminating those voices is to speak God’s truth over ourselves every single day. When we hear truth on a regular basis, it becomes much easier to distinguish from the lies. We can do this by creating affirmations using “because” statements to really solidify their validity. If you’ve never done this before you can take a moment to listen to my podcast from a couple months ago that is all about creating affirmations that work by clicking here. I’ve also created some affirmations that you can listen to if you prefer. Click here to listen!
Number Three: Another key to living out of confidence rather than fear is to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is one that believes you always have the ability to grow and to become better. In contrast, a fixed mindset believes the way you are is the way you are. Have you ever heard someone say, “well, that’s just how I am” as an excuse to not change and grow as a person? That’s a fixed mindset. But a growth mindset keeps us humble in a healthy way. When we receive constructive feedback, we don’t have to see it as an attack on our being. Instead, with a growth mindset, we can see it as an opportunity to grow, learn, and become better. And that’s exciting rather than defeating!
Number Four: A fourth way to grow in confidence is to keep the promises we make to ourselves. When we don’t, then ultimately, we don’t trust ourselves. And that makes us uncomfortable within ourselves. If you don’t believe yourself, how will you have confidence in yourself? Think about it, how do you grow in confidence toward others? When they do what they say consistently, that builds trust in them. It’s the same for ourselves. We need to keep the promises we make to ourselves so that we can trust ourselves.
Number Five: This final one is one that many will write off as unimportant. And that is, we need to reframe the way we see our external self as well. Our external body is part of who God made us. And He made every part of us with so much intention and detail. We can’t become more confident if we hate our bodies. We need to learn to see our physical selves in the same light that God sees us in. He says we are fearfully and wonderfully made! We are each unique and that is the way it was meant to be. There is so much beauty to that. Don’t discount your uniqueness as “flaws” just because you don’t look like everyone else. You were intended to stand out! I did an entire podcast about this topic. Click here to listen on Youtube.
So let’s summarize. The five keys to self-confidence are:
-Knowing and living out of your true identity
-Silencing all the voices but God’s
-Having a growth mindset
-Keeping the promises you make to yourself
-And reframing the way you see your external self as well
So have you ever struggled with self-confidence? Which one of these five areas do you feel like will make the biggest impact in your life? Leave me a comment, I’d love to know.
If you want a head start in your journey to becoming the person God created you to be, I’ve made some printable journal pages that are yours for free! You can click here to download those and use them each morning to really start your day off right!
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