How confident are you?

How confident are you?  Most people respond ‘reasonably, quite, yeah, pretty confident’.  If I ask instead, are you confident all of the time about everything?  The answer is likely to be no.  Even for the most confident among us, there is likely to be some situation or person that causes us to lose confidence.   It’s perfectly natural.  It might be a job interview.  Or standing on stage.  Or saying no to the boss.  Or a million other things, actually.  And it’s different things for different people.  And yet, there’s the opposite too – times when we are supremely confident.  Perhaps at home, with friends.  Doing our favourite sport, pastime or hobby. 

So how come confidence comes and goes?  And how come just because we can do something in one place, we can’t necessarily do it in another? 

Well confidence is a bit like a bank account.  Things happen that pay in and make a deposit and increase our confidence.  Other things happen that take out, make a withdrawal and we lose confidence.  And so it’s important to our confidence levels to make sure we understand what things increase our confidence bank account and which things decrease it. 

So today I want to encourage you to think back and identify the things that have increased your confidence over the years and promise yourself you’ll do more of them.  And also identify the things that reduce your confidence and ask yourself “How can I make these things easier or safer so that I’ll keep my confidence?”

‘Confidence is not “they will like me”, confidence is “I’ll be fine if they don’t” Christina Grimmie