Confidence Hacks

"Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.
Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear."

~ Norman Vincent Peale

Action is the cure for low confidence. Unfortunately, low confidence has a tendency to immobilize us. When you doubt yourself and your abilities, the last thing you want to do is put yourself out there to fall flat on your face. It's much easier to remain in the safe confines of the status quo and not expose yourself to the possibility of failure or rejection.

There's a reason your confidence has taken a hit. It could be a legitimate reason, like recently getting fired or suffering from acute shyness. Or it could be some relatively minor event from the past that no longer applies to you—but it has grown to monstrous proportions in your mind, and you keep feeding this monster with negative thoughts.

Either way, your immediate or distant past doesn't define you now or your future potential. Change and growth are always possible when you're motivated and determined, regardless of your past, your personality, or your self-perceptions. If you want to be confident, you can be—if you're willing to take action. And not just one action or a few actions, but repeated actions until fear and doubt no longer have a grip on you.

All success begins with thought and culminates in action. It is possible action will result in failure, but inaction always leads to nothing—guaranteed. An essential component of confidence is the ability to be comfortable with the uncertainty of action and the sting of failure. Failure will happen on occasion. Sometimes it happens many times.

Abraham Lincoln had two business ventures fail, lost eight different elections, and had a complete nervous breakdown before becoming president. Thomas Edison, who has 1,093 US patents to his name, was told by a teacher that he was too stupid to learn anything. He performed nearly 10,000 failed experiments before creating the first successful light bulb. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team for a "lack of skill." Even after becoming a pro, he says he missed more than 9,000 shots, lost almost 300 games, and missed the game-winning shots twenty-six times.

More than likely, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, and Michael Jordan went through periods of low self-confidence. But instead of letting failure completely derail them, they tried again and again and again. They took action and learned from their failures, re-calibrated their efforts, and eventually claimed success. Failure is a temporary state, fraught with potential and opportunity—but only if you get up off the ground, dust yourself off, and start moving again.

The fear of failure and rejection is the only thing standing between you and confidence. The only way to beat that fear is to take action on the very thing you that holds you back. It doesn't take much action in the beginning. Small, manageable actions in the direction of your goals and dreams are enough to get the ball rolling. Every successful small action will give you an immediate boost of confidence to try again. Even setbacks can show you the value of action and reinforce your ability to break through inertia and fear.

  I've created this book to help you take small and manageable actions to jumpstart your confidence in ten different areas of your life. You may not lack confidence in all of these areas, but the actions can further cement your existing confidence and provide skills you can utilize for related situations that arise in the future. You never know when you might step into the quicksand of insecurity and doubt and need some tools to help pull you out.

I encourage you to read through the entire book once, making notes about the ideas and actions that apply to you and your difficulties with confidence. Then go back to these specific areas, prioritize them, and begin working through the recommended Action Steps. You may find the actions for one area help boost your confidence in another.

As Abraham Lincoln reminds, "You can have anything you want—if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose." If confidence is your purpose, offer no more power or energy to thoughts and behaviors of self-doubt and fear. Take action now, and become the person you want to be.

             

Who Am I?

My name is Barrie Davenport, and I run two top-ranked personal development sites, Live Bold and Bloom and BarrieDavenport.com. I'm a certified personal coach, former public relations professional, author, and creator of several online courses on self-confidence, life passion, and habit creation.

My work as a coach, blogger, and author is focused on offering people practical strategies for living happier, more successful, more confident lives. I utilize time-tested, evidence based, action-oriented principles and methods to create real and measurable results for self-improvement.

As a coach, I've learned through countless sessions with courageous, motivated clients that each individual has the answers within them. Every person has the wisdom and intuition to know what is best for themselves. Sometimes we simply need someone or something to coax it out of us and encourage us to move forward.

That's what I hope this book will do for you—help you to move forward to a confident life where you become the best version of yourself, enjoy the success you want to achieve, and live to your fullest potential. Thank you for choosing my book to support you on your journey.

Relationships

"To grow in our ability to love ourselves we need to receive love as well."

~ John Gray

When asked on their deathbeds what they most regretted during their lives, dying people consistently expressed one of their top regrets was not spending more time with family and friends. Your close relationships are the most important aspect of your life, and relationships are a vital component to good health and general well-being.

Studies show healthy relationships help you cope better with stress, feel healthier and more satisfied with life, and even live longer. Through relationships with other human beings, you grow and evolve -- and you deepen and expand your experience of love and meaning.

When you aren't confident in your ability to create or sustain a healthy relationship, you undermine your confidence in every other area of your life. In fact, having positive interactions with those around you is the cornerstone for success and happiness in nearly all other life pursuits—from your career to your social life.

Your romantic relationship is the laboratory for understanding more about yourself, as well as learning valuable life skills. Whether you're in a long-term relationship or just dating, your relationship confidence is vital to your self-esteem and the way your partner perceives you. If you don't feel confident in your ability to connect, communicate, and interact with others, improving your skills in this area will have a trickle-down effect, improving your health, motivation, productivity, and general happiness.

Know your relationship value.

Often when we don't feel confident in a relationship, we assume we don't have many desirable qualities to bring to the relationship. We look to the other person to define our value and reinforce that we're "good enough" to be in the relationship. In dating situations, you might focus on your flaws and feel insecure about them. But you have many positive qualities you can offer another person. If you aren't aware of those qualities, or if you choose not to focus on them, then you're sending a signal to those you want to attract that you don't feel valuable enough to be in the relationship.

Action Steps: Mentally visualize gathering up all of your flaws and putting them in a big box. Then visualize putting a lock on the box so you can't access it. Now that your flaws are out of the way, you can only focus on your good qualities. Write down everything positive about yourself that you can offer in a relationship. Spend some time on this, and even ask a close friend or family member to share what they see as your positive qualities. Place this list where you can see it daily.