How to Increase Your Confidence

Most women have never been taught confidence or how to be confident, but yet most women want it, and when we get to this point where we want it, there's almost always an underlying fear that we are going to cross the line over into arrogance. 

So today, we're gonna talk about what confidence is and how we can grow or increase our confidence without crossing over into the realm of arrogance. This is so important for you as you're working towards your purpose and being able to answer that feeling within. So let's dive into it.

What you'll learn in this episode:  

• How to recognize and improve areas where you may lack confidence
• The difference between confidence and arrogance
• The importance of consistency in actions to grow confidence
• Understanding that experience comes from doing things, not just over time
• Tips on how to feel and show confidence in your actions and presence

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Transcript

Welcome to the Mom on Purpose Podcast. I'm Lara Johnson, and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, claim more with your kids. Manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose with my proven method. This is possible for you, and I'll show you how. You're not alone anymore. We're in this together.

Welcome back. It's so good to have you here today. We are talking about confidence and how to increase your confidence. Because I find that this is something so important for you as you're working towards your purpose and being able to answer that feeling within. I find that most women have never been taught confidence or how to be confident.

But yet most women want it. Now, when we get to this point where we want it, there's almost always an underlying fear that I have seen in my clients that they are going to cross the line over into arrogance. So today there's a couple of things that I want to talk about. First is what is confidence?

How do we grow or increase our confidence? And how do we make sure we're never crossing over into the realm of arrogance? So, let's dive into it. Also, you want to know a secret actually just recorded this episode, but for some reason my headphones weren't working, and it didn't save any of it. Long story short, we're back again and I'm going to trust and believe that this is going to be better than the first recording.

So, when I think about confidence, I think the first image that comes to mind is like the awkward teenager where they're kind of like mousy. They're very insecure. They're kind of like, you know, hiding in the shadows. Maybe that was just me as a teenager, maybe you weren't that way. But then the other side of it is like the image from Miss Congeniality.

And I hope you've seen that with Sandra Bullock. where she's walking out of the hangar. They have just spent all night working on her to go undercover in the Miss America pageant. And she walks out totally beautified and she is confident. She's like smoking hot, the wind's blowing in her face. And then she falls over and he realizes she's not that confident in this new image that she has.

So, when I think about confidence, those are like the first two things that come to my mind. So, I want you to think for just a second about what comes up for you when you think about confidence and where do you fall in all of that? How would you rate your confidence right now? Now, I think that's like a really good starting point, you know, as we're thinking about rating our confidence because it is very common to feel confident enough in one area but lack total confidence in another.

So, an example of this would be, like, you are probably confident at this point in keeping your children alive. You have been probably doing it for a number of years. You feel that each day you can wake up and do that. You have enough confidence to do that. Now when you think about reaching a specific goal or answering a calling within you, maybe it's going back to school, maybe it's finding a job, maybe it's just upping What you're doing within your own home and becoming more organized, maybe you lack confidence in that area on being able to follow through on that.

So that's where I want you just to consider for a moment in what areas of your life are you confident and are there areas in your life that you would like to increase your confidence or is it just overall, all around? You want to increase your confidence because as we dive into this, that's going to make a difference when we're thinking about and collecting evidence for our brain.

I want you to know if there are areas in your life that maybe you do feel some confidence in. So let's get to the very basics of what is confidence. I love definitions. We've talked about that before here where when we get down to a definition, we realize that definition often is very different than the thoughts within our brain.

So, when we look at confidence, it is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something. It's a firm trust. So, when I think about like, what is that something that I have confidence in? And I thought, okay, well I have a firm trust. I have confidence that my tires will stay on my car when I'm driving to school pickup.

I truly do believe that it doesn't even cross my mind that my tires are going to fly off. I have confidence in that thing. I also have confidence, say like. in my husband. I have confidence that every single day he's going to wake up and we are going to still be married. I have confidence in our relationship.

I also have confidence in my friendships or in my family members. I have confidence in my children that they love me. They may not always like me, but I do know and do have confidence or a belief that they do love me. So, those are some things or people that I have confidence in. And when we're looking about increasing our confidence, we need to then put this definition with regards to ourselves, a feeling or belief that you can rely on yourself, that you have a firm trust in yourself.

Now that's a little different, right? Suddenly that may bring up a very different set of emotions. And so, what we want to do is use that as our starting point so that we can see where you're going. confidence or your ability to rely on yourself or that trust that you have in yourself. So, we're going to kind of separate this into a couple different categories and we're going to use the model to do that.

When I talk about the model, if you haven't been listening to this podcast for a while, is that we have circumstances or facts of our lives, and then we have. Thoughts in our brain about those circumstances. Those thoughts then create some kind of emotion or feeling within our body. And then we start acting on that feeling or inaction, I guess we were not doing anything on that feeling.

And then from that, the cumulative effect of our actions or inactions, crazy, it's like some kind of result or some kind of outcome. So, when I'm looking at this with regards to confidence, it's. I started thinking, okay, like, where in the model could this go? And as I started thinking about it, I thought, wow, it could actually go in many spots.

We could have the thought of confidence, like I am confident. That's like the being of confident. We could feel confident. And that would be some kind of vibration in our body. We could act confidently. That might be how we are demonstrating the way we're showing up in a room. Kind of like the example of Miss Congeniality.

My thought was she was acting confidently, or there is like the cumulative effect of our actions creates a result of confidence in ourselves. So, as we're breaking this down, I want you, we're going to walk through each of these and how confidence can show up in these different places in the model, because this will help you in your own brain when you think I want to be more confident.

Yes, but where do you want to be more confident? What exactly are you referring to so that you know your starting point, regardless of whatever anybody else thinks, I want you to be aware of where you want to become confident, where your starting point is. So, let's go back to our definition. It's the belief that we can rely on ourselves, or we have a firm trust in ourselves.

Now I think at this point there's kind of two things that can happen. You either don't rely on yourself and you can't trust yourself or you do rely on yourself, and you can trust yourself. So, we're going to start in the like, I don't trust myself, I can't rely on myself category. Now when I'm thinking about this category, I think this is like, I The being confident and feeling confident, like within our mind and within our body.

So, when I think about trust, for example, I think about, well, how do we develop a relationship of trust with ourselves? I think the very first thing that we can come across in this category is that we love ourselves very deeply. I do believe that within the, the. Self-help, personal development space.

Sometimes we can say things like, I love myself. I'm looking in the mirror. My body is amazing. It does incredible things. I have the best brain and it feels very RA-RA. Cheerleader type girl. That's not really me. It's not really my brain. If that's how you speak to yourself, like, own it. That's amazing. I love myself very differently.

Now when I think about, like, loving yourselves very deeply, it's like I actually have a desire to feed myself. I have a desire to bathe myself because it feels good to my body. Like I want to do that for me. I have a desire and a belief that like, I'm a valuable human being and I can take up space on this earth and that good, that I deserve good things in life.

Now, if by chance, that feels like a stretch for you. We're not going to address it on this podcast, but I would recommend reaching out to a mental health professional, talking to someone about if you don't feel like you are a worthy human being or that you are a value to take its place on this earth.

Okay. That's a very different conversation. So, let's say, you know, there is a basis, like you do love yourself on that level. Now, the next part in building our trust is being able to show up for ourselves over and over and over. Now, I guarantee you are showing up for yourself. Now, it may not be to the extent you want to be at this moment, which is probably why you're here, but there are ways you are showing up for yourself.

Again, you probably are feeding yourself. You probably have a desire to sleep. You're going to consistently show up to sleep. Even if you're waking up with kids at night, you are probably showing up to yourself on, you are taking care, you have, you know, physical hygiene, you're dressing yourself, all of these things like over and over.

It doesn't mean you have to do it every day, but you consistently come back to it. You return again to showing up for yourself. I would even argue that if you are continually showing up for yourself, when you are speaking your desires, when you are giving voice to them, when you are trusting the things that you say as a right and true answer, maybe it's what you feel is right for your family or your children.

That is a way that you can show up for yourself as you are giving voice to the things within your heart. So, you've got love deeply. We've got show up for yourselves over and over. The next I would say is it kind of goes along with the showing up for yourself is that no matter what you have your back and the way that you treat yourself, it's very common for women, especially to berate themselves, to tell themselves like they're stupid.

I can't believe you did that. Maybe you showed up at the wrong time to an appointment and you are mortified that you got it wrong. And then the story within your head, like you're so bad at managing time. Why couldn't you get this right? That was embarrassing. They're going to charge you a fee and suddenly it starts to spiral, spiral, spiral.

All of that's doing is it's taking away your confidence, your ability to rely on yourself and that firm trust that you have in yourself. So, at that moment when the berating starts to happen, you're going to bring it back to you. Yeah. I did make a mistake and that's okay, which leads us to our next point of forgiveness.

So, these things each kind of bleed into each other. So, when we're looking at something like forgiveness, we're giving ourselves grace for mistakes that mistakes will happen. Appointments will be missed or shown up at wrong times. You may drop a cup and break it. You like, there is a million things of mistakes that can happen in a day.

But the biggest thing is how you treat yourself in those mistakes. The way you treat yourself would determine the level of trust and your ability to rely on yourself. So being able to have your back and being able to forgive yourself in those moments. But I also think, you know, taking it one more step further is it's being able to ask for help.

Ask for questions and receive advice, even from people that are, are trusted and safe people for you. So, an example of this would be me being able to reach out to a friend and seek wisdom on something that I'm chewing through, not to take on whatever their thoughts are, but because we have such a strong relationship of back and forth, I really value her opinion and she can help me see my blind spots so that I can continue to rely on myself by continually growing.

So, that is just a few ways that you can build trust and start to rely on yourself more. So, as you're going through this, what starts to happen is your brain starts to slowly chip away at the belief that you're not confident. What will start to happen is as you're building that trust and you're starting to rely on yourself more, you will start to have those beliefs of, I am confident that I can show up.

I am confident that I love myself. I am confident that I can be kind and I can forgive myself. And I am confident that I can seek help from other people. See how notice, like notice how different that feels in your body. So, as you start believing this, what will happen is your body will start to shift.

And as your body starts to shift, like when I think of when I'm not confident, it's almost like my shoulders curl in, like I almost want to like curl into a ball. I want to actually take up less space, like. physically. But when I'm feeling confident, it's like my whole chest starts to expand. It's almost like this light but solid feeling within my chest that's like pressing forward.

I feel like I can take steps forward. That's how the vibration shows up in my body. So, I want you to take a second and think about that for you. How does it feel in your body when you're not feeling confident or insecure? And how does it feel when you start to develop that trust, when you start to be able to rely on yourself?

Okay, so that's our first step, you know, being able to build trust, being able to prove to ourselves that we can rely on ourselves, which then leads us over into, okay, let's say that trust is built. Let's say that reliance is there. Now, you want to start taking some actions confidently. Now when, and I think this is, you know, there's kind of the feeling part kind of bleeds into this area as well.

You're going to start feeling that, that almost, that drive forward where, you know, that solid feeling in your chest that wants to move you forward. It then becomes very easy to take action. And when we're taking these actions, you know, like I, like I mentioned, I imagine somebody walking into the room and their hair blowing and for some reason that's always the image that comes to my mind is someone's acting confidently and that may or may not be true for you.

But what I will say is that there will come a point where you may not know the answer. How can you act confidently if you don't know the answer? Now, at this point, I think about a doctor. If they come into a room and I'm asking them a question and they're stumbling over their words and it almost seems like they're making something up, it feels like they're faking it until they make it.

I'm not going to have confidence in that person. Now if I come in and I ask a question and they very concretely say, like, I don't actually know, but I am willing to do some research and get back to you. Suddenly my confidence in the way that they acted, I have more confidence in them. So how does that play out for you, especially when you're moving towards your, or your purpose or your dream, or you're working on your goals, there will be a time where you do not know the answer to something.

You can still be confident and not know the answer, but the difference here is that you tell yourself, I don't actually know the answer. But I trust myself enough to be seeking out the next answer or trusting in God that he will reveal it to me in due time. That's a very different way to act confidently.

Now another thing when I think about confidence and with actions, I think about consistency. Now in the past, I don't love that word because so many of our brains think consistency means daily. I don't necessarily believe that. I think consistency means you return again to whatever that thing is. I may not know all the answers.

I may not have reached all my goals yet. I've reached many of my goals, but I am confident that I will consistently return again to whatever these goals are. I am able to keep acting confidently in that manner. And what will happen is over time, the accumulation of all of these actions that I'm doing helps lead to that result of confidence.

I heard a phrase the other day, which I thought was really fun. It says experience is what comes the moment after we do the thing like, well, duh, but I've never really thought about that because one of the most common things that I hear is that I can be confident when I can be confident when I have more experience, but.

Sometimes you have to have those thoughts and those feelings and those actions of confidence before you have that result, before you have that actual experience. You have to do the thing before that's established. Now, I think it's important at this point to recognize that experience doesn't equal time.

Oftentimes, experience equals how frequently you are doing that thing. So, when we're looking at Like that result line of confidence, it's how often are you feeling the discomfort of that thing until it becomes more comfortable? And are we able to really use that feeling of confidence and those actions of confidence to propel you to do that uncomfortable thing more often?

So, that's why I want you to really just kind of spend some time thinking about that is when you say you want more confidence, are you wanting the result of confidence? And if so, do you have the belief, the feelings and the actions to support that result? Because if not, those are your starting points.

And then over time, the more you do that thing, whatever it is. You build the experience; you build the result of confidence. So that's kind of, I know it seems very like meta when we talk about that, but it's important to see how many different aspects to confidence there is so that you are able to find your concrete starting point and you know where to go from there.

So, the last thing that I wanted to mention is the fine line between confidence and arrogance. Because in my experience, most women, not men, but most women, have a huge fear that they will cross that line into arrogance. Now, I remember having a conversation with a client once about this. And she's like, I'm so, I'm so scared of being arrogant.

And I said, okay, well, what happens if you are arrogant? She's like, well, you know, like I'd feel really, really bad. I'm like, okay, well, have you ever felt bad about something? She's like, yeah. I'm like, well, what'd you do? She's like, well, I apologize for it. I'm like, okay, let's just say, you know, for kicks and giggles, I dare you to be arrogant.

She's like, what? You know, it sounds so offensive practicing confidence, right? And she, like the look on her face, was so funny. You know, we laugh about it now. I'm like, okay. I dare you to be arrogant. She's like, why? I'm like, because if you have a fear of being arrogant, I guarantee you are so far from the line that even if I dared you, you couldn't get there if you wanted to.

And so, we laughed about that because that's exactly it. If you have this fear of being arrogant, you are so far from the line of crossing over into arrogance. Okay? So that's my challenge to you. If you have that fear, I dare you to be arrogant just once, knowing that you could apologize, but also that chances are you would never get there in the first place.

But also, let's get really clear on what that line is so that you can bring some peace and calm to your brain. Okay. So, when I outline, like what is a confident person? Okay. So, they have trust in their self. They have trust that they have the ability or that they are growing their abilities. Or talents in some way, and that they have some kind of regard for other people.

If you have a desire to love, if you have a desire to serve, if you are aware of other human beings. You have not crossed the line into arrogance. You are staying within the realm of confidence. Now let's go to the other side. When we are looking at arrogance, arrogance has, they, they are very trusting of their self, but sometimes it's regardless of their abilities.

Sometimes it's an overinflated version of their selves without the abilities. But the kicker here is when you've moved over into arrogance, there is little regard for other people. It is more of a bulldozing type feeling that starts to happen. So that right there, just being able to show your brain, those are the differences between the two can allow you to.

Feel calmer, knowing you are far from that line of being arrogant and that the more you grow in your confidence, the more you are able to love and serve and think of other people. You have a regard for other people and that will bring so much peace and calm as you're working towards this. All right, friend, I hope you've enjoyed this.

If there was something that stood out to you today, I would really invite you to go and just click on the review button, share a review on something that stood out to you in this episode today so that other people are able to find this episode and this podcast so that they too can be working towards their purpose and their dreams just like you.

I'll talk to you soon.

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