How to Build Confidence by Trusting Yourself
Confidence is a feeling or belief that you can rely on something or someone – including yourself.
It’s a deep trust in your ability to achieve the goals and success you desire, yet so many of us experience lower levels of confidence because we’ve broken trust with ourselves.
And once that trust is broken, it can be hard to get it back.
Here’s the thing about confidence: It can either propel you forward to achieve your dreams or hold you back for fear of failure.
And if confidence is a feeling or belief, you can use the BE YOU Mental Model to identify your Beliefs, Emotions, Behaviors and Effects and make the shifts necessary to build deeper trust in yourself and your ability to be successful.
Here’s how to build confidence by trusting yourself:
BE YOU Mental Model
This a model that’s well-known in the fields of positive psychology, metaphysics and self-help. It teaches that your thoughts create your reality. I’ve reworked it a bit to make it easier to remember:
In every situation, your Beliefs create Emotions, which create Behaviors, which create Effects. So, in every situation, you can BE powerful, BE confident, and be you.
Situations in themselves are neither good nor bad, positive nor negative. It’s our beliefs or thoughts about these experiences that cause us to look at situations in this binary way.
And the power of this model is knowing that the Effects you’re experiencing actually reinforce your Beliefs. So, if you don’t achieve what you want, that reinforces your belief that you can’t have what you want. And vice versa – if you believe you can achieve your goal and you reach it, that reinforces your belief that you can be successful.
This means if you continue to get the same results, you’ll continue to have the same beliefs. This is the thought pattern that’s been keeping you stuck, playing small, or in a scarcity mindset. This is the thought process that you’ve been using for the last 20, 30, 40+ years of your life. So, it takes a conscious effort to shift to a new way of thinking.
Here’s an example:
Situation: You started a coaching business and are trying to find your dream clients.
Belief: “This is really hard. I don’t know how anyone makes it as a coach. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to find good, paying clients!”
Emotions: Fear, desperation, frustration, shame
Behaviors: Taking on clients who aren’t a good fit for you, charging low rates just to attract anyone, posting randomly on social media, changing your niche in the hopes of finding the right clients
Effects: You still haven’t figured out how to attract your dream clients. You’re going through the motions but not really getting anywhere.
And can you see how that Effect reinforces your Belief that you don’t know how to find clients?
Let’s take a second look at this. The beauty of this model is that you can consciously choose a new thought or Belief, and run through this model again.
Situation: You started a coaching business and are trying to find your dream clients.
Belief: “I am smart and resourceful. I can figure this out!”
Emotions: Excited, hopeful, determined, motivated
Behaviors: Getting clear on who you want to work with, setting solid prices, identifying where your clients are and posting there, asking people to book a discovery call with you
Effects: You booked a few discovery calls and are on your way to enrolling your first client!
Even if you don’t achieve your big goal (in this case, enrolling a dream client), when you get close to it (booking a discovery call), you can start to see how that Effect reinforces your Belief that you can figure it out. It feels good to see the progress you’re making, and it can even help you create a new belief like, “I am really good at discovery calls and I know how to find my clients!”
You can also use this model to build trust in yourself. Remember that confidence comes from a deep trust in your ability to be successful. Read on to learn how to use the BE YOU Mental Model to build confidence by trusting yourself.
Related: 30 Affirmations for Confidence
Identify the Trust-Breaking Behaviors
A lack of confidence often begins from a lack of trust in ourselves. Many times, this lack of self-trust is subconscious; we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
One of the best ways to identify this is to look at the behaviors we’re expressing. These behaviors include second-guessing yourself, replaying conversations or decisions over and over in your mind wondering if you said the right thing or made the right decision. This behavior breaks trust in yourself because you don’t believe that you did the right thing. You’re worried about letting yourself down in some way.
Another trust-breaking behavior is saying “yes” to something when you really want to say “no,” because you’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or letting someone down. This erodes trust because you’re putting more stock in someone else’s feelings or experiences than in your own. You might believe that their happiness is worth more than yours. But doing something you don’t want to do breaks trust in yourself because it’s moving you away from your authentic truth. Your authentic self wants to say “no” to certain things that aren’t in alignment with your goals or desires, yet you say “yes” anyway. There’s a disconnect which leads you to feel less confident in your ability to stay strong in your truth.
Allowing someone else’s opinions of you to change your opinions about yourself is another way we break trust with ourselves. You might be holding yourself back because you fear what others might think about you if you change careers or launch a new business or step on stage for an open mic night. And if you assume people will judge you or ridicule you, you might begin to believe they’re right – who are you to show up in this way?
Any of these behaviors are damaging to our self-trust, yet it’s very common to experience all three. Something within us is seeking approval, permission or acceptance from others, rather than seeking it within. And we’re giving away our power at the same time.
It’s easy to start with the behaviors here, because you can identify when these things happen in your life. You know when you said “yes” to something that you really didn’t want to do. You know when you allowed someone else to make a decision for you.
Once you can identify those behaviors, you might begin to see patterns of acting this way time and time again, potentially over years of your life. And you might be ready to change those behaviors and rebuild your broken self-trust.
Pay Attention to Your Emotions
Now that you know the behaviors that are leading to broken self-trust, you can use the BE YOU Mental Model to work backwards and rebuild that trust.
Think about a recent time you said “yes” when you wanted to say “no,” or a time when you let someone else’s opinion stop you from moving forward with your goals. Close your eyes and paint the picture of that moment. Where were you? Who were you with?
Once you have that mental image, pay attention to the emotions you’re experiencing as you recall that memory. It might help to identify parts of your body that feel uncomfortable – we often experience emotions in our bodies first.
What discomfort are you feeling when you’re out of alignment with your truth? It might feel like a resistance or something pushing you to where you don’t want to go.
Now, take a few moments to identify and name the emotions you’re feeling in this moment. It might be guilt, shame, fear, anxiety, hopelessness. There’s no right or wrong answer here.
Remember that emotions create behaviors. What is causing you to give your power away? What’s causing you to feel like you have to say “yes” to things you’d rather not do?
It’s important to pay attention to your emotions when you’re out of alignment with your authentic self. Because when you start to feel that sense of guilt or shame, you might be more likely to replay conversations in your head or question your decisions.
When you sense those emotions popping up, you can also step into your power and recognize what they’re trying to do. In that moment, you can consciously choose a new belief which could lead you to a more powerful behavior, like saying “no” when you want to, therefore rebuilding your self-trust.
Consciously Choose Your Beliefs
Have you ever heard the Henry Ford quote, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right?” This quote emphasizes how important our beliefs are when it comes to achieving our goals or experiencing success.
Now that you’ve identified the trust-breaking behaviors and emotions causing those behaviors, you can begin to identify the beliefs that set the whole cycle in motion.
When you allow someone else’s opinion of you shape your behaviors and decisions, and you’re feeling afraid of being judged, what beliefs come up for you? What thoughts do you have about yourself?
You might think, “I don’t want to let this person down,” or “I don’t think I really have what it takes to be successful,” or “Who am I to be a coach? Of course I’ll fail.”
These limiting beliefs are creating the emotions that lead you to the behaviors eroding your trust in yourself. Choosing a new, more empowering belief will lead to more empowering emotions and eventually the behaviors that help you rebuild trust with yourself.
Know that this is easier said than done! Remember, these are deeply ingrained beliefs and thought patterns you’ve had for most of your life. Shifting them will not happen overnight. It takes conscious, consistent effort to identify your limiting beliefs and choose a new belief.
Choose a belief that feels good to you, one that feels accessible to where you are in your life. Don’t choose a belief that’s out of reach for you. Believing, “I am the next Oprah,” when you’ve never even picked up a microphone, or believing “I will make one million dollars this year” when you haven’t made one sale isn’t very realistic. You won’t really internalize that belief because part of you knows it won’t happen.
Instead, choose a belief that feels aligned and close to your goal. It can even be as simple as “I trust myself to make the decisions that are right for me.” In fact, start to use that as a mantra or affirmation. You can write it down on a sticky note or put it in your phone reminders so you can see it every day. Repeat this affirmation to yourself every day to start reframing other beliefs you have about yourself. Then notice how your emotions and behaviors change as a result.
Related: 5 Ways to Increase Your Confidence Now
Rebuilding Trust in Yourself
The good news is that you can rebuild trust in yourself by reteaching yourself that you can be trusted, you do know what’s best for you and it’s safe to be your authentic self.
One of the best ways to being to repair that broken trust is to set smaller goals for yourself. Sometimes we can motivate ourselves by setting really big goals and working toward them, but for many of us, this actually works against us, especially when we don’t see any progress.
Instead, get clear about where you are now and where you’d like to be. Then, set a realistic, manageable, short-term goal. Don’t set a goal for a million-dollar business when you made one thousand dollars last year. It’s not sustainable, and it can actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy by reinforcing our limiting beliefs. When we don’t achieve the big goals, we might start to think, “See? I knew you couldn’t do it.” Which further erodes our trust.
I always catch myself in this when I set my exercise goals. I think big and set a goal like, “I’ll exercise every day, 30 minutes per day, for an entire month.” (Damn those Peloton challenges!) Then I skip a day and feel like a failure because I didn’t achieve my unrealistic goal. Instead, when I set a more manageable goal, like exercising 3 times per week for at least 20 minutes, I know I can achieve that, because it’s not too far outside my comfort zone, and it feels doable.
What feels doable about your big goal? How can you shrink that down to a more manageable short-term goal that you know you can achieve? It has to be something small and sustainable. Remember, your Effects reinforce your Beliefs, so when you achieve your smaller goals, you’re building trust in your ability to be successful, and building confidence along with it.
Find a small, sustainable action, then build from there over time. Choose something that’s not too far outside your comfort zone, but not so far out that it’s unrealistic. When you see the little wins, your confidence grows because you continue to prove to yourself that you can do it – you are capable, worthy and valuable.
The Takeaway
Confidence is a belief that we can rely on ourselves to achieve our goals. We break this trust in ourselves by giving away our power to others’ opinions of ourselves or saying “yes” to things we really don’t want to do. The good news is you can build confidence by trusting yourself, and you can build trust by choosing empowering beliefs and sustainable actions that propel you forward.
Take action now: Start by identifying the trust-breaking behaviors that might be standing in your way. Work backwards using the BE YOU Mental Model, then choose a new, more empowering belief about yourself. Then, identify a small, sustainable action you can take this week to help you rebuild your self-trust. Let me know what it is in the comments!
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