Confidence and Courage are the Same
Is lack of confidence something we can fix? To some, the idea might seem difficult. They’ll answer immediately, “I’m not confident” and may have trouble even remembering a time they were confident. But here is the thing, you can build confidence within yourself.
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You might be bothered by the question, especially if you’re not sure why confidence should matter at all. Are courage and confidence the same?
If you feel that’s the case for you, perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at confidence itself. You might not have a clear understanding of just what it is or why it’s important. To build your confidence you must have courage.
What is Confidence? Are Courage and Confidence the Same?
When you think of someone confident, what do you see? You probably see someone with a certain set of traits including several, if not all the items from this list:
- An absolute, set belief in themselves
- Confident people consider themselves capable of handling the situation they’re in
- Expect success when they begin a new task
- When they speak, they mean what they say
- They hold themselves in a way that looks natural but full of strength
- They seem comfortable in their own skin
- At the same time, they’re not overbearing or cocky in their attitude
- Take risks
- Don’t miss out on fresh opportunities
In all of this, you’ll find one thing linking all these traits: this feeling of confidence comes from inside the individual, not outside. This confidence is full of self-acceptance and courage.
What can make you confident?
There is nothing in this world that can make you confident… but you. Understanding that courage and confidence are the same gives you a fresh take on what a lack of confidence is about.
Our definition then becomes straightforward: Confidence is a belief you hold inside of yourself. It tells you that you can handle whatever comes your way. In fact, this feeling is so strong it translates into a sureness of yourself even in new or challenging situations. No lack of confidence prevails against your courage.
The critical thing to remember is this kind of feeling doesn’t come without merit. This has to be a genuine assurance, born of a realistic understanding of what you’re capable of. Confidence is strongest when it’s built out of self-awareness and experience. Do you see how confidence and courage are twins?
Lack of Confidence is Learned
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Once upon a time, you were confident and courageous. Children start out that way. It’s what enables them to reach for a hand or flat surface to pull themselves up to standing when they’re just beginning to walk. It’s how they play and learn and grow. Visit any playground, and you’ll see this kind of confidence and courage in action in a thousand different ways. Children do not build confidence, they live it.
Sadly, confidence isn’t a constant thing. We’re never entirely, fully confident or courageous. So, while we might find the courage to ask out that special someone, we might find this same confidence faltering when we think about asking them to marry us after months of dating.
Lack of Confidence Can be Overcome
Or we’re confident enough to do well on the job interview but lack the courage to ask for a raise even though we’ve been at the job a while now and know we deserve it. A lot of times this is because something along the way has shaken our confidence, if not broken it outright. Courage and confidence are the same, or at least work together.
Build Your Confidence ~ Crush You Lack of Confidence
First, let’s learn how to give confidence a boost when it’s flagging. More importantly, you’ll learn how to build your confidence back when it’s lost by asking yourself 6 Key Questions.
We’ll start by learning the essentials, asking what confidence is, and talking about why it’s essential. From there, we tackle the question of how we can lose our confidence. We’ll end with an entire section on reclaiming confidence when it’s lost. Lack of confidence, be gone!
The Essentials to Build Confidence
What is Confidence? Courage and Confidence are the Same
On the other hand, confidence also involves a delicate balance. If you overestimate yourself, you can become cocky or arrogant. If you’re underestimating? Then you become hesitant and unsure.
Confused? Let’s put this another way.
Lack of Confidence? Confidence can be talked about as ‘owning’ the situation.
Think about the person who walks into a room and has the attention of everyone there. Not because they’re loud or brash but because they look so totally in the moment. Some confident people have a certain charismatic charm born of inner peace that comes from being content with who they are. Self-acceptance and courage are both a huge part of what confidence is.
If you’re a confident person, there’s no room for the awkward anxiety we too often exhibit when we feel out of our depth. The confident person is relaxed and sure of themselves, and everyone around them knows it. Or, better yet, they accept themselves to a degree, that whether others do or not is irrelevant.
How do they do that? Lack of Confidence? Build Your Confidence!
In the Moment
They’re not worrying about something that happened 10 minutes ago, 10 hours ago, or 10 years ago. They also aren’t fretting about the future. They’re here, right now.
Not Worrying About You
Your opinions are worthy of respect. A confident person will take the time to listen to them. But they’re not going to care overly much about whether you agree with them or not. They’re comfortable in their beliefs, they’re sure in their speech, and the last thing they’re doing is stressing about whether they fit in or not. They’re just there, doing their thing.
They Do What They Love
This means they dress in clothes they find comfortable, pursue opportunities designed to get them where they want to go, and have a focus designed around their own goals and personal belief system. A confident person does a lot more leading than following, and typically isn’t motivated by a lot of ‘should.’
Confident people sound remarkable, don’t they? But are they selfish? After all, a confident person is just out for themselves, right?
Actually, they have some pretty solid reasons for being confident. Keep reading, and you’ll find out why confidence is so critical.
Why Is Confidence Building Important?
In truth, confident people enjoy a lot of things in life that people who aren’t confident don’t. They’re generally more relaxed. They experience less stress and tend to be much happier than everyone else. Maybe this isn’t selfish so much as it is healthy. A truly confident person has gotten over themselves. In fact, you might even go so far as to say this is the life everyone is meant to have. Let’s look at a few other positive traits that come from being confident:
Build Your Confidence: They are Calm
If you’re plagued by anxiety or worry regularly, it might be because you’re lacking confidence. All these negative emotions are based on one thing: fear. Confidence is the ultimate fear-buster. Courage and confidence are the same.
Anxious about driving? The confident driver knows they are capable of handling the car under almost any condition and can manage even the unexpected when it comes up.
Worried about finances? The confident person knows what’s in their bank account, has a good sense of when and where they’ll be paid next, and has a handle on the bills. It’s no wonder the confident person is less stressed!
Lack of Confidence? Push Yourself More
In knowing they’ve accomplished things before (and they have), a confident person tends to look forward to the next challenge and the next opportunity to do something interesting.
They have a tendency to want to see over the next horizon and explore more just to find out where the boundaries are. The funny thing? The more they push, the less likely they are to find those boundaries. This leads to exponential growth, which in turn, leads to more confidence. It’s an astounding cycle. Build your confidence and find your growth!
Build Your Confidence: Set Bigger Goals
To a confident and courageous person, there’s not much satisfaction in doing what’s easy. They tend to set more grandiose goals, just because they’re confident they can accomplish them. And not overly concerned if they don’t They see growth and lessons in the failures of life.
These great big goals can be in anything from trying to do something big in their careers, all the way to reaching scary goals in their personal lives. The sky really is the limit.
Lack Confidence: Make Better Decisions
Confident people are assured of what they know, while at the same time they are open to learning. As a result, they don’t waste a lot of time questioning themselves when it comes time to make decisions. Because they don’t make decisions until they’re sure of their understanding of the situation, they’re also more likely to hold back and think things through before making the decision in the first place.
This means their decisions are usually better than those belonging to the average person. Think about this for a minute. If your choices tend to be right, then you’ll start feeling more confident in your decision-making ability, leading to confidence and courage in your next decision. Again, this cycle of confidence feeds on itself and keeps growing.
Build Your Confidence: Get Stuff Done
The confident and courageous person doesn’t put off tasks because they know they can handle the steps required to complete them. They also have a better sense of how long it will take to perform a task, meaning they’re better at budgeting their time to get things done.
All of this means stuff gets done when a confident person is on the job. This kind of work ethic pays out in other ways as well. The confident person is the one everyone wants to hire on their project because managers know they can count on them to do what is needed.
Lack Confidence: Know How to Get What You Want
A confident person doesn’t wait around to see if someone offers them what they need. Being confident means they recognize they have value, and as a result, their needs are not only important but completely valid. This gives them the ability to speak up and ask for things, whether it’s a glass of water when thirsty or a raise from the boss when they recognize they’ve advanced within the company to where it’s merited.
They also aren’t afraid to keep asking when they know the cause is right and will frequently take their confidence and channel it into activism when they see a wrong needing to be righted.
Courage and Confidence are the Same
Everyone loves hanging around with a genuinely confident person. Why? For one thing, they’re more relaxing to be around. Confident people aren’t full of pretense. They are what they are, so you’re not wasting time playing games when you’re trying to talk to them.
In fact, they tend to draw people in with their natural authenticity that comes from being confident. Confident people seldom lack friends. And if they do, they don’t worry about it. They are content within themselves.
Confident people are genuine. In fact, you’re probably realizing this because you recognized more times when you were already confident and courageous.
Build Your Confidence Exercise
Did you know that confidence is a learnable skill? If you look at your life right now you will find confidence in many areas. If you are honest with yourself you will also notice areas of your life where you lack confidence.
For example, I am pursuing my blogging and I work on it daily. It is a huge part of my life. I love it. This wasn’t always the case. Starting out, I had no idea what I was doing, the tech overwhelms me – I was awkward and clumsy in my attempts. I would look around at other bloggers and feel embarrassed. Had my desire to make an impact through blogging not been so strong, I would likely have let the discomfort of the situation force me to quit and give up.
Lack of Confidence? Develop Confidence
But I didn’t. I found experienced bloggers to help and started to learn. Slowly but deliberately, I became confident and more comfortable in the blog world. After a few short weeks, it was almost second nature to me. All of the feelings of embarrassment and inferiority had disappeared. I had developed confidence. The same way I had developed confidence when I learned to walk as a baby, when I learned to ride a bike as a young child and when I learned how to drive at age 16.
There is no trick to the development of confidence and courage. It is a predictable process that any of us can implement for virtually any action or habit in our lives.
Have you recognized this and applied this in your life?
Have you mistakenly accused yourself of not having to ability to do something due to a lack of confidence?
I want you to take a moment right now and mentally review your dominant thought patterns.
Most people have at least one area in their life where they lack confidence. For some, it could be speaking in public, for others, it could be meeting new people and developing relationships.
Guardline SecurityIdentify that specific area in your life right now
Identify a major goal that you would like to achieve.
Determine where you lack confidence in terms of the obtainment of this goal. Identify what that blockage is:
You’re an entrepreneur, maybe you lack confidence in presenting funding proposals to other business owners or financial institutions?
Are you in sales perhaps you are limiting your success by not pursuing the large accounts?
Maybe you are in a relationship and you‘re not happy with the behavior of your partner, do you lack the confidence to ask for what you want?
Journal at least one paragraph that describes your lack of confidence and your current state of mind. When you imagine yourself in this situation of lack of confidence, what comes up for you? Are you anxious, nervous, upset, etc… Describe your state as accurately as possible
Lack of Confidence – Make a Recovery Plan
Now that you are aware of your areas of lack of confidence, you can begin to redevelop them. Define one major activity that you can implement ASAP that moves you towards your goal
Do you have a fear of speaking? Your activity could be to rehearse a 10-minute power speech in front of the mirror
If you struggle in sales, you could plan to practice and refine your sales presentation with a manager or senior colleague
Overcome Your Lack of Confidence
Write a commitment to yourself to practice this new activity every single day for the next 30 days. If you really want to commit to this, find an accountability partner, and perform the activity with them so that you have a witness.
At the end of 30 days, repeat step 3 again, and analyze where you are at in terms of confidence. Rate yourself on a scale of 1-10
In conclusion, continuing this until you reach a level that you are satisfied with when it comes to your confidence in every area of your life!
Lack of confidence, no problem, build confidence. Confidence and courage are the same!
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