A LETTER FROM CHRIS SUAREZ
5 STEPS TO BUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE
We’ve all been around confident people. It’s usually welcomed and a pleasure. We like it when our doctor is confident with their diagnosis and treatment plan. We like it when our trainer is confident in their exercise routine and schedule. We like it when our accountant is confident in their tax strategy and your financial planner is confident in their portfolio management philosophy.
We’ve also all been around someone that shows up overly confident as well. We’ve met the salesperson that is just convinced you are going to buy that car from them. Or that pickleball player you just met at the park down the street that sees no possibility of ever losing a match.
What is the difference between those two groups of people?
The first group has reality-backed confidence. They have built confidence over time based on their performance. They have proven to themselves that their advice delivers results and that their activities move the ball forward in a meaningful way. They add to their confidence with repetition and multiply their confidence over time.
The second group has borrowed or adopted confidence for the sake of showing up in a way that they think that they should. That confidence often gets delivered as arrogance, and those around them with any intuition will read through that quickly. Real confidence must be built on sincerity.
So how is real confidence built? Here are 5 Ways To Build Healthy Confidence:
Earn it. Confidence is earned. Arrogance is borrowed. There is no easy way to build true confidence. It is earned through hard work. We earn that by becoming best in class at what we do. We can build confidence at work, in sports or training, in our ability to build relationships - really any area of our life. In each case it is earned through that hard work. There’s few things more fulfilling than feeling like you worked hard at something and earned it. Earned confidence is incredibly
Put in the reps. Regardless of where we start or at what skill level we are today, confidence is built by putting in the reps. Doing something over and over again makes us more comfortable with the activity, allowing us to focus less on the mechanics, and more on the overall delivery and results. The more we do anything, the more confident we are. Last week I played golf for the first time. I'm clearly no golfer, but I am more confident showing up to a golf course and feeling like I can find my way around or ask the right questions once I get there.
Be a learner always. We may be best in class today and disrupted tomorrow. The world and the people in the world are always changing. It takes being a constant learner to maintain our current confidence level as well as build and grow it. Staying curious, asking whether or not the way we do something is the best way to do it, and asking ourselves questions constantly will keep our confidence level high. At first glance, questions ourselves may make you think you lack confidence. But constantly learning new things and new perspectives will allow us to reconfirm what we are already doing, or build confidence to make adjustments when needed.
Look for and receive feedback loops. Speaking of making adjustments, feedback loops will ensure any adjustments needed are made and any adjustments made are needed. Feedback loops are engineered ways to receive feedback from our performance. The easiest form would be a scoreboard. This might be the results at the end of a call session. It might be tracking conversions in our business. But feedback loops are not always so black and white. They could come in the form of a good friend being honest with how we come across in conversations or even in a relationship. Whatever the case, if we have constant feedback loops in important areas of our life, it will help develop confidence moving forward - knowing we have adjustments to make and then making them.
Give yourself a break. We will all fall down. We will all get some tough feedback. We will all want things to move faster or improve quicker than they really do. Don’t beat yourself up. Many of you have earned it. You’ve put in the reps. You are constantly learning. And you have well designed feedback loops. If you find yourself lacking confidence even after the first four steps, then it might be time to give yourself a little grace. Strengthen your self-respect, self-love, and self-approval. It’s easy to lose that when things don’t go right. Don’t let a situation or a person take something that you earned and is rightfully yours.
Confidence is a necessary quality to live an experiential life. It allows us to open ourselves up, take on new challenges, express our real feelings, and build true relationships. Confidence gives us the permission to take risks and permission to fail. A confident you will be a happier you.