Confidence Is Built In Private

Living our best lives involves living with self-confidence. And not with arrogance or a distorted sense of self, but grounded and humble self-belief.

When you break down the roots of the word ‘confidence’ you get ‘con-fidere’, which in Latin means ‘intense trust’.

This means you have wholehearted conviction that you’re capable of creating a desired result, or performing at the level required of you. It also means that when you stretch yourself and risk failing or not meeting expectations, you have the self-esteem to keep your life intact and move on without it completely destroying your momentum.

When you get to that level of confidence, you’re showing up for life with more boldness and speed. It’s what we all want, which begs the question: “How do you build confidence?”

Ed Mylett says you build confidence by keeping the promises you make to yourself. The more times you do that, the more evidence you have to believe that when you say something, you mean it. Conviction is earned through instances of delivering on your commitments.

Layer on to that what Heather Monahan says, which is that confidence is the byproduct of action. When you show up every day and take action, even when you’re scared or you’re not fully ready, you build confidence. You earn intense trust in yourself because you prove that you are above your circumstances and can make yourself do hard things when you don’t feel like it.

Now here’s the kicker: What you do in private does so much more for your self-confidence than anything else.

When others know your commitments and have expectations of you, other factors are influencing how you show up. There are external consequences to the choices you make that impact you unconsciously. But when you strip away of all that external influence, your true character comes out and you face up with who you really are, and if you can really count on yourself. 

If you keep the promises you make to yourself in private… And take action in brave and empowered ways even when no one is watching… It reinforces authentic self-belief.

So take yourself seriously. Understand what’s at stake. How you do one thing is how you do everything, especially when it comes to your confidence. Because when you hold yourself to a higher standard at all times, no matter who knows it and even with the small things, you prove to yourself that you’re the type of person who does what they say they’re going to do.