If you had all the confidence you needed, how would your life be different right now?
What would be different in your career?
How would your relationships change?
So many people could benefit from having more confidence. To help you find more of it, first let me start off by telling you what confidence is not! It’s not:
- Reliant upon your circumstances.
- A feeling
- An act
- A “fake it till you make it” type of thing
So what is confidence? Confidence can be described as a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities. Does that describe you?
No matter who you are, what has happened to you, what you’ve done or where you are in life, you can build confidence that is unstoppable and unshakeable.
The Bible teaches us eight ways to build unstoppable confidence.
- Stop comparing yourself to others.
2 Corinthians 10:12 NLT tell us that comparing ourselves to others is ignorant!
When you compare your accomplishments with someone else’s, you’re only seeing the surface of their lives, not the full reality. Even if they are truly prospering, it’s irrelevant, as your purpose and life are unique.There’s nothing wrong with letting others motivate you—at one time the four-minute mile seemed impossible, but once Roger Bannister achieved it in 1954, many more did after that. But keep your focus on your purpose in this life. You can’t run someone else’s race.
- Raise your standard.
Insecure people tend to flock together. If you want to raise your confidence level you will need to raise the standard of people you surround yourself with. I’m not suggesting that you ditch all of your friends, but I am saying that it’s time you began to spend a good amount of time surrounded by people who are doing more than you, accomplishing more than you and who are much more confident than you are.
You will feel likely feel uncomfortable and even MORE insecure initially, because you will feel like an even smaller fish in a bigger pond. But I want to challenge you to be OK with being uncomfortable for a bit. As you begin to grow and to learn new skills and habits, you will begin to apply them. When you do, you will begin to see the benefits and THAT’s when your confidence will begin to grow.
- Develop Self Discipline
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 reads: “Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.”
Your self-confidence is directly proportionate to your level of self-discipline. And if you struggle with self-discipline, you likely also struggle with self-confidence. Every time you fail to listen and take action on what you know you should, you lose confidence in yourself and your abilities. This lack of confidence continues to spiral downward as you flounder to control yourself.
Be fully committed to doing whatever you can to build your success every single day, and to accepting full responsibility for your life. If it’s uncomfortable, you’re probably on the right track. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you’re struggling with procrastination or low motivation.
- Find your inner conqueror.
If you look at yourself as a victor, others will see you that way. If you see yourself as a victim, that’s how others will see you.
Romans 8:37 says, “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” This scripture means more as in greater, superior, higher, better! Is this how you see yourself? I’m not referring to an arrogant ego; I am talking about knowing who you are in Christ. Stop looking at yourself as a struggler, or through the lends of your past experiences. See yourself as God sees you—superior. And others will see what you see.
- Exchange the lies for truth.
Are your inner words telling you that you don’t have what it takes? If you continue to listen to this voice, you will end up curled up in the fetal position on your sofa watching Desperate Housewives reruns, wondering why you even considered stepping out.Instead, listen to the voice of truth. What does God say about you? What does He say about your situation?If your inner words don’t line up with God’s Word, you need to challenge your words. Do as 2 Corinthians 10:5 tell you to do: “We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” Otherwise those thoughts will have free reign in your life.
- Make mistakes.
This seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. Many struggle with confidence because they fear making a mistake. Mistakes are not only OK to make, they are actually good. Go ahead, mess up! You grow most when you make a mistake and then learn from it.
If you need encouragement to make mistakes, you’ll find it in Isaiah 41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
- Stop focusing on your lack of confidence.
Whatever you focus on you will hit. If your car starts to spin out of control and you keep focusing on the brick wall, guess what you are going to hit? The brick wall. Why? Not because you wanted to, but because you focused on it.
Stop focusing on not having confidence. All you’re doing is reinforcing the fact that you don’t have it. Instead, help others feel good about themselves, as 1 Thes 5:11 tells us to do: “ So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”
- Be yourself.
This is easier said than done for a person who struggles with confidence because people who lack confidence don’t know who they are. Many have spent so long trying to be something they’re not or trying to please other people that they’ve lost their own identity.
Many women will admit, “I don’t even know who I am or what I want.” If this is you, your first task is to find your own identity. Get to know you!
Confidence can come when others are drawn to you. But if you’re not being your true self, you are left having to keep up a façade or risk losing the relationship. That takes too much energy.
Don’t wait for confidence before you take action, build confidence by taking action.
