How to Train Confidence in Yourself!

Here's a thought - what if confidence is like a muscle we can train? We all know if we want to run a race, the things we need to do to achieve that. We devise a plan to get fit and to get out every day to train to achieve our goal. We also turn up on race day.

What if we can approach inner confidence the same way? What if we can train confidence like one trains a muscle?

Once I gave that thought further consideration, I came up with what I call the Six Cs of Confidence. And here they are, the six things I focus on to train and grow my confidence.

Choice

Choose to be confident. I had to deliberately choose to be more confident. To do that I had to step out of my comfort zone and do something I shy away from – being upfront. I am way more comfortable being a background person, but I knew that wasn’t going to grow my Annique skincare business and help more women to feel confident in their skin. Therefore, I made the deliberate decision and choice to start my YouTube channel, The Glow Guide with Brenda.

Many times, I have been somebody who's held back preferring the shadows. I realized that, honestly, I have the rest of my life ahead of me and what does it look like for me to live it well? I also realized that I didn’t want to get to the end of my life and regret that I hadn’t created more opportunities for myself, for my business, and for other women.

So, I made the choice I was going to do this. I made it happen.

But what happens when you make a choice like that?

The fear factor kicks in and that's where the second C of Confidence comes in.

Compassion

When my self-doubts emerged, I had to be kind and compassionate towards myself. I had to speak myself through my fear, my insecurity, and my thoughts of wondering what other people would say.

A conversation with myself went something like this, “Brenda, I understand how you're feeling. I know where you're at. It's okay, you'll be all right. We'll get through this. You’re afraid of judgement and that is quite understandable.”

It was like a mother would speak to a child. Sometimes we must be compassionate towards ourselves and speak to our inner insecurities in just the same way. Our inner voice wants to keep us safe, and in exercising compassion we are acknowledging that inner voice and reassuring it that there is no bogeyman in the night.

Chart

Next was to chart my way. How was I going to go about launching The Glow Guide with Brenda? What are the topics I would talk about? What would be my prime objective and my subsidiary objectives? What did I need to pull this off?

Not just that, but also how would I work through some of the internal anxieties and inadequacies I have? How comfortable am I in front of the camera? What's my voice like, does it matter?

After charting I realised that I needed to make some changes.

Changes

Invariably when we start to train confidence in ourselves, we realise that we need to make some changes.

Is it perhaps about our appearance? We are a society where we are judged on our appearance, whether we like it or not. On that topic, some simple ways to spruce up our appearance would be to get a great haircut, and to make sure our skin looks lovely. Perhaps your closet and the colors you wear needs a revamp. I have previously had to spruce up my appearance with regard to my clothes and the colors I wore. You can read about that in this blog post Glow, Confident in the Colors you Wear.

Those are all outer changes. What about inner changes?

This is where I have felt I have most need to make changes. One of the biggest inner changes has been to feel the fear and do it anyway. What about you? What is holding you back? What is a change you need to make?

Consistency

This is so important if we are going to keep moving forward. It applies to all the previous Cs of Confidence. We need to be consistent with our choice, consistent in being compassionate, consistent with the chart we've decided on, and consistent with those changes that we've put into place. There is also consistency in execution. I am consistent in releasing one video a week on the Glow Guide as well as a related post here on my blog.

That level of consistency is as much for training confidence in myself as it is turning up for my audience.

Care

This sixth C of Confidence is really what motivates all the ones that go before. Care about other people.

So often we get caught up in our own lack, our own insecurities, our own ideas of what is not working. But when we care about other people, when we are motivated to do something to help others, our reason for growing our confidence extends beyond ourselves. Starting the Glow Guide on YouTube, writing this blog, revamping my website, all those things are to extend my reach so that I can help other women.

Perhaps by discussing my own sense of inadequacy or lack of confidence, I can help other women address theirs. It could be the products from the Annique skincare line that will give women that external skin confidence glow. What if something else I say helps even one woman to move forward in her life. That’s really what this is all about!

We all have one life left to live, let’s train those areas where we lack confidence so that we can make it our best life yet!