Confidence is one of those things you can’t really get directly....CONTINUE READING
You can’t just try to be confident any more than you can try to be happy. In fact, sometimes this direct approach to seeking confidence can backfire: You’re so worried about being more confident, that you make yourself anxious and insecure — the opposite of confident!
What if we need a completely different approach to building confidence?
What if becoming more confident is about what you should do less of rather than more of?
As a psychologist, I work with people every day who have serious issues with low confidence and poor self-esteem. This gives me a relatively unique insight into the world of confidence and how it works: I get to see very specific patterns and habits that cause people to lose confidence and feel insecure.
If you can identify these habits in your own life and work to eliminate them, I think you’ll find that confidence has a way of showing up on its own.
1. Asking for reassurance
When you’re worried or afraid, nothing could be more natural than wanting reassurance that everything is going to be okay:
You’re worried about your son being safe on his road trip back to college, so you text him and his friends every hour asking if everything’s okay.
You’re anxious that you’re wife’s upset at you for something because she looks tense and irritable, so you ask her repeatedly if everything’s okay and if you’ve done something wrong.
You’re worried about blowing the big interview tomorrow so you spend the evening before calling friends and family members asking for tips and reassurances that it will go alright.
And it works!
Sort of…
When we feel anxious, ask for reassurance, and then get it, we temporarily feel relieved of our anxiety and fears. Like a fast-acting pain medication, reassurance is great at alleviating emotional pain and doubt in the short term. But just like all pain medication, reassurance is a Band-Aid that treats the symptoms, not the…
