Confidence

I know that there are still very many things that we need to talk about; and I take outmost care of choosing subjects which I believe could help you in Your Life – as in mine. For this month, I was toying with the following idea: CONFIDENCE

Let’s talk about confidence and self-confidence: what do you think? The belief in yourself. After the subject of worrying, this will come in pretty handy.

Confidence

Believe it
Confidence: the belief in oneself.
It’s a concept; a belief; an emotion; a feeling.

The first thing to realise about self-confidence is that it is – like many other phenomena in Your Life – a mental concept, a cognitive behaviour.

Your mentality is the one steering your ability to feel confident. You can learn confidence.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.
Henry Ford

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Fake it ’til you make it
As you may or may not know, there is a direct correlation between beliefs, behaviours and emotions.

Beliefs are your fundamental system of interpreting reality. Reality is what it is.
The way we perceive it to be is determined by what we have been taught to believe.

There is one universal truth and a billion interpretations.
Reality never comes close to being real, because we make it to be what we believe it to be.

Beliefs can be extremely powerful, uplifting and empowering, just as much as they can be holding you back, disempowering, or depressing. Your actions are determined by what you believe is real. This will trigger an emotion, a certain feeling in you. Like confidence.

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Being self-confident
Do you just have to change your belief about yourself to become self-confident?
Partly yes, and partly no.

There are external triggers, as well as internal triggers.

Your appearance may play a role. You can build yourself some stamina by changing your physical form. Broadening your shoulders, holding your head high, and your back straight, you can start living up to confidence by acting self-confident, and get some muscle mass going.

Your posture tells others, as well as your own nervous system that you are a confident person. Body language is so powerful. Far more powerful than anything you have to say.

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Inside job

The inner work though, the inner work needs to be done.
Beliefs are an inside out job.

Although you can boost your confidence by working on your physical appearance to make you feel better, and appear as confident, you have to match your subconscious with the conscious. Align your thinking with your body language.

Why don’t you trust yourself?
Why don’t you love yourself?
Why are you holding back?

This is why one of the first things we’ll do in your Life Coaching session is radically analysing your system of interpreting the world, AKA your beliefs.

In order to be able to boost your self-confidence we need to find out what the glorious mess in your mind is all about.

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How to stir your self-confidence

Actions.
They speak louder than words. If you want to increase your confidence, do something about it. For example, research, read, or teach.

Mindfulness.
Yogi Bhajan says that true self–esteem comes from an authentic connection to your Self. It is wiser to chase the Self rather than chase self-esteem. Spiritual journeys, yoga, and mindfulness are all good practices to find out who you really are.

Becoming your authentic Self.
Anything that is driven from an Ego motivation is destined to fail because it is not in Truth. These methods keep you in an endless loop from false confidence to self-loathing and then back again. The only reason you don’t accept yourself is that the ego has written a self-concept of you that is not in truth.  (Yogi Bhajan)

Commanding your mind.
This is a big one, not only in yoga practice. You are not the slave of your mind: your mind is there to serve you. Daily meditation thus becomes non-negotiable in order to master your mind.

Conquering your ego.
How well do you really know yourself? The ego will always tell you that you are lacking something and that it requires you to prove yourself more and more. Are you thin enough? Are you pretty enough? Are you tall enough?
Yes, you are. Conquer your ego – shut it down.

Grow and evolve.
Let go of your past, forgive your enemies, forgive yourself, and live in the present moment. The technology of Kundalini Yoga can help you in a very powerful way to go down into the subconscious on a cellular level, to clear the passages of dark past recesses. Don’t stay stuck in the moment.

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In Conclusion

Self-confidence or confidence is a belief that you can grow, cultivate and harvest – in due course and with time. You know that there are these sayings of “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, and “patience pays”. If you want to feel good about yourself, then work on yourself. I am not suggesting to become a total arrogant over-confident know-it-all; instead I want you to understand that you can accept yourself in the entire glorious mess that you are. Believe in yourself and act like you do.