What is the key to confidence? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Lukas Schwekendiek, Life Coach, Motivational Speaker, YouTuber, Blogger, on Quora:
Confidence is based on a couple of realizations that you will figure out sooner or later.
Confidence is something internal, not something external, meaning that you can achieve it whenever you want to just by thinking about the world in a different way. The realizations you need are the following:
- Everyone feels nervous.
- No one is above or below you.
- All you need to be confident is to choose it.
- Confidence is something you train every day, not something you find.
- Nothing bad will happen either way.
The first Realization is that everyone feels nervous. Ask all actors, athletes and speakers and you will find that they all still get nervous in interviews, talking to new people and when they have to perform their best.
The only difference is that these people have done it for so long that they got used to this nervousness and have developed some confidence. But they all started out that way too and are still nervous!
These are the people that are pretty high up on the social ladder. Now think about your friends, and other people you see on the street. Most of them feel the exact same way you do. You are not as special as you think you are!
The second Realization is that no one is better or worse than you. Sure, someone may be better than you in a given topic or be generally smarter, more attractive and more sociable than you, but that has absolutely nothing to do with them being better or worse than you.
You have the same potential as the most influential people of all time. You can change the world in a way no one else can. In that way, you are very unique. You can inspire people in a way no one else can, can think of thoughts no one else can, and you can do things no one else can. But you know what, so can everybody else.
The truth is that there is no better or worse when it comes to humans. We are different from one another in the craziest of ways, but no one is better or worse. Just like you cannot say an apple is better than an orange. They are both fruit, but different. The apple has different things it excels in than the orange and vice versa, as well as the fact that some people like apples more and others oranges. That doesn't make one better than the other, it just means that some people think one is better than the other given their personal experience.
From an objective and logical point of view: You are just as amazing as every person who has ever lived!
All you need to do to be confident is choose to be it, that is the third Realization. Have you ever just looked in the mirror and decided that today you were going to be confident? Have you ever made up your mind and said you would be confident just because you can?
If not, try it it out. You already know what confident people look like, how they talk, and what they do. All you really need is to copy this image you have in your mind and go out and do it. It really is that simple.
You do not need any reason to feel confident.
The fourth Realization is that you only develop confidence by working on it. There are many ways to develop the confidence you need, but the best way is to choose it.
After that, you can still massively increase your confidence by doing the following:
- Doing things that scare you or that you are uncomfortable doing.
- Developing mastery in any one thing.
- Practicing gratitude and meditating.
- Saying YES to more things.
- Getting busier with making your life better.
The last Realization is that nothing bad will happen either way. Meaning that you should look at what could possibly happen when you are confident or not confident.
What is the worst that could happen? Most of the time you will realize that it is pretty bad, but also pretty unlikely. But, most importantly, you will realize that even if that worst case scenario happens, you will still be okay!
That being said, there is just as good of a chance that something amazing will occur! What is the best case scenario? When you think about these things you will have nothing to be afraid of anymore. That makes you free enough to be yourself and be confident in that!
You do not need all of these realizations, but to develop confidence, focus on one of them and test it out. The more of these you realize to be true, the easier you will be in developing confidence that will last.
As a start, I would recommend re-reading these daily to get them ingrained in your head. That way you will notice, practice and develop them day by day and your confidence should drastically increase within just 30 days.
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