Confidence is a funny thing.
One minute we have it and the next minute it’s gone.
Some of us were born with confidence while others struggle just to muster enough confidence to get through the day.
I know for me personally, there have been times in my life where I felt like I could do anything I wanted while others, I felt as a though I had nothing to offer the world.
There is no denying that confidence is important in life because without it, we fall victim to our fears and anxieties.
Confidence it seems, whether we like it or not, is an integral part of success.
But what can we do when it feels like our skies are eternally grey and the thought of feeling good about ourselves is so foreign to us that we wouldn’t know it if it smacked us right in the face?
How we do the little things is how we do everything
Have you ever been meditating and felt like you were doing it wrong?
How did you treat yourself when you had that thought?
Did you remind yourself that there is no right way to meditate or did you tell yourself you were a failure for loosing focus?
If you fall in the latter category then maybe it’s time you take a look at how you treat yourself while you meditate because after all, how we do the little things is how we do everything.
Believe it or not, showing ourselves self compassion can be very challenging if we don’t know how our mind reacts in these types of situations.
Fortunately, meditation is the perfect arena for us to observe our mental mind patterns and therefore, it’s like a gym for building self confidence.
The clearer we are about how we treat ourselves while meditating, the more likely we are to stop those old narratives from occurring when we’re not meditating. Thus every time we see our mind try to beat us up, we build resilience towards those old ways of being.
Take it back to the cushion
Confidence is a fragile thing and often times a lack of self confidence can be attributed to a lack of self compassion.
This is why meditation can be such a powerful way to help increase our sense of self worth.
One of my favorite ways to cultivate self compassion while meditating is to practice loving kindness meditation.
In loving kindness meditation we start off by extending thoughts of love and peace to ourselves and end by extending the same kindness to the world and all creatures that reside within it.
For more on how to actually practice loving kindness meditation, I suggest reading a previous article I posted back in 2017.
In my experience, a loving kindness practice immediately translates to more compassion for myself and others. The act of taking time to extend peaceful thoughts to yourself and the rest of the world is a powerful tool because the more compassion we have for ourselves, the more confident we feel.
Why?
Think about it.
Aren’t compassion and confidence just two sides of the same coin?
In other words, how can you feel confident in yourself if at the same time you have no compassion for youself?
In truth, the two go hand in hand and confidence starts with liking who you are inside and out.
So, next time you sit for your meditation session extend yourself the following phrases:
“May I be happy”
“May I be at peace”
“May I be safe and protected”
“May I be healthy and strong”
“May I be free of suffering and the root of all suffering”
After doing this for a while you will see that you are indeed capable of being kind to yourself and with that, you will begin to experience the confidence you deserve.
Write it down
I recently started reading a book called, “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy” by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.
As the title suggests this book is about being resilient in the face of adversity and in some ways, regaining your self confidence.
In the book, Sheryl discusses losing her husbands of 11 years unexpectedly which ultimately sends her into a downward spiral of grief and self doubt.
As Sheryl puts it, when we face adversity we often feel like we did something wrong. This personalization makes us lose confidence in other areas of our lives because we think the challenging times are our fault and will last forever.
Fortunately, there is such a thing as post-dramatic-growth and we have tools available to us that will help us get our confidence back.
Namely, writing down what you did well each day.
Now, I know this might sound silly or even difficult to some, but there is science to back up this practice. In fact, those who write down three things they did well every day for an extended period of time tend to show more self-compassion and exude more self confidence.
Why?
Because most of us only remember the things we did wrong each night before we fall asleep. But how refreshing would it be if we instead thought about what we did right each day before we fell asleep?
The truth is, writing down what you did well each day—no matter how mundane it might be—reprograms our monkey minds to find the good in ourselves.
So, how do we do it?
It’s simple!
Grab yourself a notepad and leave it by your bedside table. Before you go to bed each night write down three things you did well that day no matter how long it takes.
At first it might be challenging because we have years of programming that we are trying to undo but stick with it and see what happens. After a while, you might find it easier to notice the good about yourself and the task will only take a minute.
Here is an example of my list from last night:
1. Attended a meeting for work even though I was sick
2. Meditated for 25 minutes
3. I started writing this blog
As you can see none of the stuff my list is monumental but if I didn’t take time to think about it, I would have completely missed the good things I did during my day.
Conclusion
No matter what your current circumstances are, it’s never a bad idea to work on your confidence and self compassion.
So if you’re feeling down about yourself, try writing down a few things you did well throughout the day or perhaps sit for a brief loving kindness meditation.
Either way, don’t stop working on yourself because there is light at the end of the tunnel.
You are not your self doubt and you are not your circumstances…
You are much more than that and we hope that after implementing these practices into your life you will begin to see the greatness that resides within you!
Thank you as always for reading this weeks blog post! If you have any other tools that might help people get their confidence back be sure to drop us a line on social media or comment below.
We hope this article served you well and we hope you take a little bit of time this next week to be kind to yourself!
Until next time,
Many many blessings