Train Your Confidence Muscle!

Say these out loud: “I wish to run a marathon this year”, “I want to get better at tennis”, “I want to build strength and endurance so I can be healthier.” With all of these, there’s really only one way to achieve them: Practise, train, and do it repeatedly.

Now, let’s change the context. Say these out loud: “I wish I had more confidence to do that without feeling like a failure”, “I want to be better at appearing confident so my boss won’t second guess my decisions”, “I want to build my confidence and self-esteem so I can be sure of what I want out of life.” Imagine if you could train to be more confident as you would to complete a 5km run without feeling out of breath!

Guess what – you can! Confidence is just like a muscle, and the more you work on it, the stronger it will become. Muscles are made up of a kind of elastic tissue containing thousands of small fibres. Once you’ve worked up a few skills that involve specific muscles, these muscles become stronger, more resilient, and even perhaps able to go further and harder.

Same goes for confidence! Notice how when you do something over and over again, you become better at it and then become more confident of your skill in that? That’s how you exercise your confidence muscles! You see, confidence – like your physical endurance – isn’t built in a day. It needs to be worked on daily and it is something that will grow stronger over time when you give it the attention it needs. If you don’t believe in your ability to be confident (like how you don’t believe you can run 5km without feeling out of breath), then it’s hard to build it. When you don’t believe it, you do everything to avoid it.

Author Robert Kiyosaki once said this: “Confidence comes from discipline and training.” To build your confidence, you need to take action. How? With these “workout tips” on how to strengthen your confidence muscle.

#1 Always be prepared
World-class athletes don’t just show up at the Olympics expecting to win. For years and years, they’ve practised, refined, reworked, and repeated their craft. Same goes for confidence! Before you go for an important meeting, make sure you know the ins and outs of what will be discussed. If you’re the one presenting, practise, practise, practise. Rehearse. Come D-day, because you’re so well prepared and know things at the tip of your fingertips, you’ll make an impression with your cool confidence.

#2 Decide that you want to be confident!
When you decide you want to run a marathon, you do what it takes – training, eating well, more training. It’s the same when you decide to be confident – you do what it takes to nurture this skill. Everything starts with an intent, and it goes from there to achieve your goal. Believe in yourself (as many athletes would when it comes to pre-game) and you’ll feel more powerful and confident.

#3 Practise positive self-talk
Before your marathon, you psych yourself out with that internal voice that says, “You can do it!” So whenever you’re feeling a little low on confidence, you also tell yourself that “You can do it”! Here’s why: Your thoughts can influence your actions. If you tell yourself you’ll never be good enough, then it’s impossible to take action to build confidence. Call it a little pep talk to build confidence.

#4 Train your mindset to centre on growth
Like how you train your mindset to centre on endurance to last a marathon, you train your confidence muscle to centre on growth. A growth mindset means you believe you can develop your abilities through hard work and dedication. You’re willing to rise and meet the challenges, and you train yourself to think in terms of growth, regardless of outcome. And when your confidence muscles grow, your self-esteem will excel.

Building confidence is an ongoing process. It involves daily practice. When you keep building that confidence muscle, it becomes stronger and better. More importantly, you become more comfortable with flexing that muscle. So hit that confidence gym and work at making your confidence stronger!

Photo by Sergio Carpintero on Unsplash.