Have you ever thought that confidence wasn’t in the cards for you? You wished that you oozed confidence but quite frankly, you were the opposite of confident. It’s human nature to desire the feeling of self-assurance. It’s normal to want to feel confident in the clothes you wear, the job you hold, and really just about anything in life.
Confidence can be hard though. Believing in yourself and practicing self-reliance is challenging. I have struggled with confidence my entire life. I have let my self-doubts stop me from achieving more things than I can count. Confidence doesn’t come easy to me but I realized its not about an outward appearance or how others perceive you, its about how you feel about yourself. Confidence has to come from within.
Most people assume that you are born with confidence. It is just a trait that you have or you don’t have. But confidence is truly a learned trait just like walking, riding a bike, or rock climbing. It takes practice and practice takes time. You can never be perfect at something on the first try. I sure wasn’t perfect at it at first and I’m still not. I was definitely not born with it and I didn’t just wake up one day, suddenly having buckets of self-confidence. It takes work. A lot of work.
It takes going against human nature. Human nature wants us to always have our guard up but confidence is when you have boldness in the things you do. Yes, it’s hard but it isn’t impossible. I never thought in my wildest dreams I would classify myself as someone who is confident. In a lot of areas, I still don’t feel super confident. But, at the same time, there are a lot of areas I do and that improvement is everything to me. But that improvement didn’t come overnight. It came with intentionally practicing and understanding what it even means to be confident.
I know it can be hard not to compare yourself but when you look at someone that exudes confidence, know that that person has built confidence overtime. It didn’t come easy and it didn’t happen quickly. That person works on their confidence like a muscle. And slowly, the more they use it, the stronger it gets. Life is too short to doubt your abilities.
You have what it takes, you just have to learn to keep at it. To consistently practice it every single day. If an introverted, self-conscious girl like me can learn how to be confident, then there is hope for all of us. So, when you are feeling down and lacking confidence, know you are not alone. And just remember that even the most confident person has, at one time, felt the same thing you’re feeling now.