Confident on the outside but not on the inside?

I’ve been there, and I know it isn’t a great feeling.

For a long time, I didn’t realise I kept this story going by reinforcing the belief that how I spoke to myself (that negative internal chatter) kept me from building up the confidence I craved! 

I would say to myself: 

“you’re not confident enough, you’re too shy, everyone thinks you’re stupid,” “you’re not professional enough,” “you don’t know enough.” 

Once I accepted that these are only thoughts (not truths!) I was able to start changing them using a method called reframing. Reframing is a skill to practice, and over time it did help me change my thoughts and helped me increase my confidence.

Changing negative thoughts into thoughts that made me feel good about myself was the first step towards creating more empowering and confident beliefs. 

Continuing to accept negative thoughts would mean I would have continued the cycle of reinforcing them with my actions. 

Consider: what and how is your lack of confidence stopping you from living a more fulfilling, purposeful, or meaningful life? 

I was doing so many things because I thought I should rather than because I wanted to do it. This lack of self-confidence has a mega negative knock-on effect on the things I wanted to do, especially setting big goals for myself. 

I remember watching the London marathon on TV as a teenager and saying I’m going to run that when I’m 21. As I grew up, however, I lost my vision and belief, and the knock-on effect was I lost my confidence in doing it. This reflection is just one example of how I reinforced my negative opinions about myself. 

I would literally talk myself out of doing anything and distract myself by doing what I thought I should be doing, rather than chasing a dream I would never achieve. I still haven’t run the London Marathon, but I am confident now for when I can. 

Before running my first marathon at 30 years old, I spent a lot of time reframing and building up my confidence and self-worth. 

Here’s my process: 

1. Identifying my negative opinions – which wasn’t as easy as it sounded as they were so ingrained as a habit I had stopped noticing! 
2. Reframing them from a new positive, confident perspective (I may not have believed it then, but I needed to start here to build this new level of belief and confidence).
3. Taking small steps to increase my confidence and create behaviours that reinforced the new beliefs. 

Use this confident woman’s guide below to start reframing and taking action to create new opinions about yourself: 

Reframing is a habit-forming goal – you need to want to change and set it as a continuous goal for the best results. 

Our habits and routines are the foundations for self-growth and success in all areas of your life. 

Your level of self-confidence determines the goals you set, the energy and dedication to focus on accomplishing them, and the amount of resilience you have to overcome challenges and setbacks.

Here are five routines of confident women you could consider adding to your life: 

1. Visualise goals 
2. Self-reflect
3. Set clear actions for the day ahead
4. Schedule time to recharge
5. Screen-free time – doing more of what they enjoy/ taking action on goals 

We’re not all born confident; for some of us, things happen in life that knocks the confidence out of us. Remember, you are worthy. You can practice and develop this skill and build the confidence you need to go and achieve your goals and dreams. 

I hope this helps!