How to Build Confidence: A Guide to Using Inner Work to Uplevel Yourself
When talking about confidence, one thing I have realized is that it has a lot to do with your inner dialogue—what you choose to tell yourself throughout the day. Whether it uplifts your intentions or diminishes your desires, the kind of self-image you have heavily influences your level of confidence. One thing I have learned in my self-improvement journey is the importance of having a robust structure and processes in place. If my confidence level today is 5, the next day I should not strive for a 10. My next realistic attempt should be to reach 5.5. This way, you are expanding your capacity while maintaining a robust process, aiming neither too high nor too low from your current level.
Another thing I have learned is that many of us get fixated on our current selves and keep ourselves in a loop of the narrative that this is it—we cannot outdo ourselves. We overindulge and overstimulate our current version of self so much. For example, if I adopted a self-limiting belief at the age of 16, even at the age of 35, I might still live by it as if it were set in stone and never supposed to change. We are so fixated on diagnosing ourselves that we keep rehearsing all our flaws, illnesses, shortcomings, failures, and unsuccessful experiences. We cannot possibly think of anything better and are not ready to understand that these can be part of our experience but not the determining factor of our existence. Building true confidence really boils down to shifting your inner dialogue and developing a self-concept that is empowering, not lack-focused but abundance-focused.
As human beings, when we talk about our core emotional needs, it all comes down to these three things: to be seen, to be heard, and to be celebrated. The crux of everything we do in life is to achieve these in some way or another. We seek safety, love, acceptance, and a sense of trust. As individuals, we want people to embrace us for the uniqueness that we bring to the table. That's why, if we experience a breakup, if things don't go the way we wanted, or if we face difficulties, we feel so bogged down. We engage in experiences to gain some sort of validation or attention from them.
When we talk about confidence, the first thing you need to do is stop seeking external validation and start pouring into yourself. Start validating yourself first and default to encouragement mode throughout the day as much as possible, rather than defaulting to criticism mode. I know it might seem a bit manufactured at the start, like saying uplifting positive affirmations, looking into the mirror and saying "I am the best thing that ever happened," or high-fiving yourself. However, the more you start doing this, understand that repetition creates new neural pathways—neurons that fire together wire together. So, you are not only creating a new self-concept by reaffirming positive affirmations, but your brain will also start showing you evidence of times when you were confident and self-assured before, thus stimulating those experiences as well.
One thing I do every morning, which has interestingly become part of my morning routine, is ensuring I have a clear mind at the very beginning of the day. A clear mind is non-negotiable for me. The reason I started doing this is that it sets the tone for the day, helping me to calm down and ease into the day rather than rushing.
Think about your negotiables and non-negotiables first. This requires you to go inward and uncover what things you are willing and unwilling to compromise on. Once you start doing this, don’t you think you will be able to communicate your boundaries in a much healthier and more confident way?
Another way to build your confidence level is by cultivating a willingness to try. It's not about the extremes but about giving it a genuine attempt. The more you become comfortable with being in the uncomfortable sea of change, the more resilience you build. Confidence is in the competence. Confidence and competence are deeply intertwined. When you develop competence in any area—whether it's a skill, knowledge base, or ability—you naturally begin to feel more confident. This is because competence provides a solid foundation upon which you can rely.
In Eastern culture, we call it “RIYAAZ,” where you discipline yourself into the practice mode, immersing yourself in learning the skillsets, studying the people you admire, visualizing, and mentally rehearsing. Adopting a 5-second rule when you experience performance anxiety—when you feel nervous or stressed out—helps you catch and release the negative frequencies and reaffirm words like excitement. This will help you control your emotional reactivity to things around you. You have to understand that intense emotions like nervousness or excitement have the same physiological effects on your body, but the words trick your brain differently, resulting in different feelings afterward.
One more thing that I would like to tell you from my own experience is that when you are trying to build your confidence, you cannot simply start seeking advice from everybody around you. You need to understand that this is inner work. Start looking for people who are a little bit ahead of you in the same journey, who have a more expansive belief system. If you start taking advice from people who are not consciously at your level or above, you are simply going to absorb more limiting beliefs. Because they haven’t dealt with their issues, taking advice from them means you will start seeing life through their lens, which might be very limited. Always strive to assess your sources of information and stop blindly following everyone, especially those who are not raising their consciousness and doing the inner work. Everyone’s life is a projection of their belief systems, experiences, insecurities, and liabilities. You must do better and not absorb these into your life.
Start creating those energetic boundaries first and remove yourself from these situations. Become expensive. A Chanel bag does not go around every nook and corner of the street seeking validation and attention or advice about its worth. Become energetically expensive. Your time is the most valuable currency you have, and what you do with it matters. Stop becoming too available for everyone and every situation just to absorb others' insecurities. These are just projections, and you need to be strong enough to deflect them. People are just running their mental programs throughout the day, and now that we know this, we can do better.
I recently read research about how an egg chooses the sperm. There is a lot of autonomy in the decision, and the egg releases a chemical called chemoattractants to choose which sperm will fertilize the egg. So when you think about it in the grand scheme of things, the chances of you being born were a rarity. How fortunate and unique are we really to be living and breathing on this planet Earth? The fact that our forefathers and mothers decided to have us is our legacy, our superpower. We carry the features of our ancestral line that fought the ebbs and flows of life so that we could be born one day. And here we are criticizing how we look! Going on social media and comparing ourselves with every person, thinking our life is nothing compared to theirs! I mean seriously. Something that should have been a source of pride for us, we are comparing it with others. You know what? The real authentic and confident people have an immense sense of calm. Confidence isn’t loud. It is that self-assurance that takes pride in their own identity and looks to elevate their consciousness, unlocking their next level rather than demeaning themselves. They come from a place of abundance and understand that if there is abundance available for the other person, then there is abundance available for them too. We all identify from the same source. It’s not the universe putting labels on us; it’s us putting labels on ourselves.
One thing I have started doing to change my narrative on social media, which if not used properly can create so much divide and unnecessary comparisons, is to genuinely compliment people. When you understand that this is a human experience and you are born and one day you are going to die, what's in between is what matters. These in-between sensory experiences matter. This perspective will help you use that sensory experience to uplift yourself, right? You will start understanding that your life is distinctly yours and not to be merged into someone else’s. So why compare? Live your life in the fullest and most authentic way. I have started complimenting people because confidence in yourself is not ego-driven anymore for me. It is about fully accepting myself and being eager to uplevel myself in the most content manner possible. When I started changing the narrative of social media and making it a place where I would go each day and fully immerse into complimenting other people genuinely, I realized I was honestly doing the most selfish thing possible. I will tell you why: because complimenting people raises my vibrations, allows me to celebrate myself again and again, and I experience elevated emotions. This helps me set the tone for the rest of my day. Isn’t that beautiful? The choice is yours. You can either use your social media and get compartmentalized in ways you are not good enough, or use it as your power and come out more wholesome.
Another thing I wanted to talk about is through my own journey and the mistakes that I made at the start. See, life skills, just like any professional skills, require patience. You cannot get rebellious in your attitude and start declaring that this is the new you. You have to give others the grace to ease up in the process as well. Just like you are doing the inner work to remove the self-limiting beliefs and uplevel yourself, there are people who simply resonate with the current version of you and don’t understand what you are doing. Just as you are slowly easing yourself into the inner work and discovering things about yourself, making that conscious decision to rewire those beliefs, you understand that in some sort of a way it’s a death of the old mental programming, the death of your current self in a way.
Embracing the Concept of " Multiple Good Enough"
When building confidence, it's essential to embrace the idea that "good enough" doesn't have a single, fixed definition. Instead, it can have multiple versions that evolve over time. This flexibility allows you to adapt to different circumstances and progress incrementally. Here’s how you can expand on this concept to enhance your confidence:
1. Recognize Multiple Benchmarks of Success
Small Wins Matter: Celebrate small achievements. If today your "good enough" means completing a task without errors, tomorrow it might mean doing it more efficiently.
Dynamic Goals: Understand that what constitutes "good enough" can change based on your growth and circumstances. As you improve, your benchmarks should also evolve.
2. Acknowledge the Spectrum of Competence
Varying Contexts: Recognize that competence can vary in different areas. You might be "good enough" in one skill while still learning another. This helps in maintaining a balanced perspective.
Personal Progress: Measure your growth against your past self, not against others. This personal benchmarking ensures you focus on continuous self-improvement.
3. Adaptive Standards
Flexible Criteria: Your criteria for what is "good enough" should be flexible to accommodate learning curves and unexpected challenges.
Resilience Through Adaptation: When circumstances change, adapt your standards without losing sight of your ultimate goals. This builds resilience and keeps you moving forward.
4. Incremental Improvements
Realistic Goals: If your confidence level today is a 5, aim for a 5.5 tomorrow. Small, consistent improvements build a solid foundation for long-term confidence.
Steady Growth: Focus on steady growth rather than drastic changes. This approach makes progress manageable and less intimidating.
5. Developing a Growth Mindset
Learning From Failures: View failures as opportunities to redefine your "good enough." Each setback provides valuable lessons that help you adjust your standards and improve.
Continuous Learning: Commit to lifelong learning. Each new skill or piece of knowledge enhances your overall competence and confidence.
The power is in your hand. Start the journey with inner work today and see how it transforms your life!
