How to find your confidence even if you think you’ve lost it

‘If you had more confidence, you’d be unstoppable!’ that’s what my husband used to say to me, he’d just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t see what he, and others saw. It didn’t matter how much positive feedback I had, how many happy clients, lovely friends, I see would be so critical of myself. Even when I had achieved my next goal or accomplishment?any confidence that I felt because?of it was short lived and the feelings of?not?believing?I was good enough, and constantly striving to be better?soon returned.?

I was reminded of all of this recently when I was talking to a very talented client?who shared the same lack of belief that I had all those years ago, and it was this lack of belief that was holding her back from growing her business.?What she wanted to do was to change direction, develop new products and services, this felt like the right move for her, it felt exciting, fresh. However,?what was holding her back were the questions in her mind, ‘what if this doesn’t work’, ‘what if my business isn’t here next year’, ‘what if I can’t get clients’ and when I dug deeper what underpinned all of this was one simple belief ‘I don’t think I’m really that good, I think others are better than me’.?

What I have found over the years of working with clients who lack self-belief, it’s not enough to show them the library of positive feedback they receive (although that can be helpful in the short term), nor is it enough for them simply to tell themselves that they are?great at what they do, because they have become so adept at convincing themselves the exact opposite. What I have found is that this is the crux of the matter, that they have been telling themselves for?so?long, that surely there must be some truth in what their mind is telling them?because why else would they be thinking it??

Our minds are a most beautiful paradox, being both complex and simple.?Over the years we fall into the habit of thinking?insecurely about ourselves and our ability, a thought pops into our mind and if we pay attention to it, it’s more likely to come back, and usually with more feeling!?One way of thinking about it is that thoughts are like buses. Just because a bus is on a timetable and comes into my village regularly doesn’t mean that I?have to?get on the bus, I have a choice. Its regularity doesn’t mean that it will take me where I want to go, even if it comes by my house twenty times in one day! If no one gets on the bus at some point the bus will stop coming because there will be no point it coming to my?village?if it isn’t useful.?However, the reverse is also true, the more we use the bus, the more it returns and if its super popular the bus may become a bigger bus!?

When we start to see the nature of our insecure thought and the choice that we?have to?either pay attention to it or not;?we start to see that like a bus we don’t want to get on, when we let it pass by, our natural feelings of confidence?return,?and we can start to see more clearly what others see in us and appreciate more what we have achieved.??

with love

Andrea x

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p.s. if you would like to create more confidence in your business so that you can realise it’s growth potential over the next 12 months and you live in the York, North Yorkshire or East Riding area – have a look at my two new programmes Beyond Your Vision – providing both one to one (click here) and group (click here) programmes.?Funding is available for eligible businesses.?

The Beyond Your Vision Programme is part-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and will be delivered in partnership with YNY Growth Hub?

Andrea Morrison is a Transformational Coach, Tedx Speaker, Writer and Columnist for The Yorkshire Post. Find out more about her forthcoming events and programmes on her website:?www.andreamorrison.co.uk