Unlocking Self-Confidence*
Bryan Yager
My passion is helping leaders, teams and organizations achieve results and expand their capacity for growth and success.
First a quote: "Confidence isn’t thinking you’re better than anyone else, it’s realizing that you have no reason to compare yourself to anyone else.” – Maryann Hasnaa
I have always found self-confidence and self-worth to be curious things. Both seem fragile, both are important elements of success, contentment, and even happiness. For so many of us, both can seem elusive and difficult to maintain.
In my own life, struggling with self-confidence has often felt like a roller coaster ride. I could be rolling along, feeling on top of the world, and then seemingly out of nowhere, something, or someone, triggers a downward spiral of self-doubt.
As I’ve gotten older, I have become more comfortable sharing the challenges I have had with self-confidence. In doing so, I have become increasingly aware of just how many people have been, or are, fighting a similar battle.?In fact, almost always, when this topic comes up in workshops, or with coaching clients, many people have shared similar feelings of low self-esteem, self-doubt, and self-confidence.
“Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin
From casual observation, I have identified four destructive forces to a healthy sense of self-confidence:
Think about what people tend to post on social media. Most of us tend to see posts from wonderful or exotic vacations, food shots from fancy restaurants, family highlights, new cars, new homes, wedding pictures and the like. If you think about it, we mostly see a “highlight reel” from the best of other people’s lives.
But those “highlights” weren’t the full story. Rather, we see what they were willing to post and share. Often just glamour, positivity, and fun. I suspect many people find themselves thinking, “Gosh, my life is nothing like that.”?It is not usually a fair comparison!
It is easy for people to look around and compare themselves to others. Unfortunately, they often do that destructively. Depending on what is important in their lives at that moment, they can look around and find people who have/are:
You get the point!
Repeating, when people fall into a habit of comparing their lives to the lives of others, it is not usually a fair comparison, and it is almost always destructive to their self-worth.
Here is, in part, what I have learned to help maintain a stronger sense of self confidence:
Don’t compare yourself to others, instead:
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Bonus Quotes below.
How will you live, love, or lead, differently, or better, this week?
Be kind to yourself this week.
Sincerely,
Bryan Yager
“Expanding Your Capacity for Success”
* Revised and updated. Originally published on October 26, 2020.
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Bonus Quotes:
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1 年Love these Bryan thank you for always for enlightening us!